Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

King of Kings

Rainbow Dash stood her ground even as the world around her started to go crazy. The rumbling in the ice below her increased heavily along with the crackling in the black thunderclouds above. Suddenly a huge spike of ice shot out of the ground in front of her, along with another and another, a whole line of spikes coming right at her. Rainbow Dash clenched her teeth and ran back away from them, all around her the formerly flat grounds of snow and ice were being pierced from below by these spikes. She opened her wings and was about to take to the air when the familiar crackle of lightning came from above her. Rainbow Dash looked up just in time for the cloud directly overhead to send a lightning bolt down at her. She had to jump to the side to avoid it as it created a crater in the ground and then run up the side of a spike to avoid more coming out of the ground. When she got up high enough she jumped and started gliding over the ice spikes while keeping mind on the lightning burning for her above.

“Guess he’s bringing out the weird stuff now,” Rainbow Dash grumbled.

Dozens of lightning bolts rained down around her, trying to fry her. She wove through them expertly so all they did instead was scour the frozen ground and obliterate most of the spikes that had come up earlier. A few explosions sent jagged blocks of ice at her like shrapnel, creating even more havoc in the sky. Rainbow Dash kicked away or avoided what she could, only a few very small pieces hitting her and causing a wince or two.

“This is nothing! I’ve been in way tougher fights and you still aren’t even fighting me for real!” Rainbow Dash yelled into the air.

A black figure then came down from the sky—one of the serpents that had exploded from Harlequin Grey earlier. It opened its mouth to reveal a sharp set of fangs and lunged at her.

Rainbow Dash frowned and kicked it away, looking to see more of the black serpents coming from both the sky and the ground at her. Not all of them stayed as they were though. Quite a few turned into shadowy black ponies, griffons, dragons, a mammoth, yaks, and dangerous animals like bears and huge gorillas. A smorgasbord of opponents had come to face her. At least they seemed to all have physical bodies—and they were all creatures she had faced before.

“Still got this,” Rainbow smirked and made a quick turnaround to immediately go on the offensive. If she could finally do some punching, she wanted to do some punching.

The first thing that came at her was a pegasus. Rainbow Dash decided to forego anything fancy and gave an extra flap of her wings as she flew at it, speeding herself up before the shadow pegasus could do anything. She smashed into it with her front hooves, hitting it so hard the shadow itself exploded this time like a popped bubble of ink. Wisps of shadow went everywhere before vanishing into nothing and Rainbow Dash grinned.

“Satisfying.”

She flew low enough to the ground where she could fight everything that couldn’t fly. Even though if those snakes were any indication it didn’t matter if these shadows actually had wings or not.

Around her though, the weather started to change once more, tornadoes started up in every direction while more lightning crackled and brewed—and out on the ocean the entire horizon was a strange kaleidoscope of colors and starbursts all melting together and changing. She didn’t feel like she was in danger from it, but it was disorienting and kind of unsettling. Was the world really changing like this or was it just an illusion for her?

She had no more time to think about it—not like she wanted to think—as the mammoth shadow swung its trunk at her. Rainbow Dash let it collide with her body and grabbed it, rolling with the impact to lessen it, and yanked the mammoth off its feet and threw it into one of the few ice spikes that was still standing. It hit it with a splat and burst apart. Certainly not as heavy or strong as a real mammoth.

Or perhaps Rainbow’s belief in herself and her victory made it easier to do something like that.

A bear swung its giant paw at her while a yak jumped at her and a griffon came flying from above.

Kick!

Slam!

Whack!

Rainbow Dash reduced all of them to nothing, flying through the rubble of the ice spikes while lightning threatened to strike overhead she went on the attack for the rest of the shadows. There were still a lot of them—Rainbow had no idea how many serpents there were in the first place or if he couldn’t make more. A unicorn shadow emerged ahead of her and Rainbow flew by it with her wings extended, decapitating it without any effort. A wall of lightning then came down ahead of her and Rainbow Dash had to come to a screeching halt, flying backwards and almost right into the jaws of a shadow manticore.

She moved right as its jaws snapped shut and flew over its head, coming down with a strong kick to the top of its skull and making it splatter.

