• Published 29th Nov 2012
  • 9,526 Views, 505 Comments

Coming Back - bats



Peace in the world beyond proves elusive to Rainbow, and she'll never let her friends down when they need her.

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Chapter 4 (Remastered)

“Huh, whazzat?” Applejack bolted up, stumbled, and toppled back into her sleeping bag. “Not pancakes again, Granny.”

Twilight bounced from one hoof to another as her friends groaned and rolled away from her. “Come on, girls, wake up, look!”

Applejack straightened again, rubbing an eye with a hoof. “All right, I’m awake, geez, Twi. What’re ya goin’ on about?” Twilight thrust the stone leaf at her, and she yelped. She looked it over, turning it in her hooves. “... That’s really somethin’ you got there, Twi.”

Twilight grinned and nodded.

She turned to the others, still in a groggy fight to wake up, then looked at the leaf again. “... The heck is it?”

“This,” Twilight said, lifting the leaf up over their heads in triumph, “is proof that I really have been talking to Rainbow Dash.”

“... Uh huh.”

Twilight huffed through her snout and floated the leaf to Rarity, who squeaked as it flopped onto her chest. “Rarity, look at the latent magic in this. Stop glaring, this is important!”

“Can’t this wait until after coffee?” Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Okay, okay, you stop glaring.” Rarity sucked in a breath and sat up the rest of the way, muttering, “Some ponies have no appreciation for the concept of beauty sleep,” under her breath. She floated the leaf up in her own magic and scrunched her eyes in concentration. She gasped. “Goodness, why, it’s completely empty! Just like the Elements of Harmony!”

“Exactly!” Twilight bounced in place. “This is an Element of Strife, it has to be.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “What’s an Element of Str—?”

“Rainbow Dash told me that thousands of years ago, there was a set of magical artifacts called the Elements of Strife. When they stopped working in our world, their magic went on into the afterlife.”

Pinkie butted up against the leaf, her eyes wide. “Ooooooh, neat!” She looked up at Twilight. “What’s that mean?”

“Um, well,” Twilight started.

Applejack cut her off, saying, “And where in the heck did it come from?”

Twilight snapped her teeth shut.

Fluttershy reached out a hoof, then drew back before she touched it. “And what does it have to do with Rainbow Dash?”

“Well, see, it’s—”

Everypony started talking at once. Twilight pouted, folding her ears flat against her head, and raised her voice. “If you’d let me explain!”

The murmurs dropped to a respectful silence, except for Pinkie who was sharing a recipe for cornbread with a confused Applejack. Eventually her attention snapped back to Twilight, and she smiled innocently.

Twilight cleared her throat, then fell into pacing. “Okay, so, the short explanation is that Rainbow Dash found the spiritual imprint of this Element in the afterlife. I’m not quite sure why it’s here … but I think it’s because the relic doesn’t exist anymore and had to be recreated on this side of the veil ... probably showed up here because I’m Rainbow’s conduit between the two sides …” Twilight paused in place, frowning off into the distance.

The others looked at each other in the lull, then Applejack huffed. “And?”

Twilight jumped, then gave her friends a guilty smile. “Um. Yes. Anyway, Rainbow was told that if she can bring together all six of these Elements, and if we could do the same with what’s left of the relics on this side, she can cross over back to us.”

“But…” Applejack reached a hoof out and touched the leaf, as if affirming it was solid, her brows knit tight. She pulled her hoof back and let out a groan. “Okay, so this … thing here showed up outta nowhere, and that means you know Rainbow Dash can come back from the dead?”

“Basically.” Twilight brought the leaf closer, then frowned. “Well, maybe? I don’t know for sure that Rainbow’s right, or that we can even do everything that needs to be done first for her to be able to come back, if she really can.” Her ears drooped. “There are a lot of unanswered questions.”

Applejack huffed. “You’re tellin’ me.”

“But I do know that when I saw Rainbow Dash in my dreams last night, we talked for a long time about this very Element, and when she had to go, it seemed like she’d found whatever she was looking for on her side. And here it is.” She grinned at the leaf, flipping it over. It felt cold in her magic, a truly dead thing, even without looking at the latent magic. “If my mind was playing tricks on me, this wouldn’t be here. If it was just a dream, this couldn’t exist. This means she’s really there. She’s there, and she’s doing everything she can to get back to us.”

A moment of silence fell over the five, grouped together in the ruins of the castle and looking at the Leaf of the Bodhi as it floated in Twilight’s magic. Fluttershy broke it, barely rising above a whisper. “So … what does this mean? What do we do?” She bit her lip, looking around at the others, sharing expressions of deep thought and confusion.

“I’m … not sure. Rainbow said … well, she said a lot of things. If we’re going to help her, we need to find the other five of these here in our world, but I don’t even know where to start. We don’t know what to look for. I guess the first step is talking to Rainbow again.”

Fluttershy sunk in on herself and bowed her head. “Do you think you could ask Rainbow to talk to me, too? I really miss her.” She raised her head, and hope burned in her expression. In an instant, the others all looked at Twilight with the same look of yearning..

A pang of disappointment hit Twilight and she quickly shoved that feeling away. “Of course, Fluttershy. I’ll ask for all of you. I know she misses you, too. She told me so.”

