"Come on!" John Carver said as he hoisted Rainbow Dash up to the island where the Codex was and gave her his shoulder as they went to the device, Rainbow having a large bloody gash on the side of her head, her hair also streaked with red. "So this is, huh?" he said. "We use that Codex."
"Yeah," she said when they were near it.
"No more bullshit? We die here, now?"
"But Earth…gets a tomorrow." With her hands on the device, she turned it to a horizontal position and both were thrown back by the shockwave of the activation as the Machine did its work. Rainbow saw Carver ejected from the island from the force, and she was next, floating in the void of space without her helmet. As she drifted through the void she pulled out the half picture of her and Mark, this one being just him as he smiled. She gazed at it—then let it go as it flew through the air. Her gaze turned upward to the Moon; she saw the device float past her, and then the Moon suddenly came crashing down.
She accepted her fate. She wasn't afraid anymore. With a faint smile and as the Necromorph came closer to her, she slowly closed her eyes and waited for her end…
Back in another dimension—that was Canterlot in Equestria—in Celestia's castle, the mane six (that was now called the Mane Five) stood with the three alicorn princesses, as well as the Wonderbolts being there. Since Rainbow Dash had disappeared everypony was feeling depressed about her disappearance, even her idols. However, Twilight knew that there was a way to bring her back, but this spell was going to need magic that was powerful, and her theory was forming: if she could use her element as well as her other friends, plus with the magic that Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Princess Cadance had, they might be able to bring her back to Equestria.
Since that experiment she did on Rainbow Dash—and she was kicking herself in the head for this stupid mistake—she was sure that this would work, and bring her back. But another question she had in head was where did she accidentally sent her best friend to?
That didn't matter to her now. She would figure that out another time; right now she was going to bring her back with her friends and the Princesses help. Now that they were here, their elements of Harmony around their neck, they were getting ready. Twilight looked at the Wonderbolts and gave them a sheepish smile. "I'm sorry to pull you guys away from your work at the Academy."
Spitfire, their leader, smiled and shook her head. "No, it's okay. After years of not seeing Rainbow Dash at our Wonderbolt shows, we've been feeling a little down as well. Soarin, I think, was feeling the worse of it. Eh, Soarin," Spitfire said as she nudged her elbow into the guy's ribs with a smirk, while he could feel a blush coming onto his cheeks.
"Hey, it's not like that!" he said, raising his hands in defense.
"You sure about that?" Fleetfoot asked in her lisp.
"Yes. I'm just worried about her like Spitfire said, and I want to see her back at our shows like she used to go to."
"Trust me, guys," Twilight said, "this will work."
"It will, Twilight," Princess Celestia said. "I have faith in you."
With her friends with their Elements, and the Princesses horns glowing with their magic, they got ready. The Wonderbolts watched the spectacle with fascination as their magic from the Elements and the Princesses magic as it all combined together and grew in size, becoming bigger and bigger until the sphere of magic floated into until the sphere exploxed into a burst of bright light that blinded everybody for a moment. When the light faded, they looked and saw a figure lay on the floor dressed in a weird suit that they never seen before. For a moment, they were all concerned that something went wrong with the transportation spell. They all looked at Twilight, while she just shook her head.
"Don't look at me. I know that the spell's right, but I can't tell who that is."
"More importantly, what kind of getup are they wearin'?" Applejack said, seeing the suit that the person wore. Twilight walked closer to them and saw that the suit's material was made for colder climates, like the Northern Equestrian Mountains.
"What about these?" said the blond as she held up one of the weapons that was built for two hands and looked incredibly powerful, while the other looked like it was built for one hand; another thing they took into notice was the small robot. Twilight's fascination with them were cut short as the person groaned and slowly started to move; Twilight was about to remove the helmet for them when the helmet began to fold itself away automatically and everyone all felt their breath and hearts stop when they saw the person's face.
She's back...after so many years, Princess Celestia thought as she saw her face, noting how it had face lines visible. This was also noticed by the others and wondered how much older she was now that she was taken out of that other world. "Where...where..." she said to herself and looked around the room—then her head started to move around. She looked down at her hands. "Am I dead?"
