Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

The Net Closes In

Fizzlepop Berrytwist stood at the edge of one of the island’s many cliffs, looking down at the ocean. She had her force of Storm Creatures spread throughout this side of the island at any and every location where someone could come up from the water. There’d be no place the fugitive could slip through unnoticed. That was if the message she’d received from Tyluck had been correct about the fugitive hiding in a seacave on the southern side of the island. There shouldn’t be any escape for him now with her and the Storm Creatures here. He should be cornered.

The only thing she wished for right now was that the Storm King had mapped out all the tunnels and caves of the island at some point. She almost scoffed at the idea of him caring enough or not being lazy enough to actually do something like that. He’d call it boring and wouldn’t have even bothered assigning someone else for the task. Despite how useful it could be to know that information. Well his dumbness had gotten him killed, maybe as a gift to Grubber and the Storm Creatures she could do that instead before she inevitably left the island behind at some point in the future.

She had done most of what she needed to here, making sure things were still okay and the few creatures who called this place their home were happy and not wanting for much. The place wasn’t falling apart generally and that was pretty good. As soon as things were safe now too, and the friends of her friends had their fugitive, she could call it a day.

It was nice to see Rainbow Dash again too, she’d have to spend some more time with her before Rainbow left—since by the sound of it she’d be out of here even faster than her once things were over.

A grunt from a Storm Creature to her left pulled her from her thoughts and Fizzlepop looked over at him, raising an eyebrow. “What?”

The Storm Creature pointed up to the sky and Fizzlepop took a look, immediately frowning.

Weather was getting worse. Seemed like an obvious statement in the Stormlands but there was a difference between good and bad weather here. Things had been fairly mild for the past few days but the clouds above now were a jet black and almost totally blocking off the sky. Soon enough no sunlight would be able to reach them and things would be dark across the entire island as if it was already nighttime. That’s really not what they needed when they were on the lookout for somebody.

“Great. I hope they find him and capture him in those caves. If he gets out he’s going to have the perfect cover…”

---

Up ahead, Rainbow Dash and the others could see the light at the end of the tunnel easier because Berten had smashed his way through the exit and this time clearly had no boulder to move to block it off for them. She was running up the steep slope while the Trolls practically crawled on their hands and feet up as fast as they could. The low ceiling of the escape tunnel probably causing their backs to ache.

On the last spurt, Rainbow Dash jumped out of the tunnel and quickly looked around to see where they were. The tunnel existed on the side of a hill somewhere in the forest, it had been obscured by a carefully made camouflage cover of grass, twigs, and leaves. Now that was all destroyed and torn aside while heavy footprints in the mud went deeper into the forest. Berten definitely didn’t have the time now to cover his tracks. He was running as fast as he could.

Tyluck, Tyval, and Tornal came up right behind her, the three of them panting and wasting no time in standing up straight. They saw the footprints leading away from the tunnel but before any of them could get a move on, the low rumble of thunder came from above them.

Rainbow Dash looked up into the sky—past the trees—and saw utter blackness. Looking around the forest she noticed how much darker it already was than it should’ve been for this time of day. Tyluck and Tornal had their torches still but it looked like it might start raining too. The absolute worst possible weather for tracking somebody down in. At best their vision would be shot once it got just a little bit darker, the sun clearly couldn’t make it through all those dark clouds.

“This is bad, in less than an hour it will be impossible to find him,” Tyluck said.

“We found his hiding spot already, he won’t be able to stay anywhere else on this island for long,” Rainbow said.

“That’s the problem,” Tyluck frowned. “We’ll have lost our chance to get him and pushed him away from his only refuge here. He won’t stay on the island any longer. If we don’t find him tonight he’ll be gone.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at him. “What’s he going to do though? He can’t go anywhere and it’ll be pitch black with a storm raging here soon.”

“Would you put it past him to try swimming away from here in the middle of the night?” Tyluck asked her.

“Uhh…” Rainbow didn’t really have to think about it. “No. Good point.”

“We don’t know where he would go or where he might try to escape to next. It’s possible he could even try going back to our kingdom or even making his way to Equestria. And we must capture him. We have to do it for the sake of the kingdom,” Tyluck said.

“He could do far worse than simply hide the next place he goes,” Tyval said.

“If there are any locals around I wouldn’t feel safe for them,” Tornal said.

Rainbow took a deep breath and frowned. “Okay, so it’s really imperative that we don’t let him get away again. Well then in that case I don’t think we should stay standing around here talking about it anymore.”

“Good point,” Tyluck nodded. “Let’s follow these footprints!”

The four of them ran along the path Berten had left for them as he wildly fled from his pursuers. Into the forest they went once more while thunder rumbled above them and threatened to drop rain every moment. Rainbow Dash knew Berten was tough and had a lot of determination running in him, but he had to be fairly exhausted himself after everything he had been through the past couple of days. No creature could have the same kind of boundless energy that she did. He couldn’t be eating or resting as well as his pursuers. They had the advantage. Rainbow Dash knew they did. He may have had a small lead right now but the four of them would close it for sure and bring him down.

Then Rainbow Dash could have a second “talk” with the fugitive.

And she wouldn’t give up this time. There was no way she was taking no for an answer.

Regardless of how the details went, she was going to make sure everybody won today.

