Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

Ace of Aces

Rainbow Dash stared apathetically through half-lidded eyes and with a blank expression on her face at Harlequin Grey. There was no victorious smirk, no disdain in her eyes, just apathy. “So the outside finally matches the inside.”

“How dare you...” Harlequin Grey snarled at her.

A change in the air got Rainbow’s attention and she looked around to see the storm had disappeared along with the warped colors and most of the pillars and ice spikes. The south pole had practically returned to normal.

“You know in most cases-” Rainbow Dash started as she looked back at Harlequin Grey. “If someone asked for mercy or forgiveness, I’d at least hear them out. And if they genuinely regretted what they’d done, I’d give it to them. Because that’s just the difference between good and bad, you know? Oh wait—you don’t know. You never could. Even if you asked for mercy, or forgiveness, it wouldn’t be genuine.”

“That’s right! I regret nothing I’ve done in pursuit of my goal!” Harlequin Grey yelled. “I will change this pathetic, disgusting, world into a world of stagnant nothingness! And this. Is. Not. OVER!”

His body warped and grew into an insane amalgamation of other creatures, giant hydra necks emerging from his body, whipping tails and praying mantis scythes, spiky lobster claws, cobra heads with fangs dripping venom. His body was a mass of gelatinous, pulsing, flesh with innumerable appendages shooting off everywhere. The tallest neck was like an eyeless hydra with teeth the size of butcher knives in its mouth. It spasmed and whipped around in the air before launching down towards Rainbow Dash. The mouth opened impossibly wide—ready to bite her in two and tear her to pieces.

As soon as it closed its teeth on her it all evaporated into smoke. Nothing remained of the insane nightmare monster.

Only Harlequin Grey as a frail old pony was standing there again—looking at her in disbelief and rage once more.

Rainbow Dash shook her head. “I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand things. Do you know, really know, how many places I’ve been to and seen on my journey? All the ponies and other creatures I’ve met, just living their lives and trying to find happiness. This whole world is full of life, sometimes it’s bad, sometimes it’s good, but you’re trying to stop all of it out of total selfishness. It would never work. Every last creature I’ve met around the world and all the lives-”

Harlequin Grey exploded in anger as he cut her off, barking loudly at her. “Worthless, meaningless, lives! Every single one!”

A quiet breeze came over the south pole while Rainbow Dash sadly looked back at him.

“Worthless… and meaningless? Meaningless...” she closed her eyes and thought back far along her entire journey with images shooting through her mind of everywhere she had gone. From snow, to mountains, to forests, to deserts, to swamps, to the ocean. “This journey started just as a way for me to have fun and brag about something… but everywhere I’ve been, all the stuff I’ve done, all the lives I’ve met. It became so much more! Aurora and Summer Rains, Dust Bunny, Larkon, Eleanor, Wish, Senax and everyone else… them and everything we’ve been through, it isn’t meaningless, no life that’s just trying to live and move on is. Even ones like Blizzard, Karkona, Resin, Copper, Godfrey and Coral Sea—they all had dreams and things they believed in—even if they were wrong! It’s not meaningless! None of it is!” Rainbow Dash’s hooves shook. “But if you… if you really can’t understand something as simple as that!” She opened her eyes as tears of anger fell from them. “Then you’re nothing more than an unfeeling monster!”

