Loyalty's Wrath
Rainbow Dash’s fury burned with explosive energy.
Quite literally, as I discovered. As Dash regained control of her body, I felt the pulsing electricity of the Element of Loyalty course through her body and soul as it appeared around her neck. From my backseat in Dash’s head, I could make out piles of melted slag scattered about the immediate area, likely the pieces of what once was the animal cage that had held me prisoner, destroyed by some kind of shockwave from the Element’s emergence. I was stunned by the sudden volatility of the magical artifact.
What happened next was all but a blur to me. Rainbow Dash’s berserking fury was a haze through which I could only get flashes and blurred images of what was going on. There was a lot of loud noise, a bunch of color, and a few occasions of screaming. Sometimes, I felt Dash’s mind suddenly rifle through my memories at a rapid pace, skimming a very specific part of it that left me perplexed; why would Dash, in the middle of a rage, want to know about my freshman anatomy class?
Through it all, I could feel Dash’s mind holding on to a thought; some memory that flashed through my head in pieces and barely-comprehensible fragments of emotion. The one thing that I heard perfectly clearly was Dash’s voice, much younger than she was now, saying “...promise I’ll watch her. I’ll keep her safe.” There was another detail, less focused but still present, that made especially little sense to me.
Suddenly, for a few seconds, everything went black. Slowly, I began to feel the sensation of a physical body return to me. It felt like I was coming down from an intense adrenaline spike; my heart was beating an allegro in my ears, I was breathing heavily in huffing gasps, and the energy and alertness from whatever ordeal Dash went through still flowed through my blood. The familiar weight of the Element of Loyalty hung around my neck. My wings ached at the base from some kind of strain, like a lot of sharp mid-air turns. Yet my vision remain dark, for some unknown reason.
‘Your eyes are closed,’ Dash said flatly from within her usual spot in my head.
Dash...? I answered still very confused. What... what the hell...?
‘Just open your eyes, Markus.’ She sounded almost somber, a dejected tone in her voice.
Doing as Dash said, I opened my eyes. The first thing I noticed was my forelegs and wings wrapped around a small body of orange and fuschia, which shivered in my grasp. It took me several moments to remember who the pony was...and who had become her.
“...Anna?” I asked the filly.
Scootaloo’s head nodded, but she didn’t speak. My sister seemed shocked about something.
But...the last thing I remember was seeing her in that cage, being taken away, then... I recounted the destruction caused by the Element of Loyalty again. How did she get out? What did Dash do to...
Then I became aware of my surroundings. We were against the back wall of what looked like the loading garage of some office building, the main door ajar and letting light in around the outline of a moving van parked outside. Along the sides of the garage were several animal crates, identical to the one that had held me. In the middle of the room was a sight that I found very disturbing: the thestral mare that had come in to rescue us, standing victoriously on a large human body. From the size of him, I guessed it was the oaf from before, knocked out cold.
The thestral--Ariel, I recalled--was looking at me with a curious light in her slitted eyes. She leaped off the body and glided over to me. “Despite how reckless you can get, you’re pretty handy in a fight,” she suddenly said, adding to my confusion. “Or at least... provided a good enough distraction with your angry yelling and rager thing so I could take them out.”
“Take them ou...” I stammered, still disoriented. My grip around my sister tightened for security. “I... I don’t remember what happened... Dash took over and everything just...”
“Markus,” the orange pegasus gasped. “Markus, I can’t breathe.”
“Oops, sorry.” I let the filly go, letting her roll to the ground. To my relief, Scootaloo’s body looked mostly untouched beyond a ruffled mane. “Glad you’re okay, squirt.”
“Wait wait wait... back up,” Ariel interjected. “You don’t remember everything you just did, like, two minutes ago?”
I shook my head. “Rainbow Dash took control... I was mostly blind in her head,” I replied. “Why? What’d she do?”
“She kicked butt,” Scoo-- Anna reported.
...That was a weird slip, I thought to myself.
“Excuse me, I was the one kicking ass!” Ariel declared in an offended tone. “All she did was smack ‘em around a ton. Knew what she was doing too: hit ‘em where it hurts most every time. That gave me an opening to swoop in and lay them out like a badass ninja!” It was almost comical to watch the thestral pantomime the scene with her forelegs, then make an expression of delighted self-accomplishment. “Being a Night Guard thestral is so fucking kick-ass.”
Well, that explains why Dash was suddenly interested in anatomy class, I thought with a chuckle. She wanted to know all the soft spots on a human.
‘You have a lot of them,’ the pegasus taunted. ‘Especially right between their legs’
I grimaced. That’s cold.’
