Storm Of Secrets

by Beware The Carpenter

22 - Splintering

Rainbow Dash sped up the hill, the sound of battle ahead, the Wonderbolts by her side, Shining Armor galloping beneath. As she whizzed through the remaining trees the sound became louder and suddenly the sky became filled with Wonderbolts who were being harried by dozens of rather stupid looking griffin zombies. Dash aimed herself and kicked, sending a hoof each through a pair of zombies that were chasing Misty; both of them disappeared and her hooves felt as though they had simply struck air. Her next target was a zombie who was after Blaize, meeting it head on with her hooves outstretched, but it too disappeared into nothingness as she plowed right through it. Five more tests over the next minute confirmed Dash's earliest suspicions; the headless griffins that were chasing the Wonderbolts were all illusions. Dash tried to call her Wonderbolts to order, but they were too panicked to hear her. Then she saw Wave Chill, buck a zombie of his own and recoil in confusion as it disappeared into mist. Dash flew next to her and the duo took on another pair of zombies.

“Dash! What's going on?”

“No time to explain! Come on; you gotta help me get the others under control!”

The two tried to calm the rest of the panicked team, but their efforts proved useless. Seeing that the Wonderbolts would only calm down when the zombies were gone, Dash and Wave Chill fell to separately dispelling as many of the illusions as they could, but for every zombie they vanquished, at least two took its place.

Dash circled back from chasing a zombie that had flown behind a tree and let a primordial streak of color catch her eye; flying next to Misty was a spitting image of herself! Dash took off towards them, but as she got close, her doppelganger spotted her, cartwheeled above Misty and bucked her forehead, causing Misty to fall like a stone, unconscious. Dash broke off the pursuit of her doppelganger, and caught Misty, then wove to the outskirts of the battle, looking for some hidden refuge she could stow her for the time being.

An especially dense cluster of branches looked promising; Dash had made half the distance when 'Misty's' mouth dropped open revealing a pair of fangs. The thing in Dash's hooves shot to life, and within seconds was trying to stab her with a pair of spikes it had withdrawn from somewhere behind its back. Dash, grateful for her lightning fast reflexes, knocked the spikes from the creatures hooves, flipped it around, and then splattered it against the trunk of a looming tree.

Dash spun around, looking for her doppelganger and saw it just in enough time to watch it transform into Soarin'; now that was a face she wouldn't mind breaking. She lunged towards it, hooves ready, but a moment before she would have been close enough to buck, Pyromite shot up from beneath, colliding with the changeling and exploding on impact. The force of the blast hurled Dash backwards and blinded her for almost a minute, when her eyes finally cleared she saw no trace of either the changeling, or Pyromite.

…........................................................................................................................................................

Twilight fought desperately against what seemed an endless tide of manticores, dashing and teleporting to evade their claws, throwing a revealment spell whenever she got the chance, breath coming in irregular gasps as she searched the field for Applejack who had screamed, then disappeared. She didn't know how much longer she could keep it up, she needed to find AJ, but all she saw were manticores.

An explosion shook the air above her, knocking her off her feeble hooves. The manticores did not miss the opportunity, and came barreling towards her, mouths wide in anticipation of their coming meal. Twilight braced herself, and hoped for a quick death. The glade came alight in red flame, and Twilight noted with vague interest that the explosion overhead must have set something on fire. Her thoughts passed to Shining Armor, hoping that he would be able to rescue Cadance, and the two would live happily together... and remember her. The fire was spreading rapidly, coming towards her.

A flare shot out from her right field of vision, emanating red light that dispelled any manticore it touched as it waved back and forth through the manticore's ranks and then over her head. Twilight looked to see Shining Armor, racing towards the two manticores that hadn’t dispersed, levitating a sword on either side of him. The first manticore that came within range was cut down in seconds, first having its leg sliced off and then its throat cut out by the duel precision of Shining Armor's blades. The other manticore would have been just as easy pickings, but for some reason, Shining Armor let it go, veering off and dropping the swords to pick up speed, he galloped towards a dense thicket of bushes between two trees.

Then Twilight saw it.

Crouching menacingly was something hiding among the shadows, larger then a manticore. A myriad of legs supported a bloated spider-like body from which jutted a twisted neck and head. Two massive pincers like those of a praying mantis arched in front of it; one waving madly as though it were conducting some maniacal symphony, the other greedily clutching some kind of wicked mace. Shining Armor was heading straight towards it.

The thing waited until Shining Armor had almost reached it and then became a blur as it lunged to one side and raised its weapon, ready to bring it down on Shining Armor's skull as he flew past. Then Shining Armor wasn't in his armor anymore, his suit continued forwards but Shining Armor had teleported above the terrormonger and behind it, striking its back with an earth shattering buck, knocking it forwards, into the path of his empty armor, which impaled the creature on its front spikes. An instant later and Shining Armor had teleported back inside his armor and was on top of the terrormonger. One hoof drew back and fell heavily onto the creatures chin which flew backwards with a thunderous crack. The body went lifeless and shriveled, Shining Armor stepped off its corpse; the final manticore sped off down the hill and the headless pegasi who were harassing the Wonderbolts vanished.

…........................................................................................................................................................

The Wonderbolts continued their frenzied dashing even after the zombie pegasi had disappeared. Dash was fighting desperately to get them under control, before Shining Armor or one of her friends saw through their cover. If she could just make it look like they were doing something usef- “AJ!” Dash looked down to where Twilight stood quavering over a small mound of orange and red fur. Noticing a three legged manticore corpse nearby, Dash wondered why Twilight was looking at the severed leg that... oh no.

