Rainbow Dash has to go back to Ponyville and face a life she left in order to protect the one she now has. Even with Niko and her new friends will she want to stand against the darkness that threatens both worlds?
A darkness is spreading across the Multiverse and it threaten to devour everything. It is for this reason that Rainbow Dash has to go back to Ponyville and face the life she once had, but she isn't going alone. Niko, Packie, and Dwayne are following her into this other world. Can she stand seeing what will happen, and will Niko be able to stand up to the darkness that threatens to make him relive his past?
It’s been two years since that moment in Pinkie Pie’s basement. Two years since I saw a horror I don’t want to wish on anyone, especially not my folds, my children. Still, here I am with Niko standing in the middle of Ponyville. Packie and Dwaine both came with us. Hearing Packie freak out about turning into a pony had been worth the trip. I think back about the reasons I didn’t want to come back.
But none of them matter. I’m not here for everypony. I’m here for my babies. I’m here because the darkness that tried to spread before is trying again, and this time it’s attacking my new home.
“Dash?” a surprise voice asks.
I turn to see a surprised Twilight. Of course she’s surprised. I’ve been gone for two years. She runs toward me, but is stopped by Niko. I’m kind of surprised at how he looks. In his world I had seen pictures of some of the Clydesdales, and that is what he looks like. He’s a stocky pony, nearly as tall as Celestia, and to be honest a little more imposing.
“Stay right where you are,” he says.
She looks at him, uncertain, and then at me.
“Rainbow Dash what happened? You disappeared, and we discovered the basement… Everyone was so scared for the worst,” she said.
“I’ve been safe. Now, what is going on?” I asked.
“Seriously Niko, am I freaking out or something man?!” Packie asked in a near panic.
“Take it easy. We’re in a different world. Hell, I’ve only been here for a few minutes and I get it,” Dwaine replied.
“And why aren’t you acting like your normal ass self?!” Packie asked.
“Don’t know, but I kind of like this place,” he answered.
“The answer to what is going on is easy,” a voice said.
I turned to see another pony, dressed in a robe, walking toward us. He stopped and a chuckle I had hoped to never hear again came from behind the hidden face under the hood of the robe.
“Mr. Bellic, I can’t say I’m surprised to see you here,” he said.
“This is what you mean by not working for the FIB?” he asked.
“I said before that I work for different people. That’s true, and right now I’ve worked to bring more than just you and your little house mare here. Look at the darken skies Niko. Look and see the disaster trying to spread out. There’s a rip in the very fabric of space and time and it’s trying to devour everything,” he said.
“He’s right,”
I turned to see another me. Her face was serious looking, imposing, and far darker than even I had been before the both of my babies. There was little drops of something stuck to her, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know. She looked at me a few seconds and then shook her head. She turned back toward the hooded figure.
“I told you that we had more than enough ponies in the factory that could do this, and to be honest there are some of them that would enjoy it,” she said.
“What you do in that horror show you call a Rainbow Factory is your business, but I couldn’t risk bringing too many of them here. It’s dangerous enough to have Mr. Bellic and his friends here,” the hooded figure said.
The purple one has been talking for the last two hours. She seems to care what has happened, cares about Dash, but I find this place difficult to trust. Perhaps it is because of how I found Dash. Strapped down to a table, scared, hurt, and threatened with death, but that wasn’t the worst of it. She looked as if she had lost all hope. Her eyes reminded me of the same eyes my friends had. The look of pain and betrayal as we were fired upon was present in all of their eyes. Darko had done that to them. Darko, their friend, had done to them what Dash’s friend had done to her. It was something I believed could have ruined her, but it didn’t. I watched her recover, and I discovered the kind of woman she was. In many ways she reminds me of Kate. I have never told her this. I don’t want to. I don’t want her to think that I have purposely compared her to someone else I cared for so deeply. But the fact remains that she reminds me of her. Like Kate she is so strong, so determined, and… I have never regretted helping her.
Still, I find myself looking toward the hooded person standing off in the distance. He looks toward me every so often, but I do not care. If he thinks that I have contempt for him then he is right.
“Mr. Bellic, Rainbow Dash said that you have some experience with fighting,” the purple one says to me.