"Dashie..." Pinkie Pie said quietly as she went up to her friend, but she got defensive and looked around and saw her weapons. Making a mad slid to the guns, she got the two-handed weapon—Heavy Metal Thunder.
"Get back!" she said, pointing the weapon at them, the blue laser target painting their sight. For them, they couldn't believe what Rainbow Dash had become—something in that other dimension made her lose her sanity and become the person she was. In her mind, Rainbow Dash saw Necromorphs before her, and she wasn't going to let them kill her. If they got to her she was going to blow them to pieces with a rocket.
"You won't take me, I won't become one of you!" She started to hyperventilate, not taking the laser target off her enemy; her irises were like pinpricks and a crazed look was one her face. The Princesses were in shock and saddened by how damaged she had become, but they weren't going to let her hurt them—even if she was an Element of Harmony.
Princess Celestia cautiously went up to her slowly. "Rainbow Dash, why are you like this? Put that...thing down before I'm forced to make you."
"Shut up!" she yelled out, the crazed look still etched on her face. "I killed you back on the Sprawl, and now you're back for another round? Well this time I'm going to make sure you stay dead, Allen."
Whatever Rainbow Dash was saying didn't make any sense to them; they knew they had to subdue her and calm her down, or else Celestia and her sister would have to have her guards take action. It was funny, though, because the guards immediately stormed inside the room (as well as Twilight's brother) and got in front of Rainbow Dash.
"State your business here!" Shining Armor said as him and his men got into position, but the Princess held the captain's shoulder. "No, Shining Armor. Stand down, and let me and my sister handle this."
"But Princess—"
"Stand down, Shining Armor," Princess Celestia said sternly, and Shining Armor knew better than to argue with her majesty, so he did while she looked at him. The three princesses stood before Rainbow Dash, and she was about to shoot at them with the secondary fire, but one of Shining Armor's guards had snuck up behind her and the two started to wrestle until her weapon got knocked out of her hand.
Princess Celestia looked at Shining Armor, who just looked the same. "I'm sorry, Princess. But I can't allow any harm to come to you. I must do my job. Soldiers, get in there and help him!"
Three more soldiers got into the scuffle and were able to subdue her and held her in front of everybody. Princess Celestia slowly walked up to her as Rainbow Dash tried to break free from the grip of the guards; Celestia gently put her hands on Rainbow's face, but Rainbow tried to bite at her. The Princess saw that there was no way for her to find out what was wrong with the Element of Loyalty. Celestia just looked at her with pity and sadness and said to Shining Armor, "I'm sorry to say this. Shining Armor, please...please take Rainbow Dash to...a secluded room and make sure she's restrained."
Shining Armor looked down at Rainbow and also felt pity for girl—or woman—as she took her to the room as she screamed and fought against the guards, screaming as they moved further and further down the hall to the room while the others just stood frozen in shock about what had just transpired. They hadn't seen Rainbow Dash in years, and now that she was brought back she was a completely different person; Princess Celestia knew that her mind must have been tragic and made her lose her sanity. For this, she would have to have her sister go into her mind at night so she could find out what was going inside her head. It might have to come to that, Celestia said to herself.
Nightfall came to Equestria soon, and everybody in the building was sleeping. Celestia had offered for her student and her friends to stay the night in the castle, which was something they didn't mind; of course, Twilight was quick to refuse her offer because she knew her mentor was always busy, but the Princesses assured her that it was going to be okay. Shining Armor and his men had left the room where Rainbow Dash was in; they had to strap her down to a table and put her under. She would be sleeping for hours, probably.
After the tussle they had with her they did their rounds around the castle, occasionally passing her room every now and then to make sure the sedative hadn't worn off too quickly and she was screaming like she was before.
Two soldiers were walking down a hallway together, talking about what had just happened a few hours ago. "I still can't believe what happened. I mean, she's been gone for so long and all of the sudden she just snaps for no reason and attacks everybody."
The other nodded. "I know. Something must have happened to her to be like that.
"You don't think she was...you know?"
