Vivid Dream.
Chapter One.
Can You Hear Me?
It was a few seconds into the race that she lost control. Her wings had overtaken her mind, and her body fell into the anarchy of the unsuppressed soul. Her mind racing in its attempts to get itself together, she began to wonder if she had finally achieved what she had always dreamed: the approval of a brutal peer group, the approval of the public, too absent-minded enough to realize her genius; and the approval of her family, simply too absent to realize her genius. A whisper in the darkness cries out "Father..." as the skin of her face begins to peel from pure gravitational force. She stared at the ground, feeling more powerful than she ever had, and began to accelerate even further. She had tried to reach this point before, but it was the incentive that struck her into this chaotic point, her nirvana. She felt the energy rising, and it happened. The burst. The moment fate had decided as the turning point. The crossroads in the lives of a group whose collected effect on the universe was considerably higher than they would ever expect; particularly this crossroads itself. The perpetrator, one Rainbow Dash of Cloudsdale, had just caused irreparable damage to the time-space continuum.
Our traveller had disappeared from the sky on one side, and entered another. It was exactly identical to the original in every way, except for the results of the strange Technicolor array she had unleashed in her speed. This gave the inspiration to a number of area ponies, who would later become friends. This universe, held together at the seams by optimism and coincidence, was likely the closest thing to a utopia of the hundreds of outcomes and futures that had been created at the moment of the explosion. Dash had the misfortune of discovering this today.
The sun was, as usual, bright and hanging in the sky, thanks to Celestia and the crack team of pegasi who cleared the clouds each morning (though Dash was herself part of that second group, but had taken the day off). Dash woke up, and floated across the cloud-floor of her home. She often wondered if the others were bitter about her having made her house specifically to avoid guests. Grabbing some breakfast, Dash quietly half-walked/half-flew out the door and looked over the town. Backwoods kind of place, not half worthy of her divine presence, she thought (not exactly in those terms), but familiar and cozy nonetheless. Dash was entirely unaware of the time, and passing the town hall she saw 3PM. Fairly normal for a day off on Dash's terms. She wandered, still partially floating as she was feeling lethargic enough to avoid leg use at all costs. Her wings were strong enough at this point that it became second nature to move fast enough that she was beyond vision, even having just woken up. She wandered into the northern woods, and heard a cry of distress. Dash's hair fell into its now-familiar position of flat across her neck in the back. She stopped at the edge of a cliff, where a clearly-distressed Fluttershy sat. "What is thi-" "No time to explain! Angel's hanging off the cliff! You have to get him! Please?", Fluttershy interrupted. Dash wasn't a coffee pony, and this was the perfect opportunity to get herself going. She jumped off the cliff, which was noticeably larger than it seemed from the edge. She was about fifty feet down when she lost total control. Already going well above her normal speed without trying, she began to move her wings. Her mind said no, but she couldn't control herself. She saw a white dot, and as she passed it, knocked it off its perch. She caught it, and tried to go back up, but the g-force was pounding down hard enough that she couldn't fight back. She was about to hit the sea, at which point, Fluttershy watched from her view above, Rainbow Dash had disappeared completely. Angel was sent flying, and Fluttershy was fortunately able to float a few feet down and catch him. Angel made some sounds. "Yeah, I know I owe you fifty bucks now...", Fluttershy mumbled.
Dash exploded out into a night sky over (what was now considerably larger than she had ever remembered) Ponyville. Gone was the old-fashioned architecture, replaced with concrete and Corinthian pillars. The farms and forests to either side paved over, replaced with suburbs. All was thoroughly slicked with rain. The explosion was the only bit of light around, beyond some artificial lights on the streets, lining them like the massive nests of pony activityy they were. The rain beat down on Dash's face and wings as she stared down, disturbed by what she saw around her. Suddenly, she saw a group of darkly-armored ponies on the ground below her, armed with gigantic steel shadows, at the ready and slicked by the rain. One lit up, and Dash saw an explosive fly past her, it bursting into flames next to her. She was put off balance, and her wings were burned by the airborne flames. Fortunately, the flames were put out before they started by the pounding rain. She held out her wings, unable to fly from the burns, and rode her remaining momentum into the night, hidden by darkness from the oncoming forces. She quickly crashed into a small concrete side-road, and sprinted into the first house she could find whose doors were unlocked. "Hello," said the brown-haired pony inside, "I've been looking for you for a while now." Dash was still terrified, and curled up on the ground by the pony's fireplace. She stared up at his hourglass cutie mark, and fell back down to hyperventilate.