Dash dropped beside Twilight, feeling her insides turn to ice. Applejack's neck had been shredded, her platinum blond mane was scarlet red and sticky from the blood. “Applejack speak to-” was all the Dash could get out before Shining Armor teleported between her and Twilight and unceremoniously shoved Dash aside as he dropped to his knees and began evaluating the wide, jagged wound across Applejack's neck.

Dash struggled to her hooves casting a hateful glance at Shining Armor. Any other time she would have bucked him to kingdom come, but to her intensely aggravating relief, she realized that he actually knew what he was doing. “Applejack, can you hear me?”

Applejack's eye fluttered open, but only half way. “App-ple... Bloom” she murmured, “They got Apple Bloom. We need to go after them.”

“There was no Apple Bloom. What you saw was only an illusion.”

“No!” insisted Applejack, “I saw the manticore grab her and run off with her into the forest. She screamed for me to come rescue her. I gatta go get her. Help me up.” Applejack's legs started moving like she was walking but her hooves only scraped along the ground. “Help me up.”

“The was no Apple Bloom.” repeated Shining Armor looking at the ground just to be sure there were no filly sized hoof prints, “And you are in no condition to continue.”

“I'm alright. It's not as bad as it looks. Just gimme a few moments to-” Applejack tried to raise her head, but Shining Armor gently forced it back down.

“Whoever has the green medicine pot with the claw mark stamped on it, get here now!”

Dash quickly saw that neither Twilight, AJ, Shining Armor, or herself had the medicine Shining Armor had asked for; she spun around to see the Wonderbolts standing a short distance off, but not one of them was moving forwards with the pot or even looking to see what they had. Dash plunged into their ranks and began searching desperately for the medicine that would save her friend's life, after what must have been seconds but felt like hours, Dash spotted the green pot on High Wind's harness. Dash lunged for it, grabbed it uncouthly from Fleetfoot and shot back towards Shining Armor, opening the pot in transit and holding it out for him.

“Is she going to be alright?” asked Dash, biting her lip as Shining Armor applied the salve.

“The blood is dark and oozing instead of bright and pulsating meaning a vein was hit instead of an artery. That's good.”

“Does that mean I'm still able to go on?” asked Applejack sounding even weaker then she had just a few moments ago.

“It means you get to live. Now hold still.” With that Shining Armor's horn began softly glowing, the salve and the wound seemed to fuse making a kind of artificial scab.

“I-I feel OK, there's gotta be somethen I can still do.” protested Applejack, “I'm the most dependable pony in Ponyville.”

“If you really wanted to stay and help, you could start digging your own grave. In your condition you might get a third of the way through before needing it.” Shining Armor spread out their largest blanket, tied the four corners into knots and laid Applejack in the center of the makeshift stretcher, who was now too weak to protest, then turned to Rainbow Dash, giving her an icy glare. “We need to get her to Zecora, immediately.”

"I'll take her." offered Wave Chill, stepping forwards.

Dash bit her lip and thought about it, “If you’re late, and she dies; I swear, I will hunt you down and break your wings so they don't heal.”

"Ummm... sure."

"We still need three more pegasi." ordered Rainbow Dash, but noone moved; “The rest of us are going to continue on to rescue the Princess.” The Wonderbolts scrambled, each trying to claim the last remaining corners. After a brief struggle Blaze and Silver Lining had seized two of the corners, while Soarin' and Fire Streak both held the final corner in their mouths, shoving each other for the right to escape. “Don't jostle the blanket!” shouted Shining Armor. when neither of stallions let go Shining Armor grabbed Firestreak with his magic, forced him to release the blanket and then threw him aside. Soarin bit down firmly on the last corner and the evac team departed out of sight.

“If being hurt means you go back, then I need to go back too.” said High Winds, limping forwards holding one leg up. “I knocked my knee against a tree branch while I was fighting one of the zombies.” Dash could see High Wind's 'hurt' leg, the uniform was torn just enough to reveal a slightly grazed knee. It wasn't even bleeding!

“Umm, I'm hurt too” said Misty rubbing her face, “One of those headless Griffins kicked me really hard in the face.”

Shining Armor looked at the Wonderbolts and then at Rainbow Dash, through the eyes holes his eyes looked like pits of fury mingled with realization.

“If Misty is going back then one of us should go with her to make sure she doesn’t pass out on the way.” suggested Silver Lining, “I volunteer.”

Shining Armor opened his mouth. Dash closed her eyes, hoping that if she pretended this wasn't happening they would all go away.

Lightning Streak scurried over to High Winds. “Silver Lining has a good idea. What about you, do you need somepony to make sure you make it back OK?”

“That's alright” said Surprise dismissively, “I'll take High Winds, don't worry.”

“ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” The Wonderbolts jumped and spun to face Shining Armor, whose expression of anger was visible even behind his helmet, almost matching Storm's from when Trixie had threatened to kill Derpy. “Anypony who doesn’t want to continue, drop your saddlebags, and LEAVE!”

The Wonderbolts didn't need any more encouragement. Within seconds they had shed their saddlebags, and were in the air. They flew twenty yards out and then slowed down and turned expectantly, “Aren't you coming Dash?” asked Rapidfire.

Dash could do nothing but stare at them, trembling in disgust, her face turning white in anger. Memories she had tried to forget flooded back to her: refusing to do the Star Trot for Apple Bloom, their gullibility to Spike's sarcasm, freaking out over a simple lightning bolt, cheating in cloud soccer; all this had been one day in a year. One day in a long, tedious, wasted year. “No” she whispered.

“Dash?”

“NO!!!! I'M NOT GOING BACK... I... I QUIT!!!!!!!!!!!!”