She didn’t want Tyluck and the others to get hurt either so she was planning on doing the hard stuff and letting them have their quarry peacefully when she was done. After a few life-lessons had been imparted. And she made sure Tyluck knew what was going on too, even if it took him a little convincing as well.

That was all just a bunch of maybes right now though. She still needed to put her bits where her mouth was cause Berten was looking like both a tough adversary and a tough guy to win over to friendship’s side. And they really needed to find him first before it became darker than midnight in the middle of the day. Stupid Stormlands. Rainbow Dash was definitely not going to miss this place when she left.

As they ran through the forest though, she also started to notice the haggard breathing coming from her friends. Tyluck, Tyval, and Tornal were all starting to get tired. She shouldn’t be surprised—they were big guys and they had done a lot. It was clear they were pushing themselves hard because of how important things were right now. But it was also clear they wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long, they didn’t have the energy of either Rainbow Dash or Berten. She hoped they could hold out until they came upon Berten again.

The muddy ground gave way to mostly overgrown grass and plants and thus Berten’s footprints disappeared. But it wasn’t enough to shake them as they could still see where he had trampled through. Grass was flattened and some branches were broken and pushed out of the way. He had been running in a straight path since leaving the escape tunnel. Desperate? Or was he leading them somewhere?

Rainbow kept her eyes open for traps the whole way as well but she didn’t see anything. If there were any it would have to be something he prepared long ago.

“I can’t tell if we’re gaining on him or not but we haven’t lost his trail yet so I’m saying things are still fine so far!” Rainbow said as they ran.

“That’s all we need,” Tyluck said between breaths.

The trees were getting thicker for a while and Rainbow Dash kept seeing some of them bent out of the way or bark scraped off of them as Berten must have rushed by earlier. The big Troll had more obstacles than Rainbow Dash but they clearly weren’t a problem to him.

Pushing through some of the trampled brush, the four pursuers came out into a clearing with one huge tree on the side of it, its canopy large and hanging over the ground. The branches and leaves of it were thick enough where they still blocked out the sky completely. Rainbow Dash and the others could see a few flattened spots in the ground where Berten had ran through here to the other side of the clearing, and they started following his path.

Halfway through though and Rainbow Dash saw a pair of glinting eyes in the shadows of the trees ahead.

Berten was standing there. Watching them. Barely visible between the trees and low light but his eyes still peeked out in the darkness. It was obviously so much easier for him to see them thanks to the torches they carried.

And he was holding onto another rope.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes went wide as she noticed that and saw him yank on it to activate whatever trap he had prepared. The sound of something whipping and snapping echoed through the clearing and the leaves and branches of the tree above them shuddered. They all looked up to see cut up tree logs falling towards them.

“Look out!” Rainbow Dash yelled and jumped out of the way.

There were maybe a dozen logs coming down and she and the Trolls managed to move fast enough so none of them got crushed. But the moment the logs slammed into the ground, they saw the true trap activate. The ground gave away beneath them and Tyluck, Tyval and Tornal fell into a deep hole. Rainbow Dash only barely managed to jump onto and grab the side of it before pulling herself up to safety. Her friends weren’t so lucky though—they and the logs that had crashed down fell a good twenty feet down into a muddy pit.

“Tyluck!” Rainbow shouted and then whipped her head around to look over her shoulder. Berten was gone. This trap must’ve been an old one he spent ages on and he had gotten them all to almost fall right for it.

“We’re alright, Rainbow Dash!” Tyluck shouted from below, despite the groans coming from the three of them. “We’re not hurt… but I don’t think we can get out of here easily. Please, forget about us and go after him! Don’t let him get away!”

“But-” Rainbow said down to him.

“We’ll be okay! Just go!” Tyluck shouted.

Rainbow grit her teeth, she looked into the forest where Berten had gone and could still hear him snapping twigs and trampling over the ground. “Darn it, alright! But I’ll be back to help you out soon!”

“Good luck—and win!”

She grinned. “You bet I will.”

Without another word, Rainbow Dash turned away from the hole and went charging through the brush towards Berten. It was dark, without the torches she couldn’t see well, but she could hear well enough to follow after him. Lightning flashed in the sky above her and the clouds also rumbled with the sound of rain begging to pour. Rainbow Dash sprinted as hard as she could, her wings itching in their confinement.

Another bolt of lightning flashed and Rainbow Dash barely made out the white-streaked back of her target not far away.

“BERTEN!” She yelled as loudly as she could. “You turn around and face me right now!”

The Troll paused in the middle of running and Rainbow Dash stopped as well.

Slowly he turned around, glaring at her. “You should’ve just stayed there to help your friends out of that hole, pony.”

“Sorry, gotta stop you first,” Rainbow Dash replied.

“If you truly have to keep interfering then I’ll make sure you can never bother me again. I can’t have an unconnected third party get in my way anymore. I’ll find someplace better than this island, and one day I’ll take back the kingdom,” Berten growled. “If you learned about me from those three, I think you would understand why getting on my bad side is a very foolish idea. But now you’ve gone and done it.”

“And you should understand that I’m not your average pony. You don’t know who you’re up against. You’re not scaring me, and you’re not going to make me quit,” Rainbow said, exhaling and standing up as tall as she could.

Berten raised his fists and despite his mood a smirk came to his face. “Alright then. Let me do something a bit enjoyable before I leave this island.”

“Get your face punched in?” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “If that’s what you want.”