Before she finished talking, Fluttershy hugged her around the neck. The others joined in and piled on, and a dam of pent up grief, rage, and sadness that had been built by mourning broke away from them all at once.

“She’s...she’s really still there,” Twilight said, holding her friends back just as tightly. “She’s there, and we’re going to get her back.” Hard steel entered her tone, and she glared at the leaf through her exhausted, hope-filled tears. “We’re getting her back, and nothing will take her from us again.”

As the sun rose higher, filtering through the gaps in the ceiling and dappling the stone floor around them, Twilight gathered the strength to pull away from the embrace. “Come on,” she forced out. “Let’s go back to Ponyville.”

Rainbow Dash neared the stormy mountain peak, streaming a trail behind her. The clouds were an angry, churning black, sparking gold in little flashes, clouds that an ordinary pegasus would know to avoid. They were the wild, magical kind that promised certain death from the slightest mistake.

Rainbow Dash was no ordinary pegasus. She licked her lips and grinned. Slowing her flight, she plunged into the cloud cover. She grasped the cloudstuff in her hooves, twisted her body, and spun a tight spiral, blasting a hole through the stormhead. Crackles of electricity barked as she passed, as if in protest. The hairs of her coat stood on end. Rainbow knew something was wrong.

Time slowed. From the corner of her eye, she saw a bolt surge from the cloud, searing, blinding bright, its path arcing straight for her heart. She grit her teeth, slammed her eyes shut, and flared her wings, twisting against the lightning, plunging for the hole out of the stormcloud.

She felt the heat rip through the space behind her, slapping her in the back as the air expanded outward. She half tumbled out of the storm as the air collapsed back in on itself in a thunderclap, the electricity barrelling off further into the clouds, leaving only the itchy hum of static in her feathers.‘Well,’ she thought to herself, ‘that was new.’ She looked around for a flat patch on the mountainside and noticed she hadn’t dropped the clump of cloud. She grinned.

Rainbow slammed the wisp of gray down as she clattered onto the rocky surface, feeling it burst into a splash of water and wheezing snaps of electricity. “Aw, yeah, I’m still awesome,” she said, puffing out her chest. She looked around the clearing. The bare, flat stretch of rock extended around her as a small plateau. It fell away down the cliffside in one direction and erupted into pillars of rock climbing upwards in the other. She stood nestled in an empty, shadowy crevice on the side of the mountain, with everything around her dull, flat, granite, and lifeless. She couldn’t even see a weed fighting its way up through a crack in the rock. She huffed. “Too bad nopony was here to see that.”

A dry, dusty scrape cut over the distant rumble of thunder.

Hoofsteps echoed across the rock, dragging and shambling, bouncing back at Rainbow from every angle. Pebbles loosened and rolled down the mountainsides around the clearing, and shadows began to stir. With a hollow clatter, a figure dropped onto the plateau. Two pinpricks of fire regarded Rainbow from the mass of shadow, and they slowly straightened, moving into the light.

The embers burned inside the empty sockets of a jagged, broken pony skull. A hiss wheezed from where its mouth used to be, over the few cracked teeth still jutting downwards. The lower jawbone was missing. It stepped forward, its hoof bones clacking and grinding against each other, and drew itself all the way into Rainbow’s view. The skeleton stood tall and silent in front of her. Mummified flesh clung tight in patches, stretching around a fetlock and halfway over its ribcage, the fine hairs of a coat long since rubbed away to leather. It spread the thin, fragile bones of what had once been pegasus wings.

Rainbow turned in place slowly. Five other skeletons moved from the shadows, climbing up from the cliffside or sliding down the rock. The four that still had working jaws carried axes fashioned from sharpened pelvic bones lashed to femurs. She was surrounded. The first skeleton let out another raspy wheeze, and in unison they closed in on her another step.

Rainbow grinned. Maybe she did have an audience.

She straightened up and popped a kink in her neck. “Y’know, six on one isn’t really all that fair. I’m not gonna even break a sweat.” She dropped down low, then leapt backwards. She felt the impact in her back hooves as a sternum shattered inwards, reduced to chips and powder. A bone-axe sailed overhead harmlessly as the skeleton toppled back. Rainbow caught the axe in her forelegs. She stifled a yawn as her wings sprang open.

Her wings did all the work as she sprung forward, twisting the axe down into the skull of the first skeleton, cutting its wheeze off sharp. The red pin-pricks in its eye sockets flared bright, then puffed into smoke. A sour, acrid taste of air hit the back of Rainbow’s throat and she let the momentum carry her axe into the next skeleton, sending its head leaping away from shattered vertebrae.

Rainbow smashed the sharpened pelvis of her axe to bits on the ground and vaulted over the handle in a front flip, then she brought the handle around hard in a full circle. The remains of the femur sent vibrations all the way up to her shoulders as the last skeleton crumpled in a heap of dust and bone fragments.. She leaned against the femur, blew a lock of mane off her face, and flicked her tail. “Oh yeah, I’m still awesome.” She raised her voice and yelled up the mountainside, “Anypony else want some!?”

An echo of hoofsteps bounced along the rock like rolling thunder. Twelve more creatures rattled and slid into view. Not all of the skeletons were ponies, she spotted at least two sets of ram horns, and a few carried spears and shields.

