Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

South Pole V

Rainbow Dash crept through the narrow crevasse in the ice of the mountain glacier she had found.

She knew they hadn’t given up even though she had been able to lose them momentarily. She could still hear them screeching and flying about over the mountain range. Her gamble might have backfired since now they undoubtedly surrounded her in all directions. The temporary safety of the mountains might be functioning more like a prison right now, and they were the guards waiting for her to try and escape. She had to hope there would be some path she could take to sneak through the mountains completely and leave the horde of penguins behind. The thousands covering the range would surely converge on her the moment she was spotted. If she was still here when that happened she’d have nowhere to go. They’d be a gigantic dome covering the sky. A wall of black no matter where she looked.

Good news is she was still dressed for the occasion and her internal sense of direction was guiding her through the mountainside glacier perfectly well. While this wouldn’t have been her first choice it was good she could rest her wings after the exercise she had just put them through. She had already taken a quick bite to eat the moment she was sure the penguins weren’t about to immediately set upon her once she had gotten in here. But she couldn’t afford to camp out or hide in here. They might be able to out-wait her in the first place and she needed the food she had to last for the rest of the trip through the south pole.

“Stupid impossible flying penguins…” Rainbow said as she walked along. The ice crunched under her boots, every step she took she wondered if she was getting closer to a dead end or the edge of the glacier. She might end up on the mountainside or inside a rock cave soon.

She glanced up at the crevasse’s opening, twenty feet over her head, just a relatively narrow crack in the glacier. Sunlight still came down it so she knew it hadn’t turned to night just yet, the ice walls surrounding her gained a blue hue from the light.

“And to think this isn’t even my first time doing something like this,” Rainbow Dash shook her head.

The noise from the penguins above was constant and almost deafening the further she walked through the glacier. She chose to ignore it as best she could. If they wanted to flip out over losing her, that was fine. Maybe they would finally take the hint and go back to the rest of their flock. Of course if they were more like ravenous monsters and less like normal animals that’s probably not how it would go. There were too many cases at this point where Rainbow had come across relentless predators.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t also somewhere with such bad weather.

Rainbow Dash took another step-

Thud

That wasn’t her. Frowning, she looked up towards the opening and the surface of the glacier.

Thud

Thud

Thud

“Oh great,” she sighed.

Hearing the rumbling coming from above, Rainbow Dash bit her lip and tensed up. She kept her eyes on the crack in the glacier as sunlight came down through it—certain of what was coming next.

In the next instant half a dozen beaks and angry heads shot themselves into the crack, all of them screeching down at Rainbow Dash and trying to muscle their way into the crevasse. They were too big and bulky though and they kept bumping into each other. It was a scary sight, all those teeth and beaks snapping at her, but it didn’t look like they could get down here at her. However—more were coming. She knew it, she could hear it, and feel them waddling across the icy surface of the glacier. More and more penguins were going to come and try to get in here at her.

And if she reached a dead end she’d have no way to get out of here with them blocking the only exit.

“Tch,” Rainbow Dash clicked her tongue and started to run.

Every few feet and more penguins would stick their heads in at her, shoving aside their brethren to try and squeeze their way down into the crevasse. Cracks appeared around the edges as some of them broke away at the ice in an attempt to make the hole bigger. Rainbow ignored their efforts. It didn’t matter. What mattered right now was finding a safe way out of here.

Some of the penguins were able to squeeze their shoulders down into the crevasse—and promptly got stuck.

Rainbow was actually glad that there wasn’t enough room in here for her to spread her wings now.

The penguins kept trying to get at her while she zipped through every curve and corner of the glacier. She was running fast and breathing hard, her breath easily visible in the cold air.

She turned one more corner and almost came to a screeching halt as she saw the crevasse come to an end fifty feet ahead. But she couldn’t waste any time. Glancing up she saw that not all of the crevasse’s opening was full of penguin teeth yet. They hadn’t reached the end because all they had been doing was following her.