‘I was bucking pissed,’ Dash argued. ‘NOPONY lays a hoof on Scootaloo. Nopony.’
“Markus, what’s that look for?” Anna asked, referring to my sudden grimace.
“Nothing,” I responded. “Just... talking to the pony in my head.”
Anna rolled her eyes. “Weirdo.”
‘...she doesn’t know,’ Dash noted.
That’s probably a good thing, right? I reasoned, chuckling at my sister’s reaction. It means she and Scootaloo haven’t merged too much yet. Any chance of--
‘--getting them separated--’
“--we should be--”
“--thankful for.”
“We should be thankful for...what?” Ariel asked suddenly, raising an eyebrow at me. Anna had a similar expression.
I blinked, then realized both Dash and I spoke out loud and in turn, sounding like a single thought. “Sorry, just...” I stammered, my wings twitching nervously. “For being alive?” What the schist just happened?
Ariel looked unconvinced, but shrugged. “We need to get moving anyway,” the thestral said to the two of us, turning toward the garage entrance and trotting over. “The others are already outside and ready to leave. Besides, there’s a friend of yours that would like to see you again, Markus.”
I tilted my head as I followed along. “A friend?” I asked.
“Uh... guys?” We turned back to look at Anna, who simply stood with her hooves in place. The pegasus filly seemed to have a very shaky stance. “How do you walk?”
‘...son of a bitch,’
...son of a bitch,
Dash and I thought together.
“Here...” I flapped over and scooped the small pony up and set her gently on my back. It felt... familiar, almost. Like from when I would fly her around Ponyville because she liked to feel the experience of flying in-- No, that’s Dash’s memory, I reminded myself. Must be all the stress getting to me. With my sister on my back for mobility, I followed Ariel out of the garage, leaving behind many bad memories.
~+~+~+~
“MARKUS!”
“Chloe? Is tha--?” WHAM! “AAH SCHIST WHY!?!”
Thump.
That was basically how Chloe and I started our happy reunion. When Ariel and I left the complex where I was being held, I found a minivan waiting for us, the other captured ponies already inside. As soon as Anna, Ariel, and I mounted up, Ariel’s human friend, Jeff, drove us off to safety, namely Jeff’s apartment near Chicago.
I was pleasantly surprised to find Dazzle--a cream-colored unicorn stallion with a wand cutie mark--to have been recovered and mostly unharmed, aside from a slightly-blood-stained bandage at the base of his horn, and sleeping soundly next to Deedee, an emerald earth pony with a dollop of whipped cream on her flank. In the back of the car sat Zach (or Zigzag, as Anna told me). The odd zebra looked a lot different than Zecora in that his stripes were jagged and haphazardly patterned. Luckily, he kept his psychotic rambling to himself on the ride.
“Gidoff,” I grunted at the pony that had tackled me to the ground in a hug.
“Sorry! Got excited!” Chloe apologized, jumping off me.
Smiling at my pegasus companion, I got to my hooves and properly hugged her. “Never thought I would see your pink butt again,” I chuckled.
Chloe returned the hug. “I’d say the same, but your butt is kind of a big deal on the internet.”
‘Hey, that’s MY butt!’
Duly noted, Dash.
“We wouldn’t have come after you if it wasn’t for Chloe,” Ariel claimed, hopping up on Jeff’s couch. The thestral yawned, looking nonchalant. “We found her scoping out the complex you were being held in. I had been doing a little reconnaissance into the place after Jeff overheard two PAPA mugs talking about taking about trafficking ponies into it for transport to their main HQ in St. Louis.”
“I’m like a mole,” Jeff said, the rugged-looking human taking a seat next to Ariel. “I go to PAPA-friendly hangouts and find all sorts of stuff.”
“Stuff for what?” I asked. Why would they go through all that trouble?
Ariel and Jeff shared a glance. “Uh... we’ll talk about it later,” the thestral replied with a yawn. “Right now, we all need some shut-eye.” She glanced over at where the other ponies were on the rug, my sister included, to find they had mostly collapsed into slumber. “Captivity hasn’t been good on them, I suppose.”
“You either,” Airheart bantered at me, flicking her tail on my nose. "You look tired."
My face formed a frown as I considered the idea of a nap. It would be good for me, sure, and it would let me talk face-to-face with Dash in depth about what happened back at the warehouse. There was something nagging at the back of my head, though; some sort of instinct that said sleep was a very bad idea. It was nothing from Dash's side, either... rather, I felt that it was my own subconscious that was trying to tell me something. I Relayed this thought to Dash quickly.
