Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

Rainbow Dash and Heartless III

Heartless popped out of the brush and saw Rainbow Dash standing there waiting for her while wearing her strange new “armor”. Heartless of course merely tilted her head in confusion a little bit, still smiling. “What are you doing?”

“You care?” Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow.

Heartless brought a hoof up to her chin and thought for a second. “No, not really. Here I come!”

She ran at Rainbow Dash and pretty much tried to just jump on and tackle her to the ground. Heartless didn’t exactly know how to fight, her movements couldn’t even be described as amateurish, it was more like a kid or an animal trying to run up and hug you. And her reflexes were slow, probably because of how she didn’t really feel pain or anything, so she couldn’t react that fast like this. She only had speed when moving directly towards her target—on instinct—without having to think about or do anything else. So Rainbow had an easy time just sliding to the side and bringing a covered hoof up into her face, punching her hard and sending her sprawling to the ground again.

“Oooohhhh. I get it,” Heartless said as she stood back up. She shrugged at Rainbow Dash. “Won’t help you.”

“You know, I’m not sure how far I’ll get either. But it’s going to feel good punching you anyways,” Rainbow admitted.

“I hope you don’t get too tired trying. I want to take aaalllll the life and energy you have for myself. It wouldn’t feel as good if you spend so much of it before that,” Heartless said and started walking towards her.

“I think we both know by now that I’ve got energy to spare,” Rainbow said and matched Heartless—walking straight towards her as well.

“Yes you do. I’ve known it ever since I saw your light coming towards me.”

“So enough with the talk. I prefer action anyways. And words have never gotten through to you.”

“I just don’t see what’s so wrong.”

“You can’t. That’s the only thing that makes me sad about this.”

Heartless’s hoof shot up towards Rainbow Dash’s face who ducked to the side to avoid it while throwing a punch towards Heartless’s face as well. The blue hoof wrapped around and protected by the banana leaf crashed into the side of Heartless’s head, turning it to the side and making her stumble back. Rainbow made sure to draw her hoof back after a split-second so the contact time was as short as possible. She then brought her other one up and punched Heartless again in the other side of the head. The pink pony stumbled back but didn’t fall over, the blows simply not hurting or affecting her like they would a normal pony of her size. It was like the times she had seen Heartless get struck by other things or magical beams, unless something had a truly huge amount of force behind it it would do nothing more than stagger her slightly.

And so Heartless came right back at Rainbow Dash. Smiling as she tried to tag her, grab her, hug her.

Rainbow Dash jumped and dodged out of the way each time, thankful that Heartless always made such simplistic movements. Every time she had an opening she punched or kicked Heartless in return or even grabbed her by the tail and swung her into a tree. But the pink mare just kept getting up. Rainbow Dash wasn’t getting tired yet but she was getting frustrated. And she was starting to notice something else going on in the jungle around her.

Everywhere Heartless stepped, whenever she touched a tree or another plant, it was starting to wither and die. She was draining the life of everything around her while fighting Rainbow Dash—probably not even actively thinking about it either. Whatever that strange life-sucking power was it was constantly trying to get Rainbow Dash. And in the meantime was now killing the jungle thanks to how interconnected so many roots, trees, vines, and all the grass on the ground was.

Rainbow jumped out of the way of Heartless again and her pink hoof instead landed on the trunk of a tree. Heartless held it there for only a second and the tree turned gray while all the branches shrunk and the leaves turned to dust.

Heartless blinked and tilted her head from side to side. “Different. When I touch other ponies it’s just a tap and they fall over, no more light or warmth in them.” She shrugged and turned back around to face Rainbow Dash. “Oh well, I’ve never understood anything about myself anyways.”

Because of what she was doing though the canopy of the jungle started to thin and fall apart. Sunlight from the clear blue sky poured down on the two of them and Rainbow Dash found herself standing in the middle of a gray and dying circle of ash. She heard a fluttering noise from behind her and looked to see a flock of colorful birds flying away from the jungle. They had to sense something really wrong was happening nearby, and she definitely couldn’t blame them for flying away. Looking at her hooves she also saw how the leaf “armor” was already decaying as well. Seems like it wasn’t mattering as much anymore that she was only coming in contact with Heartless for a split-second.

Perhaps Heartless was unconsciously getting stronger thanks to having Rainbow Dash right before her eyes.