Harlequin Grey opened his mouth to speak again when a blue hoof collided with his face and punched him into the sky. Rainbow Dash followed him up and delivered a series of rapid-fire punches to his stomach before launching him up even further. She flapped her wings and rocketed behind him faster than he was traveling, kicking him in the back, and then flew around even faster to get in front of him again and kick him another direction. Again and again this happened with her kicking him like a helpless doll in the air over the snow. She moved so fast and kicked him so hard that she appeared in two, three, five different places at once as he careened like a pinball. On one last kick she flew back in front of him and grabbed him by the mane, halting him while pulling her hoof back and delivering dozens of fast and heavy punches to his face while he bounced and swayed around limply. She finished with a powerful uppercut and flew after him once more to grab him by the tail and throw him up while kicking as hard as she could into his stomach again before starting to fly around him so fast she created a rainbow tornado. The force of the winds held him in place while Rainbow flew and attacked him from every angle and direction at even greater speeds than before. She pummeled him relentlessly with all four of her hooves and her wings, weaving tight circles around him so nowhere on his body was safe. The tornado became more like a rainbow sphere of wind as she wrapped around his body, not letting up for a second. She beat his legs, his body, his head, his back, his ribs, his stomach, his hooves, taking out all her built up rage at him with this endless barrage. And she wasn’t done in the slightest as she grabbed his tail, spun him around, and flung him up higher into the sky again. Following right after she uppercutted him in the chin to flip his body around and around. A downward kick to his stomach and a powerful flap of her wings sent them shooting back to the snowy ground. Before they hit, Rainbow Dash flew so fast she nearly teleported to land on the ground before him, turn around and buck him as hard as she could in the back to launch him back into the air. Rising up along with him, Rainbow Dash delivered devastating punch after devastating punch as they both flew up. Her punches so strong they sounded like explosions going off each time she pummeled his body, ear-splitting thunderclaps going across the edge of the south pole. Rainbow felt and saw her hooves impacting his body so hard it morphed, dented, bent, and crumpled, starting to lose its recognizable pony shape. And still she didn’t let up at all even as exhaustion tore at her. Her limbs and lungs burned from overexertion but she wasn’t close to stopping. She kicked him away and went spinning behind him to kick him again, kicking him up higher and higher each time until they almost reached the level of the clouds. When they did she started flying around him in a tight circle, spinning him around with her as she punched him again and again like a powerless punching bag. Her hooves softened his body up while his limbs flailed around at different angles in a way no pony’s should. A steady booming rhythm of snapping and cracking sounds filled the air as Rainbow delivered a series of faster and shorter punches with her hooves instead of the huge heavy blows of earlier. Hundreds, thousands, of times she punched him, her light blue hooves peppering his body with no break. It would’ve seemed like he was being hit ten times at once with how fast her hooves were moving. She stopped flying around him and grabbed his tail, holding him upside-down while delivering endless kicks with her back legs to his gut, letting him go and continuing to pummel him down to the snowy ground like that. Before they actually hit the ground she grabbed his tail once more with her teeth and swung him around, smashing him into the ice and picking him back up to smash him into the ice again and again, side to side with her head. On one up-swing she let him go, body floating in front of her, and delivered another series of full-power punches to him that would’ve been strong enough to smash a boulder apart. She heard and felt things breaking and snapping, turning to mush, bending the wrong way as the top half of his body went one direction and the bottom half went the other. Her hooves moved up to his face but she wasn’t looking into his eyes or thinking at all, just punching, punching, and punching. The sounds and sensation of a skull and everything else breaking went in one ear and out the other. Rainbow Dash popped him upwards into the air again and flew up under him, punching and punching into his body to carry him higher. Her hooves were even starting to hurt from how hard she was punching, they and the body she was hitting becoming little more than a blur in her raging eyes. There were no more special moves or flying around, she was merely laying into him with everything she had left, landing a dozen punches a second and propelling him further. Rainbow Dash exhaled and pulled back her right hoof to land a devastating uppercut to his stomach and flapped her wings to follow the flailing body. Inhaling, she grabbed him by the shoulder and laid several more powerful punches into his body. They were high up in the sky now and Rainbow Dash flung him up one last time while pulling her hoof back, her muscles screamed in protest as she put all the power and strength into her body behind one final punch that crashed into the side of his head and sent him spinning off into the sky away from the south pole.

Rainbow Dash watched as he fell towards the ocean and crashed through the thin ice and water below. Cracks in the ice and ripples in the water spread but eventually all calmed down and no movement or anything else could be seen. All was silent and still.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before smiling and opening them back up, looking north.

“Now I feel a lot better.”

Rainbow Dash briefly cracked her neck and resumed her flight north through the chilly arctic air. She didn’t give him a second thought. He didn’t deserve one.

Comments

[RoboRed]

He's nothing but a monster...and Rainbow Dash beats up monsters.

Hooo boy. Like the pummeling she just gave to Harlequin Grey, that was one long relentless paragraph back there.

[THERDSTORYWHISPERER]

Great chapters

Great story arc!

[Cosmic Potato]

That was a beating of the ages. #rekt

[redmar]

Harlequin Grey himself was worthless and meaningless which is why there will be no mourning him by anyone. Harelquin White is practically the only person who thinks Grey's death is worthy of note. He's not exactly hit by it either from the calm way he mentions it to Amethyst Star.

[RoboRed]

11587018
It's possible he wasn't affected by it. It might have been my interpretation thought but I thought he seemed a little bit more "deranged" during his encounter with Amethyst compared to his appearance here in this story so maybe he was a little affected?