'Yeah, same here,' she replied, shifting around in my head. 'It sorta feels like when I'm standing at the edge of a cloud about to take a free fall dive into a loop. That weird feeling that tells you it's gonna be dangerous.'
I nodded, biting my tongue. Self-preservation, I thought to her. Our minds are trying to preserve themselves now that our barrier is fading... maybe being together in a dream isn't so good?
'My vote is for staying awake.'
"Hey, Colors, I'm talking to you," Chloe snapped, clapping her hooves together in front of me.
"Yeah, sorry, just thinking," I told her, fluttering my wings to the pile of sleeping ponies. Standing over the orange form of Anna in Scootaloo's body, I felt a small pang of guilt for both, that they will go through the same thing Dash and I are at the moment: struggling to keep a hold on one another's identity. Even now, as I stared at the pegasus filly, I saw memories of Scootaloo that I couldn't have known myself; eating ice cream on a cloud on a hot summer day and talking about how I pulled off my latest awesome stunt, kicking a hoofball around in the fall when Scoots' small form seemed to blend with the color of the freshly-fallen leaves, carrying her home every time she had a bad crash on her scooter... then there was the time I had her help with Fluttershy's animals when she--
A sharp pain shot through my head, shattering the memory. Hissing, I turned away from Anna and scolded Dash. Uh, OW!? What the flying fuck was that for!? When Dash was silent, I pressed again, yelling at her in my head. Nothing. She was there--I could feel her blocking herself out, but the rainbow pegasus let me have no ground. Fine, then.
"I'll just... rest my head for a few minutes," I told Chloe. "I think we both need a breather after all."
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you should continue or i will find you and then.....
Ehmm anyway good story
38.media.tumblr.com/f8d306007614d5c2bdddd86fdfbc94e0/tumblr_nbmstiJ84Z1s8mmu8o1_400.gif
Edit: I was wrong.
5050602
I agree with ya
5050627
Yes he's back he's back!!!!!!!!
Interesting story but you should make your chapters longer. I read all 26 chapters in less than an hour >.>
I like the way the way the story is currently going especially with Dash and Marcus communicating like that.
If you change the way she looks, she is no longer rainbow dash.
DASH IS BEING CONSUMED BY DARKNESS! SOMEONE CALL SORA QUICK!
...we need more panic emotes...
oh boy. i have a feeling that's the effects of the merge.
huh, wonder what laurnstia and taruna are doing right now. wonder if they've merged with their respective ponies yet
look forward to more, though i was expecting anna to have more questions
5051127 5051127 5051127 5051127 5051127 5051127 5051127 5051127 5051127 5051127
YES
WAHT A TWEEST
"Uh, Dash? Did you know your mane color is water soluble?"
Nooo! Please don't be done!
Yellow eyes? Really?
Huh, not so sure about the Discordian eyes, she hasn't accepted the proposal yet!
Then again, things....
Keep going! ;)
Fun to read
The story has been fun so far! One thing I like in particular is the idea of how that personality merge happens, and how neither of them are comfortable with it but both are trying to find a way to handle it. I've seen stories where someone gets transformed and they're simply overwritten with a new mind. That's horrible to read because it's basically about the original person dying. The complexity of a merge is a lot more interesting as well as pleasant. (I just turned down an awful-sounding proposed story commission that had one interesting thing in it: a team slowly developing a sort of hive mind in a non-horrible way.)
One part of the story I didn't like was the use of real people (Faust and De Lancie). It's just weird, especially to make one of them evil for no clear reason and giving him a Ukrainian Bad Guy (tm) on speed dial. It's worth comparing this story to the "Five Score" stories, where the villains seem to be either direct aspects of Discord's magic (which needs no further explanation for why it's evil) or disorganized, confused people who're alarmed by the unexplained explosions the ponies are causing or want to sell them as pets. (There's a similar "breaking out of a warehouse" scene too.)
MOAR
5631401
The hindsight is real, man. I was tricked into this.
5481522 yeah the Delancie part makes no sense to me.
6293555
Who knows?
do we have a possible ETA on the next chapter per chance?
6400579 I'm currently at the start of my first year in college, so I'm not sure when ANY of my stories will be updated. I do plan to come back and finish this, though. It just won't be any time soon.
6401363 oh okay, no worries, I actually understand when it comes to college and Uni. Good luck on your course
6401363 next few chapters please
is there a remake of this?
do more chapters
hay do more chapters of this story
hay do continue it I like where this story is going
continue it
11001673
I still keep tabs on this since I first found it back when it had two-three chapters, I think everyone wants it back... but it just got so chaotic that it might have worn the author's motivation down for the actual series.