He shook his head, "No likely; she was screaming about something called Necromorphs and somebody named Allen. To me, it sounded like she was even more crazy than she already was."
"But she's sedated, so let's just do our rounds like usual. How much did you give her?"
"About twelve; that should be enough until morning. By then we can figure out something."
Finishing up their talk, both went different directions for their rounds. In one of the castle's bedrooms the others—and Spike—all tried to get some rest but it was hard after what happened today. But somehow they pushed that into the back of their minds and were able to sleep. It was a miracle they were, even with Fluttershy crying to herself in the middle of the night and waking them up—she said it was because of nightmares of Dash trying to hurt her. The girls consoled her and told her it was just because Dash wasn't feeling right.
"But what if she really does try to hurt us?" she asked. "You saw those weapons she has, she could easily hurt us."
"Try not to think about it, darling," Rarity said, caressing her softly on her head.
"Come on, Fluttershy. If it helps, I'll stay by your side," said Applejack.
Fluttershy nodded. There was plenty of room for the two of them since the beds in the castle were quite large. Even though she had someone to sleep with, she still didn't feel safe; and Twilight was scared, but she was also wanting to know about that suit she wore and those weapons that she had. In Princess Celestia and Luna's quarters, they slept; however, the two sister's talked and Celestia had told Luna to probe her mind to see what was inside that made her become so unstable—and Princess Luna agreed.
Inside of Rainbow Dash's mind Luna found many things that contributed to what made her so unstable—and when she saw it she was terrified and felt the need to vomit from what she was seeing. How somebody could have these things in their head was beyond her, she thought to herself. Moving through this place was horrifying, and when she looked out the window, she saw nothing but deep space that reminded her of her imprisonment on the moon so many decades ago; she didn't want to think about it. Fascinated with the background outside, her mind didn't register the thing that had come from behind her from the vent shaft that she was near and pin her down to the floor, screeching and twisting its open mouth to tear her shoulder off. To Luna it looked like some sort of horrific abomination of a scorpion with teeth (when its mouth opened) that looked long and sharp and folded over when it closed its mouth when it missed.
Luna tried to pry this thing from her and knew she couldn't, until somebody from behind her pulled the creature off by its tail, placed their food on his head and squashed it like an orange and threw it to the side; that didn't help as the creature kept moving, but the person pulled out a weapon and shot at its arm. It crawled towards the person, but they took the creature's head off with another shot, killing it.
With the creature dead, they looked at the Princess. Neither said a word. The person started to move through the corridors to where they were going. "Wait!' Princess Luna called out, hoping to know who they were and thank them, but they ignored her and continued on their own path—and Luna followed, hoping that they could tell her what was going on.
Deeper into this metallic place she followed the person, hoping they would stop so she could ask them some questions. Coming up one of the doors, she saw this one had a strange blue glow in the center of it, while the other ones had an orange glow. She went up to the door and put her hand on the blue hologram; the door said 'OPEN?' and she touched it again and the door opened to another part that the person was.
Inside this one part she was met with another horrific scene—bodies were loitered around the room with candles and strange markings on the floor and walls of the room, as well as a strange markings on the walls and floor.
"My God, what happened to her?" Luna said to herself as she continued to move through the hall. As she delved deeper and deeper into her mind, she saw things that made her want to throw up, but, by a miracle she held it back. She knew she would be vomiting once she woke up the next morning. Back in the real world Rainbow Dash's head was jerking back and forth while her body twitched like she was having a seizure.
Celestia had to hold her sister firmly to get her to stop shaking; it had worked to a tee, but Luna then refused to sleep in her own bed, so the two sister's had to sleep together, which Celestia had accepted, but it made her think about whatever Luna had seen was so horrific that she had to postpone making all of Equestria see what was inside Rainbow Dash.
The next morning, everybody was around the Princesses dinner table eating breakfast as the servants brought plates of food and placed them in front of the girls and their majesties; they all didn't eat, even when the servants left. Princess Luna looked down at her food and could see nothing but flesh and bone in front of her—the experience last night made her stomach churn from the mental image she was conjuring up and she hastily left the table and to the bathroom. Everybody looked at each other, confused, until they heard the sound of the Night Princess heaving and expelling all the contents from her stomach into the toilet.