A gorilla swung around one of the ice spikes at her and Rainbow Dash ducked under its free, outstretched, arm, kicking it in the back when it went by and making it fall to the ground where it too disappeared.

A huge snake curled up behind her and lashed out. Rainbow Dash grabbed its jaws and slammed them back shut before throwing it into a trio of earth ponies running at her. She then flew into a group of yaks and knocked them aside before kicking a bear in the head. Lastly—a pair of pegasi flew at her from the right and left—Rainbow Dash did a barrel roll and punched one in the chin and smashed the other on the top of the head. Finishing them off she flew up higher towards the storm clouds.

“Is that it?” Rainbow Dash said. “If I was fighting Discord right now he’d throw way crazier stuff at me! Where are the flying pigs, the boiling milk waterfalls, the dancing buffaloes dressed in tutus? Don’t you got anything better?”

The world shook.

Rainbow Dash blinked and saw eyes looking at her, the face of Harlequin Grey peering from the ice around and below her. Reflected in a bolt of lightning, transparent in the air, half merged with the clouds above. All at once he was everywhere and nowhere and the myriad of colors, the rainbow of colors, all around started to warp and change violently.

Insolent pest.

A stone pillar came down from the sky and tried to crush Rainbow Dash. Her eyes widened and she zoomed out of the way while more fell from the dark clouds. An inverted pyramid and great stone blocks started falling everywhere as well—another blink of her eyes and the world had turned upside-down. The sky was now below her and gravity had taken a break. Rainbow Dash started tumbling in the air, unsure of how to catch herself, while bolts of lightning and blasts of fire came from below.

She slapped the side of her face and turned over to fly with her back once more facing the “sky”.

“We’re not doing this! The sky is the sky and the ground is the ground! You’re not as powerful as Discord, I know you can’t go this far!” Rainbow yelled.

What do you know?

The world once more changed and seemed to right itself but just as quickly a shadowy tendril came up from one of the stone pillars and wrapped around Rainbow’s hoof.

“Uh oh,” Rainbow Dash grimaced.

The shadow tendril swung her around in the air like a lasso before letting her go. Rainbow Dash was launched through the air and collided with a stone pillar at high speed. She coughed and gasped in pain while falling to the snow, landing in a heap. Her body hurt, but she wasn’t unconscious. Rainbow Dash stood up on her four legs and growled.

“That’s not-”

Lightning crackled overhead.

“Aw geez...”

A lightning bolt crashed down in the snow right as she tried jumping away. It didn’t directly hit her but she couldn’t avoid it all, painful electricity crawled up her body and made her cry out in pain while the force of the explosive bolt sent her flying into the middle of an icy drift free of pillars. Rainbow Dash looked up and saw herself surrounded by more shadow ponies, earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns. Reflected off the ice and in the sky was the visage of Harlequin Grey, staring disgustedly at her.

You could’ve lived your life in happy ignorance. Already a short life, the blink of an eye compared to me, but now this is how it ends.

The shadow ponies rushed her.

A worthless, pointless life, everything you’ve done, even on this journey, will be undone with time. I’ve never understood you ponies or why you do such things. Why didn’t you just go back home? Knowing it will all be meaningless one day…

Rainbow ducked under a wing and kicked away the first shadow pegasus. A unicorn came from behind to try and wrap its hooves around her body so Rainbow bucked it into a pillar. Two earth ponies came throwing punches from her left that Rainbow had to block and then counter with punches of her own to splatter them. The sheer amount was quickly starting to overwhelm her and she was unable to take to the sky though.

Just roll over and die, Rainbow Dash. Let it end as it always had to.

Rainbow Dash took a hoof to the face from one of the shadow ponies. She spat out a little blood before grabbing it and swinging it into three more coming at her. They all exploded while a couple of pegasi came down at her, landing on her back and smashing her down into the snow. Half a dozen more jumped on top of her.

Don’t you understand? For three-thousand years I’ve been working for this. What’s the life of one pony, even yours, compared to that? Everything you’ve accomplished in your life and on this journey is meaningless. It will amount to nothing with a little more time from me.