Rainbow stopped smiling. She flexed her jaw and dropped into a defensive crouch, slinking sideways and keeping her eyes moving from one skeleton to the next. She held the femur axe handle in the crook of her foreleg.

The first creature charged. It lowered its horns and barrelled full-speed at Rainbow, all brute-force and no finesse. Rainbow leapt to the side, and the skeleton sailed over the side of the plateau. She smirked at the tumbling crash, then squared herself against the next attacker, sweeping the axe-handle upwards and cracking a skull to pieces. She twisted and slapped a spear down with a hoof. It snapped in half and she caught the sharp end in her teeth.

The rest of the skeletons charged. Rainbow lifted up on her wings and spun again, dragging the remains of her axe from one creature to the next, until the handle shattered against a ram horn. She parried and deflected hooves and weapons with her makeshift bayonet, until it stuck tight through the eye-socket of what used to be a unicorn. Weaponless, she smashed and kicked with her bare hooves. She put aside the fun, action-star flourishes from the start of the fight in favor of bare and brutal efficiency, smashing leg joints, breaking necks, and snapping shoulder blades.

Rainbow panted in breaths of air as she wrenched her hoof free from the remains of a chest cavity. The wind felt bitter against the layer of sweat clinging to her coat. She straightened up and looked around the clearing. Eighteen, maybe nineteen or twenty skeletons smashed to pieces. She touched her head and sides, looking for an injury she hadn’t noticed..

“Rainbow Dash one, stupid skeletons zero,” she said into the wind, grinning again. “That really all you got?”

The bouncing echoes of hoofsteps bled together into a single roar. The roar turned into rolling thunder.

Rainbow’s smile vanished again, and she lifted up off the plateau, flying back away from the mountain. Bleach-white bones, dull and cracked in some places and worn shiny in others, caught lighting flashes from every angle in Rainbow’s vision. The entire mountainside rippled and churned with skeletal bodies pressing and pushing against each other, turning the mountain into a living, squirming creature, like a swarming anthill. The thunder of hooves and axe heads on granite grew even and steady as an ominous applause. An errant spear sailed in Rainbow’s direction, falling a couple feet short and tumbling down the cliff. She pulled back a few more yards.

Further up the mountain, the jagged rock swarming with skeletons turned smooth and straight. She looked at the walls of a stronghold, carved directly into the mountain, lined with spikes and turrets. Where the mass of undead bodies slid and jostled against each other across the rest of the rock, the skeletons lining the stronghold wall stood at attention, with their skulls trained directly on her.

“That … would be easier to get into if nopony was looking at me,” she muttered to herself.

Another spear, thrown with more strength and from higher up, beelined for Rainbow’s head. She caught it in her hooves and hucked it back in the direction it came from, smiling to herself when it hit an undead pony directly in the eye. Her smile faded when the sky darkened with spears. A wall rained down on her, dense and wide.

“Ah, crap!” She slammed her eyes shut and covered her face with her forelegs and she beat her wings, flinging herself sideways. There were too many to dodge, and her mind grasped onto the wild hope that she’d blunt the impact if she was in movement. She braced herself and prepared to turn with whatever struck home first.

After a few moments she opened her eyes. The wall of spears remained overhead, perfectly frozen in place. She glanced around in confusion, seeing the sea of skeletons below had stopped, standing silent and unmoving. She had to squint against a frozen flash of lightning arcing through a cloud. Even the air against her feathers felt static and dull, like a stuffy basement nopony had aired out in years.

“Stillness in the heat of battle, huh?” she muttered. “This could be useful.” She took in a deep breath, closed her eyes, and opened her senses.

Thousands of dead soldiers covered the mountain. She could see them all in her mind, ponies, goats, rams, minotaurs, hippogriffs, griffons, every creature directed at her. From each and every skeleton, tendrils of glittering energy extended up and back into the stronghold. She could feel the flow of the magic, and understood immediately that it was the force holding each pile of bones together. A huge, pulsing force buried deep in the mountain extending its energy like marionette strings, guiding a private army, protecting its secrets.

Another tendril of energy clung to Rainbow’s body, extending up and out from her back. She could see it in her mind’s eye. It was light purple.

Rainbow returned her attention to the waiting army. One on one, they might have been pushovers, but there was no way she was getting through all of them at once, and she was pretty sure she’d ruined any chance of sneaking past at that point. And she somehow knew that as soon as she made a move, the little frozen-world magic trick would go away. She needed somewhere to lay low. She narrowed her focus and scanned the mountain.

“That’ll work,” she muttered. “Now … how the heck do I get there?” She frowned and turned her attention to the cloud of frozen spears. They were a bare few feet away from her. She let her senses expand, taking in as much detail as she could and keeping her breaths deep and even. She nodded to herself, and opened her eyes.

The spears lurched into motion the barest amount, creeping through the air towards her. She kicked her hooves out, fighting through the thick, jelly air. The shafts snapped like kindling as she smashed a rough, pony-sized hole in the raining death, then barrelled herself through it. The world moved in slow-motion, but so did she, and as a spear grazed her fetlock while she passed, she knew she still didn’t have any room for mistakes. She beat her wings and flew upwards.

Rainbow crashed into the clouds in a halo of light from the Element of Inaction. The lightning bolt arced through the air exactly where Rainbow guessed it would, slowed down only enough for her to track its path. She willed the pegasus magic that let her walk on clouds into her hooves and caught the bolt as carefully as she could.