Hearing that, none of them had an appetite anymore. Even before breakfast none of them were hungry at all—all they were worried about was their friend. When they had gotten up this morning, the first thing they all did was go to the Princesses and ask them about Rainbow Dash; and they assured her she was okay. One of Celestia's servants came back with a full cart with the food still on it.
Celestia saw this and raised an eyebrow. "I ordered you to give her some food this morning," she said with a slight raise in her voice.
The servant felt herself shudder for a brief moment before he looked up at her Majesty. "Princess Celestia, I mean you no disrespect when I say this, but she refused to eat the food; I even tried to feed some of it her and she resisted. All she kept telling me was that everything around her wasn't real, and that she just wanted to be killed."
Everybody felt their blood go cold at the mention of that. Princess Celestia knew that if she didn't look into Rainbow Dash's mind soon, the Element Bearer would be nothing but a shell and she would try to take her own life because of her depression, or try to hurt another one of her subjects. Princess Celestia looked at one of her guards and ushered him to come forth. "Your highness?" he asked, waiting for his command.
"Bring Rainbow Dash to us, but make sure she's restrained."
"At once," he said, and he as well as some other guards left to get the girl from where she was. From the hall, they could hear the sounds of her screaming and her struggling as the men tried to force and restrain her—then it was quiet. Then the soldiers came with her strapped to a chair with a mellow look on her face. Princess Celestia looked at him with question.
"Rest assured, your highness. We just gave her something to calm her down so you could talk with her."
Celestia nodded and looked at Rainbow Dash. "My dearest, what happened to you to suddenly lash out at all of us like that?" she asked, worry clearly evidence on her face.
"What would it matter? None of this is real. I'm just going crazy like I was back on the Sprawl, though it was nice for you to put me back in some type of restraint." She smiled at them, "Very comforting."
"Rainbow Dash, what happened to you?" Rarity nearly screamed.
"Um, Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy said, "what happened to your hair? It's short now, and I can see some grey in it."
Her eyes went up to look at her hair and said, "Well, that's what happens with age, and I had to cut it short."
"Age?" Twilight said, perplexed by this. "How old are you?"
"Forty-nine, forty-seven...somewhere around there. Why?"
All of them stood in shock when she said the age she was now, and then looked at her face. True to what she said it did show age: her face was more weary and haggard than it used to be, and her eyes had dark circles under them while they saw that her hair—even though it had her same prism color—was now showing signs of greying. "How..." Celestia began to say, "how did this happen?"
Rainbow Dash just looked away. "I think Twilight would be better off explaining it to you." She looked down at her restrains and then back up. "Can you..." she gestured towards them.
"Of course," Princess Luna said.
The guards took off the restraints as Rainbow Dash got to her feet and stretched her body, feeling how her joints were popping back into place. After that she started to head for the entrance to the castle while the others watched her go.
She looked back at them. "Don't follow me," she said in a low, cold voice that none of them ever heard her use before. They just stood where they were even as the doors closed. For Rainbow Dash, she was glad to be back in her original home, but what now that Earth was safe? She glad that the Brethren Moons were stopped, but what would happen now that it was over; what would happen to Carver and Mark. Her mind was going a hundred miles an hour that she started to feel the beginnings of a headache coming on, and just rubbed her head. It didn't matter that she wasn't on Earth anymore, she was back in the place she belonged.
Earth was safe, and Mark and Carver could continue on with their lives. As Rainbow Dash moved through Canterlot, a lot of the people gave her looks because of the way she was dressed, as well as the weapons she was holding; she didn't pay them any mind. Just ignore everybody, she thought to herself as she went to a table and sat down, placing her weapons on top.
Her elbows on the table she cradled her head in her hands and let out a sigh. Then a waiter came by the table. "Ma'am, are you okay? Would you like anything?"
Rainbow Dash didn't say anything. She never gave it much thought about her hunger, but since she was already here she might as well get something in her stomach. In a low voice, she just said, "I'll just take sandwich with an iced tea."