“Okay, I’m going to show you guys why you shouldn’t be messing with me,” Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and jumped as high as she could. She only needed to kick off the wall once before she had the speed and height to clear the crevasse. Her wings shot open immediately—and just in time too as a dozen penguins jumped right where she had come out of.

She couldn’t keep the grin off her face when she heard them all smash into each other.

Rainbow Dash took a brief look around at where she was and then came to a stop on one of the snowy slopes of the mountain. She was on its southern face and hundreds of penguins were coming at her or circling above. Most of the horde that had chased her to the mountains seemed to be dispersed across it, so she at least didn’t have near as big of an army to face.

Since she wasn’t running away anymore. That looked pointless. She was going to get these penguins to turn back by force, make them see that she wasn’t worth the effort. Beat them enough that they realized she was the predator here. It was time to fight—and to apologize to Fluttershy later if these big guys weren’t the monsters she thought they were.

Rainbow was standing in the snow, facing the oncoming penguins down.

One screeched loudly and dove at her so she jumped up and kicked it in the side of the head. The massive penguin fell to the snow and rolled down the slope before coming to a stop.

Its brethren paused to look at it—whether they were worried for its well-being or worried about the same thing happening to them, Rainbow Dash didn’t know. But she knew fear and hesitation when she saw it.

“What? Didn’t expect the little pegasus to be able to do that? Either hurry up and come at me or just fly away already. I’m Rainbow Dash, and this—the south pole? All it is is one more stop for me on my way around the whole world. If you penguins think you’re the ones, after everything else I’ve been through, that can stop me. Then go ahead. Try.”

They tried.

---

Days turned to weeks and Rainbow Dash still carried on through the harsh and unforgiving world of snow and ice that was the south pole. Not a day went by that she didn’t have to fight or hide from a squad of the ravenous and relentless penguins. It didn’t change when she had left what obviously had to be their territory. It didn’t change when she made it past the very tip of the world and started traveling north again. It didn’t change and they never stopped.

Aside from how she kept making them stop. Slowly. Little by little. She whittled down their numbers every single time they tried to get her. Beaten and broken penguins left a trail all the way back to where they had first set upon her. Sometimes a group of several dozen would be left lying in the snow on the side of the mountain—a warning that went unheeded by the rest of their number.

She still kept drawing them out, always defeating the furthest of their hunting party before the rest could catch up and getting on the move again. She fought on the snow, in the sky, on glaciers, on mountains, inside ice caverns, never resting more than she absolutely needed to. The penguins outnumbered her, they were much bigger than her, and they never seemed to rest themselves, but she was keeping true to her word of showing them why chasing her was a bad idea.

She was Rainbow Dash after all.

A beak full of teeth came chomping at her head-

She ducked under it and uppercutted the penguin in the stomach, making it retch and stumble away from her as two more penguins came at her right and left. Rainbow Dash jumped up while spinning around and landed kicks on both their heads to knock them over—coming out of the jump with her wings open and flying through the sky while more penguins came at her. She turned around and flew directly at them, weaving through their number while landing punch after punch on each one of them that they were all too slow to avoid or counter.

Their dark bodies fell from the sky and into the snow while Rainbow dove back down to finish off the rest of them. A few stragglers that had been too slow to fly after her could only blink as a rainbow blur flashed by them and they all collapsed to the snow. The very last one was the one she had just hit in the stomach, his red eyes looked up at her just in time for her hoof to collide with his face and send him flying back in the snow.

Rainbow gently came to a stop in the snow—surrounded by collapsed penguins—and with no more flying towards her in the distance. After all this time they had been whittled down to nothing.

She surveyed her work and took a deep breath. “All of you, go back to your flock, pick up the others along the way. And don’t come after me again. Got it?”

Rainbow Dash knew they couldn’t respond. She turned around, with her saddlebags now nowhere near as full, and took off into the sky.

Northward bound.

Comments

[RoboRed]

...Well, I'm not exactly sure what I expected but things sure ended a lot sooner than that.

Man, for all their speed and persistence, they sure fell awfully fast.

[redmar]

At least Rainbow has finally gotten rid of the monster penguins.