She could feel the raw power racing up her fetlocks, keenly aware that one wrong move and it would blow up in her face. Her face if she was lucky. She opened her wings, gave it a nudge in the bolt’s direction, and let the lightning carry her downwards.

A rainboom tore the air without her even trying as she rode the bolt. She smashed back through the wall of spears before they had had the chance to hit the ground, blistering, blazing fast even through the slow reality, stripping the air from her lungs and blurring her vision to a hazy red. She let go and leapt backwards as hard as she could. Time sped up again.

A crack of exploding air shook Rainbow to her bones, teeth clacking together, ears ringing, eyes vibrating behind her eyelids. The lightning bolt jumped from one skeleton to another, tearing them apart in an expanding cone. She landed in the clearing. Scattered legs and ribs sparked with static around her. Skulls twitched with rattling teeth, and red eyelights burst to smoke as she sensed outward. She could see the wisps of magic feeding the skeletons break and disappear as each corpse fell silent. She tasted the coppery tang of blood and lightning in the back of her throat.

A sense of vertigo struck her. Her senses kept expanding outward, past the skeletons, through the stronghold walls, and inside the heart of the mountain. Her mind wanted to wander, flow inside the rock and into the clouds, and let her sense of self become lost in the flow of energy. She caught herself just before sitting and crossing her legs.

“Ooh,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead. She looked around again. The shockwave of the lightning had given her a clear stretch, but the sea of skeletons closed in, rushing to fill the void. “Useful, but dangerous,” she muttered darkly, then forced strength into her legs and ran.

Weapons flew overhead. She ducked and weaved, following the narrowing path along the mountain. She could see it just ahead, the small cave between two chunks of granite. One last push, and she could crawl her way inside, then find some way to seal herself in.

An axe flashed out. She skittered to a halt as it swept towards her head, and she turned away, gritting her teeth, grunting with effort and surprise. Pain sprung across the left side of her face. She slammed her hooves back into the ground and kept running. Flecks of blood caught flashes of light and reflected them into the corner of her vision. Her left eye started watering and she scrunched it shut.

With one last push she jumped over another axe swing and smashed through a skeleton, half landing and half tumbling up to the mouth of the cave. She turned on her forelegs and slammed her back hooves into the stones above the tiny opening, then darted inside. A small avalanche followed her retreat. Rainbow Dash fell into darkness as the cave mouth closed.

“Dang,” Rainbow heaved out through heavy gulps of air. She dropped onto her haunches with a thump and wiped her eye, wincing as her face stung from the contact. “Fighting’s a heck of a workout.”

When she could breathe normally again, she opened her senses and scanned the outside of the cave. A group of skeletons crowded around the pile of loose dirt and stone that sealed her in, scraping and digging with their hooves and weapons. Rainbow followed her gut and pushed her senses out wide and shallowly, flowing into the mountain and up into the air. The diggers slowed and turned, following Rainbow’s aura as she expanded past them, returning to the digging, then growing aimless. After a few minutes, they’d all stopped digging and wandered away, the sea of skeletons turning to a dull, half-blind patrol of the empty mountain.

With her presence expanded, Rainbow found the purple beam of magic attached to her own aura. She grasped hold and flew along its river of magic, up and away, leaving her body trapped on the cold mountain. ‘Wonder if she’s sleeping right now ...’

Twilight snuggled up in the covers for the tenth time. She rubbed her normal, totally awake eyes. “Ugh,” she muttered, “Come on, you can’t talk to Rainbow if you’re not asleep.” She turned one way, then the other, until her blankets had her in a death grip, and then flung them off in a huff. “Today was a really long day, I should be exhausted!” She groaned and contemplated going downstairs. Everypony was waiting for her, hoping for news, she’d just have to tell them …

A sense of vertigo made her wobble sideways. Energy pressed at her head, fogging her mind. She closed her eyes and opened her magical senses. A mist of blue magic had her surrounded. She smiled, dropped back into bed, pulled her covers up to her chin, and let the mist inside her mind. She faded into sleep.

”Rainbow, I was just … You’re hurt!” Twilight grabbed Rainbow’s chin and clucked her tongue at the angry gash across Rainbow’s cheek.

“That? Eh, it’s nothing.” Rainbow flicked Twilight’s hoof away. “Some skelepony got me with an axe.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “… Rainbow … you are really bad at reassurances.” After a moment, they both started giggling. Twilight recovered first and pressed her glowing horn against the wound.

“Hey! Oh, wow, that feels better…” Rainbow patted the cut. The swelling had already gone down and Twilight could see the meat of her cheek knitting itself back together. “That’s a cool trick.” Twilight jabbed her bruised rib, earning a hiss, then a sigh of relief.

“Hold still, you’re torn up everywhere.”

“Geez, stop poking me already.” She swatted Twilight away again, then twisted and turned in place. A kink in her back popped and she sighed again. Aside from a hoofful of scratches, she looked and moved like she was good as new. “Heh, wonder if all that healing’s gonna stick with me when I get back to my body.”

Twilight shrugged, her gaze just above Rainbow’s head. “I see you got the Element of Inaction.”