“Yes, experience is a way of putting it,” I answer.
“Niko has fought in a variety of wars. If I had the file here I could lay it out for you, but allow me to say that his experience will come in quite handy,” the hooded one says.
I glare at him. The file, it is always the file that he brings up. Everything he had information on about me, gathered into one file, and now… Now I find that he has more information than he even began to explain.
“Tell them,” I say daring him.
“He walked through villages where he is from. Entire villages burned to the ground because of the, ‘old and bitter’, isn’t that what you said before Mr. Bellic? Or perhaps the direct quote is, ‘War is when the young and stupid are tricked by the old and bitter into killing each other.’ It’s quite poetical actually,” he replies.
I feel myself seething as he talks. Everything inside of me screams to make him pay for what he had done to me, done to Dash, to our life together, to Roman’s life, but I manage to hold back.
“Very good Mr. Bellic. I was afraid that your anger would get the better of you. That’s a problem you will face again. There are going to be things we will face that will try to make us turn against each other,” he says.
“Why are we wasting time? Let’s get this done!” the other Dash says.
I study her. She seems like my Dash, but there is something wrong. I can see it inside of her. There seems to be something missing, something dark, it is like she is ruined. My Dash looked into the abyss and didn’t let it take her, but this one… I fear she allowed it to swallow her whole.
“We need a plan of attack,” I state.
“IF that plan includes burning villages down then I’ll ask you,” she shoots back at me.
“Hey! Back off!” my Dash says.
The other Dash looks at her. I see the stubborn streak in my Dash, my wife in the other one. I watch them Glare at one another, and I can tell that neither is going to back down. The other Dash moves toward my wife and looks her directly in her eyes. “And what happens if I don’t? What are you going to do about it?” she asks.
“Guys, we’ve really got to try to work together,” Twilight asks from off to the side.
I can hear the nerviousness in her voice. She knows that there is going to be a fight before this is over with and it’s not going to be a pretty one. My Dash hasn’t flown as a pony in a while, but fighting that’s something else completely. She had helped face down some of the worst humanity had to throw at her. I know she can hold her own. Actually, I feel more afraid for the other Dash. There’s no way she would know what she is getting into by fighting my Dash. I missed the response by my wife, but I didn’t miss the first slap. The hoof of the other Dash striking my wife across the face, and while it might have been the first strike it wasn’t the last. My Dash lashed out. She struck the other Dash in the throat. It caused her to gasp deeply, and from there my Dash worked on her kidneys. She fell to the ground as my Dash looked down at her.
“That’s what will happen bitch,” my Dash spits at her.
“Rainbow Dash…” Twilight starts before I walk up and touch Dash’s shoulder.
“It wasn’t necessary,” I say.
“She needed to be put in her place… I don’t know how I could have become such an uncaring bitch,” she replies.
“Darkness, it swallows everyone,” I reply.
(Rainbow Dash’s view point)
Niko is right about that not being necessary. I didn’t have to hurt her. I didn’t have to beat some sense into her, but she needed it, and to be honest I’m sure she still needs it.. I’m still not really sure how I could have turned out like that. The hooded pony, or agent, whatever he is, had basically explained that we all came from different universes. Niko’s and my universe were connected together at a single point. That was how he was able to come through and save me before. But this other me had been brought though by him. He explained that by bringing another me to this world he weakened the world and was actually putting it into more danger.
Everyone began asking the same question about why he was doing this.
“We need all of the help we can get. Trust me I didn’t do this lightly,” he replies.
I know that I’m a great flyer, and I can do the Sonic Rainboom, but I don’t see how having two ponies who can do that would make any difference. I hear someone clear their throat and looked up.
“Sir, you said that we need to undo this darkness right? So, what should we do? I mean if you don’t mind my asking,” a nearly quiet Fluttershy asks.
I’m surprised to see her speaking up. In truth it’s kind of hard to think of Fluttershy as someone who would speak up, but then I suppose that she had to do some coming out of her shell while I was gone. I watch as she respectfully gives him time to compose himself and answer her. Finally after a sigh he turns toward all of us.
