Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

Advent

Wish watched as the tiny bits of pulverized crystal scattered like dust to the ground after Rainbow Dash had chomped on it. She blinked in confusion and looked back up at the pegasus she had just freed.

“I-I don’t understand. What’s going on?” Wish asked her.

“We’ve got some friends coming… but we’ve still gotta get out of this dungeon and meet them. But I promise you, before the day is over Hoofica will be saved, and I’m going to do everything I can to help you,” Rainbow paused for a brief moment. “And that includes helping you with your father. Whatever needs to be done.”

Wish hesitantly nodded. “A-Alright. Thank you, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow Dash smiled at her. “No problem, kid. Now let’s go and do this thing.”

The pegasus took a step towards the open cell door—and immediately stumbled to the side, bumping into the stone wall and slumping down a little. She groaned and her eyes closed halfway, her body shaking as she tried to right herself and stand up. Wish gasped in worry and ran right over to her, trying to hold the older mare steady.

“Rainbow Dash!”

“It’s nothing,” Rainbow Dash shook her head and took a couple of deep breaths before standing. Her knees were wobbling and there was an irritated sensation in her hooves from the shackles being tight around them for so long. Her wings too felt limp and lacking in vigor, though she could at least feel her veins working double time to fix that. “I’m just not in the best condition right now. Been a while since I’ve stood up and moved around.”

That was putting it lightly. Wish could plainly see how weak and beaten down she looked. The red marks on her hooves, the sunken cheeks and eyes, the slightly faded luster of her coat and mane, and not to mention how starved she looked with her ribs showing. Even if she didn’t want to fully admit it, the time she had spent in the dungeon severely took its toll on her. Wish tried to hold her up and support the pegasus as best she could but Rainbow Dash only grumbled and started walking away.

“Don’t worry about me, I know my limits. We’ve got some work to do and we can’t waste time letting me get some rest. Come on, kid.”

“Stop calling me kid...” Wish frowned and walked after her, concern in her eyes. After a fraction of a second she turned around and went back to pick up the candle—they could use the light.

Rainbow Dash merely looked up and down the dark corridor of cells as she left her private one, stumbling only briefly. Her eyes narrowed as she looked into them, the dim lighting not affording her much vision. She looked back at Wish.

“You still have that key ring? Those keys should work on all these cells, right?” Rainbow asked.

“I have them but… I dunno? Probably?” Wish shrugged, holding up the two rings of keys.

“Hoof em over here anyways. We’ve got some other ponies to help,” Rainbow Dash said. “We’re getting them out of here, every last pony who’s also been stuck down here. That’s gonna be a lot of cells to open and shackles to unlock...”

She was right. Wish had gone up and down this dungeon enough times now to know how many cells there were and hear all the ponies trapped inside them. She was happy to be able to do this though, it was just another wrong thing about Hoofica to correct. Something she, with her freedom, should’ve done or tried to do a long time ago. Now she was here with Rainbow Dash though to make it all right.

Wish gave the keys to Rainbow Dash and the two of them went over to the closest cell.

“Wonder if any of them have some food inside their cells...” Rainbow muttered as she used the same key Wish had used on her cell to unlock this one.

The door swung open and Rainbow Dash stepped inside. “Yo, anypony home?”

The back half of the cell was still completely covered in darkness. Wish gulped nervously and lifted up the candle, stretching her hoof forward and walking beside Rainbow Dash to try and illuminate the rest. What she saw when the light from the candle bathed the rest of the cell horrified her. Wish sucked in a sharp breath of air as her hooves froze where she stood and Rainbow’s eyes narrowed in disgust.

Over a dozen ponies were chained to the back wall of the cell, and to each other, so crowded that some were lying on top of each other. They looked in almost as bad of a condition as Rainbow Dash. They shied away from the light, not realizing what was happening. It probably hurt their eyes a little bit too.

