Imperfect

by Wheller

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Somepony was poking her.

Rainbow Dash opened her eyes; Vinyl Scratch was standing over her, prodding her repeatedly with her hoof.

“Do you have any idea, how long I have been standing here poking you?” Vinyl said without a hint of emotion in her voice.

“No, but considering how long my flashes usually last... an hour?” Rainbow Dash said with a guess.

“Two,” Vinyl reported. She sat down next to Rainbow Dash on the sofa, embracing the Pegasus; she lifted the goggles of her eyes and sat them down on the table next to it.

“Hey... what’s gotten into you?” Rainbow Dash asked, she noticed Vinyl beginning to cry.

“I have seen bad things before Rainbow Dash. Really heavy stuff, but ain’t nothing as bad as the things you’ve seen. It’s got me thinking. I’ve been up all night going over stuff in my head. I just don’t want to be alone right now.”

Rainbow Dash tightened her embrace; she didn’t want to be alone either.

...

“For the record, this is a horrible idea.”

Rainbow Dash blinked, Horseapples! She’d flashed again, and this time she hadn’t even felt it.

“Oh don’t I know it, but we really don’t have a choice in the matter,” Twilight said.

Rainbow Dash looked to her left, Twilight Sparkle was walking, levitating her 11mm magnum Revolver by her head, and to her right was none other than...

“Vinyl Scratch?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed in excitement.

“I’m sorry. Were you expecting Burnt Sienna?” Vinyl said with a grin.

Rainbow Dash looked at the unicorn oddly. “Who?” she asked. Rainbow was certainly glad to see Vinyl, during her flash forwards; she’d never seen or heard a single trace of her.

“Don’t worry about it,” Vinyl said with a chuckle. Twilight however was not amused, a dire look formed on her face.

“I was afraid this was going to happen now,” Twilight said with a frown. “Listen carefully Rainbow, we don’t have a lot of time to explain, but when we get to where we’re going, your first instinct is going to be to use the Ponyville Pattern SLER that you’re wearing. Don’t, it won’t do any good.”

Rainbow Dash looked to her flank, indeed she was wearing a Ponyville Pattern, however, unlike the Sen Gun. This one was much lighter; Rainbow remembered seeing designs for a Self Loading Emerald Rifle on the chalkboard when she had been wearing the Sen Guns for the first time.

Recalling as much as she could off the top of her head, she remembered the rifle was a self loading, 8x60mm, 10 round charger fed. While Rainbow didn’t exactly know what that meant, examining the SLENs on her sides revealed a simple feed system that would slide more ammunition into the top of the rifles, operated by two small levers next to the control yoke in front of her.

This would have helped at Cloudsdale, this was a weapon that could be operated efficiently by a pony and unlike the Sen Gun it didn’t require a unicorn to load more ammunition. In fact, Rainbow would have guessed that she could fly and fire at the same time.

The trio of ponies entered a clearing. It was at this point when Rainbow Dash realised that they were in the Everfree forest. No wonder they were armed.

The trio heard a slight warbling noise, and out of the trees, a cloud of thick black smoke poured in.

Ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka!

Rainbow Dash’s first instinct was to grab the control yoke and bite down on it as hard as she could. She remembered this creature from the dream she’d had during the healing procedure from when her wings had been paralysed. The memories of the black smoke flooded back to her. She listened to Twilight, however and did not grab the yoke.

The smoke began to change its shape, and three pitch black ponies seemed to glide out from it, their amber eyes looking intensely at them.

Rainbow panicked, she knew them! She did not recognise the earth pony, but she did recognise the Pegasus as Doctor Nightsinger, he’d been her doctor when recovering from the paralysis... and the Unicorn was Nightshadow, the apothecary of whom Twilight in the present was smitten with.

Rainbow couldn’t stand it any longer; she grabbed the control yoke and bit down hard on it.

Blam Blam Blam Blam!

Rainbow kept shooting until, twenty rounds later, both her SLENs were clicking empty, but to her own horror, the three pitch black ponies were not only still standing, but had been completely unharmed.

“Well, that wasn’t very nice,” the earth pony said.

“Nice to see you too Rainbow Dash,” Nightsinger said without emotion.

Rainbow Dash dropped the control yoke in surprise, her mouth hanging wide open. “What... what are they?”

Twilight frowned. “You remember Nightmare Moon?”