“There are a lot of things that we need to do. More than any of you even realize right now, but the first is to complete the elements of harmony,” he answers.
“Yeah, that’s going to be kind of impossible. I mean you know about Pinkie Pie right?” I ask.
“I know about the clone, yes,” he answers.
“Clone, what clone?!” I ask.
Something glows for a second and I realize that he is a unicorn. It makes sense. That was how he kept up with me and Niko the entire time. A file comes out from a saddlebag hanging on the wall and floats over. It lands and opens to reveal a dark looking picture. He steps forward and clears his throat.
“I’m sure you all remember the Mirror Pond,” he says.
I remember thousands of Pinkie Pies. Thousands of them all bouncing and happy, and the thought sends a shiver down my spine. “Yeah, I remember,” I reply.
He lifts a picture and hands it to me. I look at it and see a figure tied to a bed. It’s a face that I know, a face I believed and still believe tried to kill me, but I can see that I’m wrong. There is Pinkie Pie, and she looks as if she’s been beaten. It’s not the worst of it. She’s human. It means that she’s in Niko’s world. He takes the picture back and places it back into his file.
“I’ve already contacted Jacob and another associate of mine. They should’ve of retrieved her by now, and she should be safe. If everything went well we should be able to retrieve her at any time,” he says.
“You knew, You knew that she didn’t do it, but you let me think it this entire time?! You knew that she was in Liberty City and you didn’t let us know?! All of those jobs we did for you, all of that time we nearly died and you didn’t let us know?!” I scream at him. He takes it and then walks toward me. I feel something force me to sit down before he sits across from me. For the first time his hood comes back and I see a white unicorn stallion who looks so much older than I would have ever imagined he would be. He takes a breath and clears his throat.
“I couldn’t let you know. I wasn’t sure how you would react, and I couldn’t chance that you would kill her. What her clone had done to you warranted any kind of revenge you wished to deliver. I didn’t want you to think that this was the same Pinkie,” he says. “What happened to her?” I ask.
“Someone had taken her over before the clone began its work. I don’t know who, but I know that they had things done to her. Niko and his friends most likely have an idea of what happened,” he answers.
I look at Niko who shakes his head.
“What?” I ask.
“She’s a looker Dash. Girls like that who wind up in Liberty City without anyone to help them or stand up for them… It doesn’t end up good,” Packie says.
“They get turned out on the street,” Dwayne answers.
I look at him and he shakes his head.
“I don’t like it, but it happens. Whatever she was like, I can’t promise she will still be like that,” he says.
“That’s why Twilight will have to perform the memory spell she used in the discord event,” the white stallion says.
(Perspective of Rainbow Dash – Pinkie Pie’s Basement)
I’m not sure exactly what it is that I’m expecting to see down here. I mean I’ve lived with the memory of what Pinkie, or her clone, had done to me for so long. But if it wasn’t really her that did these things to me then I need to be there to see her. The lights in the room come on and I look around at what is an astoundingly clean room. Somepony had cleaned all of the gore that the clone had left here. I didn’t want to know who had to do it. It had to be hard to face so many bodies, and so much death, just to make the room clean once more.
I hear the sounds of footsteps slowly turning into hoofsteps. Within a few seconds I see three ponies coming through the hole in the wall. The first is Jacob. His mane still in the dreadlocks she had seen him wear so often. I could see the flattened hair of Pinkie Pie as he carries her. I wait until he stopped and took notice of what had happened. To his credit he doesn’t seem to freak out too much, but I figure that’s most likely because he must have smoked up before going on this job.
“Karen girl, go ahead and wait out there for me,” he says through the hole.
“You sure?” a voice calls back.
“Yea, I’m sure you hear. I got tis,” he says.
“Hi Jacob,” I say.
“Dash, good to see you girl, but what you do here?” he asks.
“It’s a long story, but how is she?” I ask.
“She’s okay now, but it was bad when we got there,” he says as he carries her up the stairs on his back.
I follow as he finds a place to lay her down. I take another look at her and feel my heart up in my throat. I can see bruises, cuts, track marks, and I don’t even want to look anywhere else. I gently nudge her face, and I’m rewarded by a half open eye looking up at me.