Rainbow Dash let out a deep breath. “Got a feeling we’re going to see a lot of this.” She brought a hoof up to her mouth and whistled—the loud noise finally grabbing the attention of the prisoners and making them actually look at Rainbow and Wish. “Heya. We’re not Inquisitors, we’re here to rescue you so just sit tight. Once you’re out of your chains just get out of this dungeon as fast as you can. The castle’s gonna become chaotic real soon.”

“Who are you?” One of the chained up ponies asked.

“A friend. And we can leave it at that for now, let’s just get you all to safety,” Rainbow said and walked over to the nearest pony. She glanced back at Wish as she started using the other keys to unlock the shackles. “Keep that light here, okay?”

“R-Right,” Wish nodded.

It took some time but Rainbow shortly had every pony unchained from the wall and the shackles off their hooves. Some had trouble standing, others still looked afraid and worried, but it was an improvement from their previous situation. The group was wary about leaving without a light or anypony to guide them but Rainbow Dash and Wish couldn’t go just yet. They had a lot of other cells to get through.

“Help each other and just run right out of this dungeon,” Rainbow Dash told them.

“But the Inquisitors-”

“They’re going to be busy with something else. Trust me. Just get to safety, leave the entire castle if you need to.”

The prisoners didn’t really want to argue the point any further, they just wanted to get out of here. A lot of them had to help each other walk and lean on each other, but they slowly made their way down the dark corridor to the dungeon’s exit. Rainbow Dash and Wish watched them go before the pegasus turned to the cell on the opposite side of the corridor.

She sighed. “One group down… a lot more to go.”

It was more of the same in every cell, with some even worse and more crowded than the others. Ponies who were beaten, tired, starving, who had halfway been driven mad. More than one thought they were dreaming or it was all a trick and Rainbow Dash and Wish were just disguised Inquisitors. Some shouted that they had been good and yelled for Vox to leave them alone. Others cried and begged to not have the device used on them anymore. With every new pony they met, Wish’s face grew sicker and Rainbow’s expression darkened. Cell after cell it was all like this, hundreds of ponies down in the dungeon, Wish had no idea there were actually this many here.

Some of them she even thought she vaguely recognized, like old servants or guards she might have seen around the castle once or twice. If any of them recognized her they didn’t care enough to stop.

They just wanted out.

Rainbow Dash was exhausted by the time they had freed the last group and she collapsed against the side of the cell, resting against the cool metal bars. She was breathing heavily and her eyes had closed shut.

“R-Rainbow Dash? Do you need to stop?” Wish asked her.

“I told you already… can’t wait around for me,” Rainbow quietly said back with her eyes still shut.

“You at least need some food or water...”

Rainbow Dash cracked her eye open just a slit. “Got any hiding in your mane?”

“Um… no.”

“Then we need to just keep going. I’ll find something along the way, at least we freed all the ponies down here.”

Wish was still surprised about that to be honest. Not because of their conditions down here, but because surely the guards and other ponies up outside of the dungeon had seen what was happening. If ponies suddenly started pouring out from down here shouldn’t somepony have checked up on things? Or alerted the Inquisitors to come down and stop all of it? But nopony came. What was going on up in the castle? What had really happened after Rainbow Dash crushed that yellow crystal ball?

The two of them were now close to the small room where that desk stationed Inquisitor used to always sit, right out of the stairs that came down to the dungeon and right before the dark corridor of cells. All they needed to do was go up those stairs and walk a little bit further to be out of this dungeon and into the main part of the castle. Rainbow Dash grunted and pushed herself off the bars she was leaning against, walking into the middle of the room while Wish followed close behind, carefully watching her and checking to make sure she didn’t collapse. She really wished she knew where she could pick up some food for Rainbow Dash.

But in the middle of a step, right before they reached the desk, Rainbow Dash stopped and Wish accidentally bumped into her.

“Oof...” Wish fell down onto her flank. “Rainbow Dash?”

She looked up and saw the pegasus looking over to the side—to the door that stood against the far wall of this room, opposite from the desk.

The pegasus stared hard at it without blinking.

“Um… Rainbow Dash?” Wish asked again.

“It’s there,” she said.

“What?”

“Hold on. I just need a minute to do something. Put the candle on the desk,” Rainbow said and walked over to the door.