Rainbow looked up, and the leaf followed her movement, staying above the top of her head and out of direct sight. “Yeah, it’s pretty sweet. Sid’d been waiting for me to come along and—”

“Who’s Sid?” Twilight cocked her head to the side.

Rainbow shrugged. “The old goat guy who was at the tree was the Bodhisattva. He told me to call him Sid.”

Twilight grinned, then covered her mouth with a hoof.

“What?”

“The Bodhisattva’s real name was Siddhartha.”

“Huh. No wonder he wanted me to call him Sid. Anyway, he’d been waiting for me, ‘cause I’m the true bearer of the Element or something. It can do some awesome stuff, like I can slow down time a little, and I can sorta see the essence of everything around me if I think about it.” She puffed out her chest. “It connected me to the world of the living again, too. Check this out.” She grabbed Twilight’s hoof and pulled it to her chest.

There was a strong, steady heartbeat. Realization sent shivers rushing up Twilight’s spine. It was really Rainbow Dash. Twilight bit her lip and held back tears as she felt the thump beneath Rainbow’s coat. “Rainbow …” She sniffed and pulled Rainbow into a hug. Feeling Rainbow’s heartbeat against her own was intoxicating. “It’s really you! I’m not dreaming; it’s really you.”

Rainbow chuckled and returned the hug. “’Course it is, Twi. But what made you know for sure?”

She squeezed tighter. “... Well, uh …” She cleared her throat. “When I woke up, the physical shell for the Element of Inaction was on my chest. Not a lot of room for skepticism after that.” She felt Rainbow’s hoof in her mane and closed her eyes.

“That’s … convenient, huh?”

She ran her own hoof through Rainbow’s tangled mane, still counting the steady beats against her chest. “I think it makes sense, especially if you’re the actual bearer of it, and not just trying to find it. The Element didn’t exist in the physical world in any form until you connected with it, and then it manifested with me, since I seem to be your conduit back to Equestria.”

After a moment, Rainbow nodded slowly. “Well, so long as it makes sense to you, egghead.”

Twilight giggled, smelling the storm in Rainbow’s coat.

Rainbow’s tone turned matter-of-fact. “Okay, so, you got one and I got one now. Next one’s not gonna be as easy.”

Twilight reluctantly pulled out of the embrace, and caught a flash of a frown in Rainbow’s expression, before Rainbow straightened up and ran a hoof through her mane, bobbling the leaf. Twilight rubbed her chin. “Do you know what you’re looking for yet?”

“Yeah, Sid told me it’s called the Element of War. He called it the gauntlet of a god. Uh…Teary hoof? I need to pay attention better.” She scowled and crossed her hooves.

Twilight’s eyes sparkled. “Tyr’s hoof?”

Rainbow’s brows shot up and she smiled. “Guess I don’t. Twilight Sparkle: most awesome adventure partner ever! You heard of it?”

Twilight rolled her eyes, then fell into pacing. Rainbow rolled her eyes, which Twilight ignored. “Heard of it! It’s a legendary weapon that’s rumored to be the true power behind every dictator ever! There are even rumors that Princess Celestia has it hidden somewhere, if you can believe it.”

“Psh, yeah right.” Rainbow’s frown deepened. “... Does she?”

“No, of course not.”

“... But are you sure?”

Twilight stopped and looked at Rainbow. Rainbow shrugged. Twilight sighed and shook her head. “No, she doesn’t.”

“But what if—”

“I know she doesn’t have it, because I know where it is.”

Rainbow’s wings popped open in excitement and she jumped up. “Really?”

“Yes. All the archeological research points to an old set of ruins in the north, but nopony’s ever found it.”

She drooped her wings. “Well that doesn’t sound promising.” Her eyes narrowed. “Which means maybe Princess Celestia does have—”

“Forget I said anything about Princess Celestia! Look, if you’re looking for it in the spirit world, that means the one here is dead and she couldn’t use it anyway!”

Rainbow nodded, almost reluctantly.

Twilight glared and crossed her hooves over her chest. “It’s like you want her to be a dictator.” She cut Rainbow off and waved her hooves in the air. “Anyway, this doesn’t matter! Nopony’s found Tyr’s Hoof in the ruins, but I know how to look for it now! It’s going to be magically dead, just like the leaf and the Elements of Harmony! If I get close enough and concentrate, the dark spot should stick out like a sore hoof!”

A grin spread across Rainbow’s face and she pumped a hoof in victory. “Alright! Now all I’ve gotta do is get past an undead army and—”

“Undead army!?” Twilight’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. Rainbow looked at her for a moment, snorted, then buried her face in the crook of her foreleg and let out a series of fake coughs. Twilight glared.

Rainbow straightened and waved Twilight off. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, geez, they’re pushovers, there’s just a ton of ‘em. I had to slow stuff down just to do any real damage.” A smile crossed her face and she stood up straight. “Which, by the way, earned me a new title.” She held her hooves up, as if stretching out a banner to read. “Rainbow Dash: fastest flyer in Equestria, and champion lightning bolt thrower.”

“You threw a lightning bolt!?”

Rainbow’s grin widened and she dropped her hooves, puffing out her chest. “Yeah, it was totally awesome, when I got it going slow enough, I could grab it like a cloud. An angry, shaking cloud that wanted to kill me, but still.”