“Dashie?” she asks.
“Pinkie, how are you doing?” I ask.
She shutters and I look at Jacob.
“They give her all kinds of chemicals and things. That’s why the ganja is so much better girl. It’s natural and don’t do this to ya,” he says.
I hear the sounds of other hoofsteps and turn to see Apple Jack, Rarity, Twilight, Fluttershy, and the older Unicorn walking in. I can hear Niko talking outside of the building, and to be honest I’m thankful that he hasn’t come in yet. I hear the audible gasps as they near Pinkie Pie and I wait until Twilight asks the question I know she is going to ask.
“What happened to her?” she asks.
“Was a bunch of Russian Bumbaclots think ey do whata wanna with tis girl. Think ey make the fool o me. Ey fools, Ey dead fools,” Jacob answers.
I watch their faces and can tell that they are trying to figure out what it was that Jacob just said. It was hard for me too, but I can understand him just fine now. Finally Apple Jack looks at him.
“Ummm, what did cha say there partner?” she asks.
“He said that someponies were holding her, and that he went and rescued her,” I answer.
“Oh, thank ya,” Apple Jack replies.
“Niko boy be here then?” Jacob asks.
“I’m out here Jacob,” Niko says from outside of the building.
Jacob walks out and I look at the old stallion unicorn. Before he can even start I clear my throat.
“She needs to get what they put into her out of her system,” I say.
“What did they do?” Rarity asks.
I keep forgetting that with the exception of what the clone had done, and a few other instances, they hadn’t experienced a life in complete chaos. They were lucky, in a way, to not have to deal with the fact that they didn’t have to live with people killing each other, raping each other, and doing other monstrous things to one another. The world I escaped to is dangerous, but it is still beautiful.
I love waking up in the mornings and looking out at the city from the balcony of our apartment. The city looks peaceful, and even though there is the sounds of people below it doesn’t look like the same kind of madness that could do some of the more terrible things that happen there.
The older looking unicorn stallion looks toward me and then turns toward Rarity. He clears his throat for a moment. “The things that happened to her are things that have not happened in Esquestria for a great deal of time. Before harmony reigned in this land there was wars, death, and horrific things done to anypony who didn’t try to protect themselves,” he said.
“That boy there, he say ‘anypony’?” Jacob asked.
“It’s the way we talk here Jacob,” I reply.
The old stallion shakes his head and continues.
“We saw much death here. Before Ponyville was ever founded there was a settlement that held thirty mares, twenty stallions, and over two dozen foals. It didn’t stop the raids, the torture, and the death that happened. All of it was caused by a dark force. It’s force that has been growing in power since its banishment to the space between worlds, but it has learned how to influence those who will let it influence them. The human world has seen much of this because their world is closer to that space,” the stallion says.
“The world were Pinkie Pie was?” Fluttershy asks.
“The very same world she was kept in. That world has more chaos within it than you can understand. The Dark force, or the darkness if you want to call it that, has been influencing the humans for generations. There are those who fight its influence, but I fear the number is growing less and less every passing generation. Eventually it will overtake all of that world, and now it even spreads here,” he said.
“The clone right?” Twilight asked.
“Yes, the clone was influenced by it, but something directly controlled it. There is something working with the Darkness. Something that wants it to spread out into this world, and it wants to watch it fall back into chaos,” he replied.
“What of their princess?” Niko asked.
I watched as he finally came into the building. I know he was giving me the time I needed to deal with seeing Pinkie Pie, but it was good to hear his voice.
“I’m not sure she completely knows,” he replies.
“It wouldn’t be the first time she didn’t realize something,” the other me says.
She leans against a counter and glares at me.
“What are you saying about Princess Celestia?!” Twilight demands.
“What am I saying about the Pony who sits around in Canterlot all day doing nothing, nothing but making those gross sounds from her room, day and night? I’m saying that she abandoned us! She left us to control everything! Luna has to control the rising of the sun, and then the setting of it and the rising of the moon! She doesn’t have the kind of experience that Celestia has and we had to find a way to make up for it!” the other me shouts.
“Princess Celestia wouldn’t do that,” Fluttershy says quietly.