She threw them all off her back, satisfied when many of them popped and splattered against pillars of stone and spikes of ice. That satisfaction ended as a chunk of ice slammed into her back, pulled by the magic of a unicorn shadow. Rainbow went sprawling across the ice, rolled out of the way of a stone block being dropped on her, and jumped up before taking another punch to the face, then the ribs, then the gut. Repeatedly attacked by the horde of shadows she fought back as best she could, destroying two or three for every one that landed a blow on her.

A billion lives have passed by in this world while I’ve been around. Do you see the pointlessness of all you’re doing? Just give up!

Rainbow Dash breathed heavily as a shadow came at her. She moved her head to the side to avoid its punch and destroyed it with a swift kick.

“You’re not beating me…” Rainbow said.

I already have.

The shadow ponies subsumed into the ground and tendrils came from the ice, wrapping around her body and slamming her back and forth against the stones, the spikes, and finally against the icy ground. Rainbow Dash felt a dribble of blood coming down from her head but flexed her legs and wings anyways to break the tendrils and stand up.

Right as she heard something falling behind her. She chanced a look back and saw a stone pillar collapsing on top of her. Rainbow Dash grit her teeth and jumped away as it smashed into the ground. Ice, snow, destroyed bits of rock, and dust were kicked up everywhere. The rumbling reverberated across the ice like an earthquake had gone off.

When it all cleared she was lying on the snow, tired and breathing heavily. Injured and for the moment unable to rise. Her eyes could see a storm around her, violent winds and clouds spinning and blocking off everything else as if she was in the eye of a hurricane.

“You’re the one who made it go this way.”

Rainbow Dash perked up and saw stone steps in front of her that hadn’t been there before, Harlequin Grey walking down them towards her.

“You could’ve just turned back. You could’ve chosen a life where you didn’t suffer.”

Rainbow Dash coughed and lifted her head up. “Wouldn’t have been awesome…”

“Instead now it’s nothing. Your already short life will end here. And what do you have to show for it?” His face flashed with anger as he stepped into the snow. “What was the point of it! What was the point of anything you’ve done to impair me?”

Rainbow Dash stood up and faced him.

“Now you’ll die here. Accomplishing nothing, doing nothing, being nothing. Failing. And I will go on to finish what I’ve set out to do from the start!” He loudly yelled as he reached her, bringing a powerful hoof up towards her face. “You are nothing, Rainbow Dash! And you will not be a thorn in my side any longer! There is nothing you can do to stop me! Nothing! NOTHING!”

His hoof pulled back and he went to cave her skull in-

Rainbow Dash caught his hoof with her own and glared at him. Harlequin Grey’s eyes widened in surprise.

“For someone who says he hates emotions, you’re pretty angry right now,” Rainbow said and yanked his hoof to the side, twisting and breaking it all in one motion.

“Agh!” He yelped in a pain that surprised even himself. “H-How-?!”

“I think I can see you clearly now for the first time ever. Yeah… I get it now. I didn’t have to think about it, I just feel it in my heart and know for sure, but I understand exactly what you are.” Rainbow Dash calmly said as she looked at him. A robust dark blue pony with a jet-black mane and tail, now angrily glaring at her and holding an injured hoof.

“You don’t… you can’t,” he sputtered.

Rainbow just sighed. “You’re so empty. Nothing this, nothing that. But you’re the one who’s really nothing in the end. Just an empty shell of negative emotions. You’re pathetic. You’re weak. You’re just a miserable… whatever… making everyone else in the world miserable too even if that’s not your real goal, even if you say that a stagnant world of nothing wouldn’t have either good or bad things, I’ve seen enough of the effect you have to know it wouldn’t be good. Only someone as empty as you, with no concern for anybody else, could want that world. So maybe I still don’t know what you are, but I know who you are. And that goes way deeper.” She pointed her hoof at him. “You’re nothing. A cowardly, wretched, hate-filled, nothing of a pony.”

She blinked.

Harlequin Grey stood before her on spindly, skeletal legs, his body wrinkled and faded, thin and emaciated, black mane now snow white. He shivered and trembled all over. Only his eyes still shone with an angry glare at her.

Comments

[RoboRed]

Is that it? Is it the end? does he have one more trick up his sleeve?
Or maybe Rainbow's finally believed him into the shell of nothingness he is.

I will say, he does seemed surprised at the end so far.

[redmar]

I'm not sure if Harlequin Grey is really gone but for now Rainbow has won at least.