Wish complied and watched as Rainbow Dash made it to the door. That was storage, right? Wish remembered that. She saw Rainbow Dash fumble around with some of the other keys until she found the right one, unlocking the door and letting it slowly swing open. Wish peered past her and looked inside the storage room as well—seeing a certain large wooden box lying in the middle of the floor. She shivered, knowing what was inside there.

Rainbow Dash walked up to the box, her face a solemn mask that betrayed nothing, and she quickly popped off the top. The lid clattered to the stone floor as Rainbow Dash peered inside… and then carefully pulled out the Device. Wish couldn’t help but feel a spike of fear the moment she saw it. That strange helmet that caused so much suffering. That forcefully pulled the despair out of Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash looked at it, holding it in her hooves. Her gaze was so intent, so focused, she had lost all of the shakiness in her body and now looked as strong and steady as a statue.

“Rainbow Dash?” Wish quietly said.

Her hooves tightened around the metal bars of the Device and Rainbow Dash swung around, slamming it as hard as she could into the stone floor.

“HAAAAAGH!” Rainbow yelled as she picked it up and slammed it back down again and again, denting and warping the metal, breaking the faucet, tearing off the straps, and chipping the stone. Violent echos blasted off the walls of the dungeon as she smashed the Device repeatedly into the floor and walls. A piece broke off it and Rainbow Dash kicked it away before gripping the top of the Device and throwing it into the metal bars of a cell at full force. It was steadily breaking and falling apart with every second of her assault but Rainbow Dash didn’t stop or let up in the slightest. She was like a wild animal as she obliterated the Device. From wall to wall she attacked with a ferocity that came from the deepest pit of her heart, bringing forth an energy that one would never expect from looking at her weakened state.

Piece by piece, it all broke until not a single piece of metal or anything else on it was left in its original state. The dozens of pieces of remains were all bent and broken in various ways, and Rainbow Dash stood panting over them.

After a second, Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling. “I… really needed that.”

“Are you okay?” Wish asked her.

“Oh yeah. I’m way okay. In fact, I feel a lot better now,” Rainbow Dash grinned. She started chuckling and looked down at Wish. “Come on, kid. Let’s get out of this dungeon.”

---

Two weeks prior…

Heartless stepped through the barrier surrounding Hoofica and immediately came to a stop.

A happy smile stretched across her face.

“I knew it! I knew it had to be something like this! There’s no way you could’ve died, Rainbow Dash!” Heartless giddily hopped up and down. The bright light was calling to her once again—she could see and feel it just as clearly as before—directly to the south. “I’m so happy! I can’t wait to finally see you again!”

The black band on her neck that had appeared when she stepped through the barrier meanwhile slowly dissolved until it was gone completely. She didn’t even notice.

“You’re still far though… but you’re not moving? Good! I’ll get to you soon!” Heartless let out a happy sigh and started walking along, going right towards the bright light of Rainbow Dash.

It took her right next to a small shack, and a pony out in front of it working on a small garden with his hoe.

Cropduster lifted his head when he heard the approaching hooves of another pony. He raised an eyebrow at the pink pony, who had her eyes glued past him, and planted his hoe down before leaning up against it. “Well hello there, Miss. You’re probably a bit confused about what’s just happened but-”

Heartless reached over and tapped his chin as she walked by without even looking.

In the second it took for him to fall she had forgotten he even existed.

Comments

[TheCommunistDog]

Oh shit Heartless is here.
In today’s chapter: Wish and Rainbow sets the redt of the prisoners free. While someone else finally arrived ready to kill everyone that stands in her way and more.

[redmar]

The arrival of Heratless is not good. I sus pected they might free the other prisoners and it's good that Rainbow Dash destroyed the device.

[RoboRed]

Ugh, of course she showed up. Hopefully she just arrives late like the last couple times. And even more hopefully she deals with Vox, the Queen, and maybe Dreamweaver if he's not redeemed by the end of this. Sucks that she killed poor Cropduster, though.

Anyways, it's go time.