Twilight closed her mouth and frowned in confusion. “That is … extremely fascinating and I plan on running several tests when you get back, but, um … if you can slow down time enough to grab lightning, why didn’t you just sneak past the army?”

Rainbow’s smile faltered, then she grumbled. “You’re no fun.” She breathed in and evened her voice. “I was already fighting them before I figured out I could do that, and when time slows down, I slow down, too, it’s not like I could just fly past all of ‘em, they would’ve seen me still. It was either chuck some lightning or turn into a pony-shaped pincushion. Though … I guess since they lost me now, I probably could slow things down and sneak my way past all of ‘em. Good idea, Twi!”

Twilight opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She cleared her throat and tried again, keeping her voice even. “You weren’t moving any faster, but you still caught and threw lightning.”

“Well, yeah, it made it so I could see where it was going and figure out where I needed to be to catch it and stuff.”

Twilight shook her head slowly.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Twilight blurted out. “Nothing, that’s … just … I suppose in order to have the title of champion lightning bolt thrower, you would also need to be the fastest flyer in Equestria.” She rubbed her forehead and muttered, “Lots and lots of tests.”

Rainbow crossed her hooves over her chest and stuck out her chin with a smile. “See? I knew you’d think it was cool.” She gave Twilight a probing look. “Maybe you think the wrong part is what’s cool, but you still think it. Good thing it’s you that’s my conduit pony, or whatever. Like, can you imagine if it was Fluttershy? She’d think it was scary.”

A pang of disappointment struck Twilight, and she quickly forced her expression into something neutral, hoping that Rainbow hadn’t caught it. Rainbow knit her brow. Twilight winced inwardly and launched into talking. “That reminds me, the girls asked if you could try talking to them, too. They all miss you.”

“Well, uh … I don’t think I can.”

Twilight hoped that she didn’t show any signs of relief.

“When I focus and can see the magic and stuff around me, you’re the only, uh, magic wire thingie that see.” Rainbow frowned and lowered her head.

“I guess that means you can only connect with one pony.” Twilight offered an apologetic smile.”I don’t know why it was me, though.”

“Well, that’s super easy, Twi. You’re my best friend. I wasn’t just being nice ‘cause you were upset when I said that.” Twilight flashed a smile, which faltered as Rainbow walked up and jabbed her in the chest. “But that doesn’t tell me why you’re happy about it just being you.”

Twilight widened her eyes. She glanced away and dropped her gaze in guilt. “... I guess you could tell?” She winced and breathed in deep. “I’m sorry, Rainbow. I’m being selfish. I … was worried you’d spend your time talking to everypony else instead of me.” She felt her eyes grow hot, and straightened up to face Rainbow. “It’s awful for me to feel that way, and I know you want to see them as much as they want to see you. I’m sorry. I wish I didn’t feel this way, but I can’t help it.”

Rainbow’s frown deepened, but the hardness left her eyes. “... Okay, Twi. I guess I get it.” She sat down on her haunches while Twilight deflated with relief. “I dunno why you’d think I’d stop talking to you, though.”

She sighed. “I don’t ... really think that.” She rubbed at her eyes and looked away. “... I just don’t want to lose you again.” She took in a deep breath, then huffed in annoyance at herself. “I’m being silly. I shoul—” Her voice died as Rainbow’s hoof touched her face and drew their gazes back together. She could feel Rainbow study her in the beat of silence.

“... I’m very lucky I got a friend who cares that much, Twilight.” She lowered her hoof and cracked a smile. “And you’re not getting rid of me even if you try.”

Twilight couldn’t help but chuckle, and she shook her head. “I know that’s true about you, Rainbow. I just … have the habit of thinking the worst about ponies when I’m upset. I’m sorry.”

“And I know that about you. Still don’t know why you keep thinking that Princess Celestia’s gonna banish you every time you sneeze, though.” She frowned and tapped her chin. “Unless she does have Tyr’s Hoof …” Twilight shoved her. “Hey, watch it!” she chuckled. They shared a smile for a moment, then Rainbow fidgeted. “So, uh … we both know what we’re gonna do now, yeah? You know where the real hoof thing is in some boring mountains somewhere, and I’m gonna be sneaking past a bunch of skeleponies like a total ninja.”

“I … wouldn’t describe either thing that way, but yes.” She cocked her head to the side. “Why?”

“... I dunno. It’s just these dream thingies seem to stop once we know what’s going on. Should...we, like, get to work?” Rainbow shuffled with a small look of distaste on her face.

“Well, um … we could just talk for a bit.” She ran a hoof through her mane and looked aside, wishing she had something else to focus on in the big expanse of blackness. “I do miss just spending time with you.”

Rainbow smiled. “That’s cool. All this fighting and weird philosophy junk’s giving me a headache. So, uh …” Her smile turned mischievous. “Read any good books lately?”

Twilight snorted and rubbed her face with a hoof. “I change my mind, I’ve spent too much time around you recently.”

“Har-har. These last few days have just been really nuts is all, not like there’s a ton of stupid, fun stuff to talk about.” She sighed and leaned backwards, resting her head against her hooves and beating her wings. She floated upside-down in lazy circles through the void.

“Oh, that reminds me! Do you mind if I look at your aura again?”