Rainbow nodded.

“That’s who they are.”

The earth pony snorted loudly. “We are not Nightmare Moon! Nightmare Moon was a pathetic synthesis between Nightmare Essence, the Herald of Chaos Undivided, and Princess Luna, created as a last ditch effort to keep Princess Celestia from destroying him with the Elements of Harmony.”

“Nightmare Essence did manipulate the younger princess into doing his bidding, sure, but she did not become Nightmare Moon until just before banishment,” Nightsinger said. “He and her spent a thousand years on the moon, together.”

“What happened to him then?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“You happened,” Nightshadow said. “The true wielders of the Elements of Harmony came along, and split Nightmare Moon into four.”

“Nightcaller. Wrath,” the earth pony said. Rainbow figured that Nightcaller had to be his name.

“Nightsinger. Hate,” Nightsinger reported.

“And Nightshadow. Deception,” Nightshadow finished. “The fourth, being Princess Luna of course.”

“This isn’t important,” Twilight said, “practically ancient history at this point.”

Nightcaller tilted his head to the side, “Very well then, why have you come, my little ponies?”

“We’ve come to make a deal,” Twilight said.

The three Siblings Nightmare gave each other a quick glance, and turned back to the group before them.

“You have our undivided attention.”

...

“NO!” Rainbow Dash screamed as she threw her eyes open.

Vinyl Scratch leapt to her hooves in surprise, tripping over a coffee table and sending the unicorn skittering over the floor with a loud crash.

Twilight Sparkle galloped down the stairs. “Rainbow Dash? What’s wrong?”

“We were making a deal with the devil!”
...

Pinkie Pie trotted along through the Everfree forest, rope still dangling from her neck. She was following her reflection, the condescending other Pinkie Pie she had first seen in the Lake of Origin, deep in the Everfree.

“Where are you taking me?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“You’ll see!” the reflection said enthusiastically, mocking her.

Pinkie Pie wanted to defend herself against the reflections verbal abuse, but found herself too defeated to try. She was a failure, she was alone and unloved. Rainbow Dash had picked Twilight, she’d seen it herself, and now her own reflection tortured her, continuing to make her own misery worse. She’d made up her mind, if they were going to the Lake of Origin; she was going to drown herself in it!

Unfortunately, they did not end up at the Lake of Origin. Rather, a small cave the likes of which Pinkie Pie had never seen before. The cave was not a natural formation, something had dug it out.

The reflection lead the way inside, and called out. “I brought her, just like you asked!”

Inside the cave as a very spartan campsite consisting of only a fire and a bedroll, sitting on the bed roll was a semi-translucent grey earth pony with an orange mane and blood red eyes.

“Thank you. You can go now.” The earth pony said.

The reflection simply disappeared.

The earth pony turned and looked at Pinkie Pie, giving her a smile. “Hello Pinkie Pie.”

Pinkie Pie recognised him immediately. “Monty?!” she cried out in surprise.

He nodded at her. Montana “Monty” Ulhan had once been an imprint inside Pinkie Pie’s mind, a last bit of consciousness that stuck to her just before death, with a single goal, to destroy the Alicorn, Overdrive, by any means necessary.

The imprint hadn’t been a full personality, it was had been so focused on its goal that it had ignored Pinkie Pie’s physical needs, working her to the point of exhaustion, and then pushing her past it. It hadn’t been its fault, it didn’t know, it couldn’t.

“You... you died,” Pinkie Pie said, stating the obvious.

“Twice,” Monty said plainly. “Double the amount that most ponies get.”

“How... are you here?” Pinkie Pie said.

“I’m trapped, neither of my deaths were peaceful. I’m stuck part way between two planes of existence,” Monty said.

Pinkie Pie felt bad, she didn’t know what to say, thoughts were spinning in her head, but she didn’t think that any of them were good.

“Do you want me to help you?” Pinkie Pie asked.

Monty shook his head. “No, you can’t help me, but you can help yourself!”

Pinkie Pie looked up at him. “I don’t understand.”

“You, my dear Pinkie Pie, need to find yourself some limestone.”

Comments

Okayyyyyyyyyy....so nothing about Derpy but finally an explanation of who the Trio are. Also, Vinyl Scratch seems to a key part of Future Twi's plan to save Equestria by some means that Present Day Rainbow Dash doesn't like.