“I’m not… I’m not giving up!” Rainbow roared and flew at Heartless. She shifted around and kicked Heartless as hard as she could while flying forward, carrying the other pony off her hooves and launching her into the jungle where she smashed into and broke through numerous other trees. It was the strongest thing she could do with her wings at close range.

Taking a brief glance down she looked at the hoof she had hit Heartless with and saw the banana leaf withering and falling apart.

“Are you really?”

Rainbow Dash looked back up and saw Heartless walking out of the destroyed brush towards her. Smiling.

“Because it seems like you should.”

“Tch!” Rainbow Dash flew at Heartless again and punched her several times, knocking her around the jungle clearing. “I’m going to stop you for everyone you’ve killed! I’m going to make sure you never hurt anybody again! There’s no way I can give up—because I could never rest knowing that you were still out here, that you would go to my home, and, and—argh!”

Rainbow angrily threw her down to the ground where Heartless rolled along the dead grass before stopping.

She was breathing heavily. Her anger was doing more to tire her out than anything else. And looking down at her hooves the banana leaf had almost entirely gone brittle and gray and was beginning to flake apart. She wouldn’t have the opportunity to put new wrappings around her hooves again. Not with Heartless free and already standing back up.

There was nothing more she could do down here, and despite her previous attitude, Rainbow Dash was starting to worry.

The fear was seeping back in.

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her head.

Heartless started running at her and Rainbow Dash shot up into the sky, there was nothing else she could do down in this jungle. If she was going to win—or if she was going to die—she wanted to do it while flying in the sky. She was always at her best up here, free as a pegasus, anyways. In a second she heard Heartless zooming up after her but Rainbow Dash kept climbing higher and higher until she reached the same altitude as the clouds. She pushed herself harder, to fly even faster than before. She wasn’t going to get outdone by a pony that didn’t even have wings!

There was a cloud directly in front of her and the moment Rainbow Dash broke through it she made a tight loop and came speeding back towards Heartless right as she was going through the cloud as well. As soon as Heartless broke through the cloud, Rainbow Dash was already slamming into her back and kicking her away. She then flew around and hit Heartless from the other side, and continued to fly around her like a rainbow blur, hitting and kicking her through the sky. Not letting up, not giving Heartless the chance to react.

She couldn’t take this forever, Rainbow knew she couldn’t.

The sound of something crumpling and breaking reached her ears and she looked to see the leaves on all four of her hooves finally breaking apart completely and falling away, scattering in the wind.

“Darn it!” Rainbow growled, but she couldn’t stop just because of that. Heartless was still there, a pink ball in the sky, and Rainbow Dash shot towards her. “You aren’t getting what you want, Heartless! I don’t know why you’re like this, and why you can’t see that what you’re doing is wrong, but it won’t continue! Even if you did take all the life from me, it would never satisfy you! You’ve told me you’ve spent your whole life doing this without meaning, without stopping, without ever being fulfilled! And it’s not going to change unless I’m the one who brings you down!”

She practically collided with Heartless, punching her heavily a few times before letting the mare spin away through another cloud. A feeling of exhaustion was tearing through her after that. Heartless didn’t have to directly touch her with her hooves anymore. Even just a fraction of a second was enough for part of Rainbow’s life to be taken away.

And Heartless was still there—hovering in the air in front of her now. Still smiling.

Rainbow Dash grit her teeth and flew at Heartless. She pulled back her hoof and punched the pink pony right across the face. She pulled it back to deliver another punch and-

Stopped.

Rainbow Dash looked to see Heartless holding onto her leg, holding her in place and keeping her from flying away or pulling back.

“You got a little slower. So I caught you,” Heartless smiled.

With eyes wide in horror, Rainbow Dash watched as Heartless pulled her in, wrapped her hooves around her body, leaned her head into the crook of Rainbow Dash’s neck—and hugged her. Rainbow couldn’t move. She was frozen. Her legs and wings stiffened, her eyes almost rolled back into her head, and her mouth opened wide in a silent scream.

Comments

[Cosmic Potato]

Oh well. Pack it up boys, story's over. It had a good run, sad to see it end.

[RoboRed]

Oh, fuck.

[redmar]

That's really not good. I wonder how Rainbow is going to get out of this.