“Eh? Yeah, sure, go ahead.” She flipped around and landed again, keeping her wings open. “What’s up? Need me to do a sonic rainboom again?”

“No, I just …” Twilight looked away and cleared her throat. “I just want to see it again. Up close.” She felt heat in her cheeks, and tried to will it away.

“Well, uh, I guess it probably looks pretty awesome. Go ahead.” She struck a pose with her chin up, chest puffed out, wings raised, and one hoof pointing forward.

Twilight rolled her eyes and giggled, then lit her horn. Rainbow’s explosively powerful aura invaded her senses. After blinking away the spots in her vision, Twilight slowly circled, watching currents of energy flow through Rainbow’s frame. Up close she could trace the path of magic as it coursed through nerves, arteries, and muscle tissue. At Rainbow’s hooves, the flow pulsed and writhed, spilling out of her body and enveloping her limbs in power. The overflow was even greater at Rainbow’s wings, extending out in long tendrils of energy, bobbing and rippling in the air like tails of a comet. The Element of Inaction glowed above Rainbow’s head, constant and gentle, connected to her crown by spider silk threads of magic, interweaving with Rainbow’s aura, but still separate.

The biggest change to Rainbow was that her heart was beating again. Each thump sent shockwaves of energy through the channels of magic, racing down arteries and through muscle, making the overflow around her hooves throb and the comet-tails of flying magic dance and sway.

Twilight shook her head, her mouth feeling dry. “Rainbow …”

She chuckled. “Still that amazing, huh?” Twilight nodded, making Rainbow chuckle harder.

“You’re beautiful, Rainbow.” Twilight’s jaw snapped shut and she coughed. “Erm, I, uh…” Rainbow burst into laughter as Twilight’s face darkened. “I meant your aura, it’s, what’s, uh … oh, I’m making it worse.” She sat down and covered her face.

“I’d go with awesome next time, Twi, but whatever.” Rainbow sat on her haunches, still shaking with amusement. “Awesome, beautiful, breathtaking, whatever you wanna call me. My aura, I mean.”

Twilight grumbled and crossed her hooves over her chest.

“Hey, speaking of auras, mind if I look at yours? I’m pretty sure that what I’m seeing when I use the Element.”

Twilight took a steadying breath and grabbed hold of the change of subject gratefully. “Sure, Rainbow, go ahead.

Rainbow closed her eyes, and the leaf above her head gave off a dim glow. Twilight had looked at her own aura lots of times, she knew what Rainbow would see. The same map of nerves and arteries coursing with energy that she’d seen in Rainbow’s core lit up her own body, but grew dim in her limbs, since solid ground didn’t need any magic to support a unicorn. Unicorns only needed to expel magic from their horns, and last she looked, she expelled a lot of magic from hers. Almost as much as Rainbow gave off from her wings.

Still with her eyes closed, Rainbow winced. She flinched back, shook her head, then rubbed her eyes. “Oh, man. I haven’t looked at a bunch of ponies like that or anything, but dear Celestia, you’re bright. That’s amazing, how do you keep from just blowing up every monster we run across? Heck, how do you keep from blowing up your own head?”

Twilight grinned sheepishly and looked down, hiding herself behind her bangs.

“Oh, knock that off, what’re you, Fluttershy?”

Twilight giggled and sat up straight. “It was just something that took a long time to learn how to control.”

“I believe it.” Rainbow’s smile softened, and she lowered her voice. “Thanks for letting me see you like that, Twi. You’re, uh … beautiful, too.”

Twilight felt her face warm up. She could see color on Rainbow’s cheeks, too. She shuffled her hooves, feeling butterflies rise in her stomach, wondering what to say to break the silence, or if Rainbow was going to break it. A nervous energy fell over her, making her breaths shallow and her hooves a little shaky.

Rainbow hissed in pain. She snapped her attention away from Twilight and looked at her right foreleg. Twilight saw three thin lines of red trace across Rainbow’s leg, just below the crook, welling up with crimson. Rainbow pressed her other hoof against the spreading blood, and Twilight’s eyes widened as she watched a purple bruise blossom around the cuts.

Rainbow’s attention snapped back to Twilight with a half-apologetic, half-panicked look. “I gotta go!” she blurted out. “Talk to you soon!”

Rainbow Dash vanished.

Twilight bolted upright in bed. She took a few steadying breaths and let her heartbeat slow, then threw the covers off. She headed downstairs to the group in the library common room, feeling numb and shaky.

Applejack glanced up and called out, “What’s the word, Twi?” She caught sight of Twilight’s face and frowned. “Everythin’ all right?”

Twilight cleared her throat. Her head buzzed with a flurry of sounds and emotions, and she didn’t know if her gut reaction was to scream, cry, laugh, or throw up. Maybe all of them at once. She closed her eyes and sorted out her thoughts as quickly and logically as she could, carefully laying out a conversation tree ranked by topics of importance. The mental exercise of rigid organization was more soothing than a gallon of chamomile tea. She took a deep breath and came down the rest of the stairs, then fell into pacing.

“Okay, first topic. Rainbow Dash is looking for the next Element of Strife, which we know is an artifact called Tyr’s Hoof. Luckily, I know where the physical artifact ought to be right now, so we have a goal and a destination. Second—”

“Where is it?” Pinkie asked, already wearing a pith helmet. “Let’s go!”