“How do you know huh? How do you know what she would or wouldn’t do?!” she shouts.
“She wouldn’t because that isn’t how she is,” I finally speak up.
“And yet she left this clone to do these terrible things,” my other self says.
“The clone fooled all of us,” Apple Jack replied.
“Yeah, it fooled all of you. It fooled all of you long enough that it did whatever terrible things it did to an unknown number of ponies. At least we had a reason. We had to keep the weather going. We had to keep everything in harmony,” my other say replies. I walk toward her and she backs away. Her face still covered in anger. I touch her shoulder and she looks at me. I can see the torment there. I see the same look I’ve seen in Niko’s eyes a thousand times. She stares at me before turning away.
“You don’t know how lucky you are. None of you know how lucky you are. You don’t have to live in a world where harmony comes at a price that is kept secret from all of Equestria,” she says.
“I know what it’s like to have secrets, and to live in a world that has a very dear price for any kind of peace,” I reply.
She looks at me before lowering her head. I thought that she was uncaring, that she was cold inside, but instead I see something I didn’t expect to see. I watch as the tears stream down her face leaving trails behind them. She tries to turn from me, but I make her stand there. I feel her shake as she stands there. I don’t know what it is she has done, or what she has seen, but I do know that she’s having to deal with something she has tried to deaden herself to.
“You it don’t you? Every time you try to sleep it comes back right?” Niko asks.
She looks at him and nods.
“It won’t ever go away. It can’t go away,” he says.
She loses it completely. Whatever walls was left around her emotions come crashing down. I watch as she cries. She walks toward Fluttershy, and to my surprise she wraps her up in a hug. The sight is astounding to say the least as I watch my other self hold onto Fluttershy, but hearing her say that she’s sorry is something else.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry that I didn’t stop them. I should have stopped them, but I was just shown what happened in there. They swore me to secrecy, and then you found out and was going to tell everypony… I didn’t want it to happen to you,” she cries out. “I don’t know what happened, but I’m sure that my other self forgives you,” Fluttershy squeaks out. I watch as this version of myself shakes her head and instead holds onto my friend. She continues to ask for forgiveness, and I find myself wondering exactly what had happened to Fluttershy in her world.
Finally, she lets go and I watch as Fluttershy, who is blushing deeply, tells her that she forgives her, but doesn’t know why she wants forgiveness. She turns toward me once again and walks toward where I am standing. “You can’t abandon them again,” she says.
“Element of loyalty right?” I ask.
“You are, but I haven’t been for a long, long time,” she answers.
What did I do in that other world? What could have caused me to abandon my friends and stop being the element of loyalty?
“Dash… Dashie? Where am I?” Pinkie asks.
“You’re home Pinkie, you’re home,” I answer.
(Perspective of the Agent/Older Stallion)
It’s touching. I’ve seen this kind of display several times over my long years. Even on Earth, in Liberty City, I’ve seen this kind of sweetness. It still surprises me. I suppose it does because it’s one of the few things that are both a constant and a variable. Still, we need to move quicker than we are at the moment. Mr. Bellic was right about needing a plan, but he doesn’t understand how much we need one. There are forces at work that even I am completely unaware of, and I fear that those forces may have already affected Princess Celestia. The Princess wanted me to be ready should anything happen, but I’m not doing what I do for her. It’s to keep a promise.
A promise made to a young filly I once held in my arms when I was a much younger stallion. I promised that I would keep harmony in the land, and that I would never abandon her, or the ponies she loved. My old eyes look up to the ceiling and I catch myself from drifting too far. I can’t be thinking about her right now. She has things she must do, and I have other works. I hear Twilight talking and after a moment I realize that she’s speaking to me.
“What?” I ask.
“I asked if we need to get the doctor,” she repeats.
“What’s in her body isn’t natural, and having someone who could help cure it would help, but we need her helped quicker than normal medicine could do it. We need Zecora,” I reply.
“Why her?” Apple Jack asks.
“Because she has a vast knowledge of natural cures, herbal healing teas, and because she will be quick and quiet about it. The doctors have to report to the Equestian medical council. If the Darkness has begun seeping into the world it will get into places where it knows what is going on,” I answer.