"Yes, ma'am." The waiter took her order and left to get it taken care of, while the woman was berating herself about how she had gotten herself into another of her stupid mistakes—how the hell was she going to pay for this? She hoped that this order would be on the house, otherwise she was going to be in a pickle.
Waiting on her food didn't take long, it was here fast, and when it was she ate—not ravishly—slowly and hoped this would settle her troubled mind. As she ate, she thought back on the New Horizon's Lunar Colony, back at her apartment at how she was able to make those drawings on those sketchpads; the Markers' control from her should have been gone when she killed Allen in her mind!
But she was back home, and the Marker signal was gone. If the signal was gone then the Brethren Moons didn't have a way to get to Earth. Finally, the threat of the Necromorphs and the Markers were over. "Ma'am?" the waiter's voice rang through her ears. She blinked and brought herself back to reality and looked down, seeing her food and drink in front of her. "Enjoy your food," the waiter said while she nodded as a thanks and he left to serve other people.
While she ate, her mind wondered about all the things she had been through the years she had been gone (thanks to Twilight's teleportation spell). At first she didn't realize that spell like that would be able to send her somewhere like Earth; she thought that Twilight would have to need a more advanced book (which she knew wasn't impossible since she lived in a library) and some stronger magic.
Earth was a whole new experience for her, especially with how advanced the technology was in their world. She told herself she wasn't in that "egghead-stuff" like Twilight was, but somehow she had grown accustomed to it and found a job working as an engineer for a company called Concordance Extraction Corporation, or CEC as she always liked to call it because of its short memorization. She never expected to be having a career working on spaceships, but she needed a way to eat.
Speaking of eating, she nearly ate most of her sandwich. She ate slow so as to think while she ate. "Rainbow Dash, um, don't you think you should stop hiding about where you've been? If that's okay with you?" Fluttershy asked meekly from beside her, which made the woman almost choke on her food from fright. Even with what was in her mouth, she managed to take calming breaths before swallowing.
"Fluttershy! Don't do that! I had enough of that stuff happening to me on Tau Volantis!" she said.
Fluttershy squeaked as she shrank back, making Rainbow feel guilty. "Sorry. But as I said, and I'm not going to repeat myself, but I'm not going to be telling anyone."
"But if you don't, then, The Princesses will have to go inside your mind and find out what happened while you were gone."
Rainbow Dash stopped eating, set her food down on the plate—what was left of it, and looked at her friend. "You think I want that, Fluttershy? If that happened then I would be branded as a basket-case and put back into a hospital. And if she makes all of Equestria see it, then everybody won't be able to sleep."
"I'm just trying to help."
"Well I appreciate it, but don't. This is something I have to do on my own."
After their short talk, Rainbow Dash left while explaining to the waiter that she didn't have anything to pay for it, but he was generous to her and told her it was on the house. That made her feel better. She didn't have anything (at least not yet) and left the restaurant and went back home. When she got there she was surprised by the look of her house, it hadn't changed in the years she was gone, and hoped that Tank was okay since that time. She was sure that Fluttershy had taken care of him for her; she had that way with animals and wouldn't let nothing happen to Tank.
Inside her house all was quiet and nothing had changed on the inside. Looking around she saw the green shell of her tortoise lying on the floor. She smiled. "Tank?" she said softly, and his head peeked out from his shell, and when he saw his master he flew over to her and she took him into her arms.
"Good to see you, too. I'm sorry I've been gone for so long." She saw him looking at her strangely and she giggled at this. "Yeah, I've aged a lot—crazy, isn't it?" The tortoise didn't care that she had aged, all he cared about was that she was back; she nuzzled into her chest lovingly. Going to her bed, she laid her pet down and left and went to her kitchen...when she felt a headache coming on. She staggered as the pain felt like it was a drill going through her skull and was close to passing out. Lucky for her she was near the counter, and took hold of it as she felt the pain pass quickly.
She shook her head. "What the hell was that about?"
Putting the headache behind her, for now, she opened the fridge and pull out some cider and poured herself a glass, and then went to the table, tapping her fingers against the glass she she looked at the golden-brown liquid.