Twilight clacked her teeth together. Part of her wished she’d written a debriefing and answered questions afterward. “Erm, well, it’s in the north, but we can’t leave immediately. This is going to take some careful planning. We might be gone for a while just to find Tyr’s Hoof.” She frowned and rubbed her chin. “And that’s not even taking into account the fact that there’s no way to know where we might end up going next.”

Rarity frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

She sighed and shook her head. “This could take us all over Equestria. We might not be able to make it back to Ponyville before the invasion starts.” She looked away and drooped her ears. “We should plan to leave like we might not ever be coming back.” A silence stretched out and she shuffled her hooves on the floor. “... I understand if you want to stay here. It’s a lot to ask of a pony.”

The silence stretched out a few moments longer until Applejack stood up. She crossed the room and stopped in front of Twilight. She stuck out a hoof between them. A moment later, Pinkie bounded over and set her hoof down on top of Applejack’s. Fluttershy’s and Rarity’s joined them.

Applejack smiled. “We’re in this together, Twi.”

Twilight returned the smile, and set her hoof on the top of the pile. “Thanks, girls. I don’t know what I’d do without you. All of you.” She dropped her hoof, and the others followed, staying close in a loose circle. “So that’s the first point of order. Second is what Rainbow Dash is doing in the other world. She, uh, was a little fast and loose with the details …”

“Ya don’t say,” Applejack teased.

Twilight smiled, then huffed and shook her head. “Right? Because from what I could gather, she seems to be fighting an army of skeleton ponies.” At their reaction, she giggled. “I said ‘right?’ But she seems to be handling it well, for the most part. Being the bearer of the Element of Inaction gave her some interesting powers. She, uh, apparently threw a lightning bolt at them.” She giggled harder, relishing being on the giving end of Rainbow’s insanity for a change. “My point is, I’m not sure how often I’ll be in contact with her. This sleeping experiment made it clear that she’s the one who can connect our dreams, not me, and she’s kind of busy. We’ll have to operate under the assumption that we’re not going to be able to share information very often. Which, uh, leads to point three …”

Twilight looked down at her hooves, still feeling pangs of guilt. “Rainbow doesn’t think that she can talk to anypony else other than me. I’m sorry.”

Everypony else bowed their heads to match her. She could almost feel the depth of distance between Rainbow and the rest of her friends in the air. The guilt threatened to boil over and drive her out of the room, when she perked up. “But if you’d like to write to her, I would be happy to memorize your letters. The next time we talk, I’ll pass them along.”

Their heads rose one by one, and a smile spread between them. “That’d be great of ya, Twi,” Applejack said. The others nodded.

The twisting knot of snakes in Twilight’s stomach loosened, then turned ice cold as she got to the next bullet point on her mental conversation tree. “That … brings us to the last thing … which is why I was shocked when I came downstairs.” She shuffled her hooves on the floor. “I think Rainbow’s body was attacked while we were talking.”

Everypony’s expressions turned from smiles to confusion and worry. Pinkie raised a hoof and let out a gasp, which she cut off and turned to a mumble, dropping her hoof back to the floor. “What do we do?” she asked. “Can we help her?”

“... No,” Twilight said, keeping her tone even and calm. “She’s in a completely different realm of reality from us. We can’t reach her, or give her any help, and if it’s an emergency, we can’t even talk to her. All we can do is gather up the Elements of Strife and keep them safe and together.”

The confusion slowly faded from the others, leaving only worry. They exchanged looks, one by one, and a blanket of resolve settled over them, hardening their expressions. Fluttershy cleared her throat and said, “We’re still with you, Twilight.”

Twilight gave them a sad smile.

Rarity shifted and asked, “So what’s our first step?”

Twilight turned and walked over to her desk, to the empty husks of the Element of Inaction mingled in with the Elements of Harmony in her saddlebag. She lifted the leaf out and set it gently on her desk, then carried her saddlebag over to a cupboard. She emptied the Elements of Harmony onto a shelf, then shut the doors with resolution. “I guess … we get ready to … to say goodbye to Ponyville.”

As Twilight headed upstairs and the others filtered out of the library, their minds buzzing over the upcoming days, the Elements of Harmony sat on the darkened shelf. Nopony had noticed that the flaw running through the Element of Loyalty’s ruby lighting bolt had knit. The solid red stone twinkled in a beam of light that trickled through the cracked cupboard door.

Rainbow’s eyes snapped open. The clawed, bony digits of an undead teenage dragon dug into her foreleg. She coughed out dust as she felt herself dragged out of the rubble. The pinpricks of red light blazed brighter in the dragon’s eye sockets. It raised its other claw and clattered its finger bones together like clacking dice, and other skeletons drew closer. Rainbow caught sight of a small stone band that wrapped around the dragon’s wrist. As bony claws and hooves closed over her mouth and snout, Rainbow thought, ‘Useful, but very dangerous …’ before slipping into a dreamless sleep.

Author's Note:

Hey, so … long time since the last one of these remasters. Sorry it’s been such a wait. I’m planning on working through the rest of these remasters at a more reasonable rate, and hopefully go back to writing new parts of this one. As with the previous chapters, the original version of chapter four was saved and is available to view here, if you’re curious or want to compare the changes.