Rainbow Dash wandered around the small village of Besaid, looking around at what little there was to see. The only things that did seem important was the Crusader's Lodge and the temple. She found a shop that sold some supplies for traveling on the road, seeing a large variety of those bottles of green liquid Rarity gave Rainbow earlier back in Zanarkand when they met again. Unfortunately, whatever bits she did have wouldn't do much, since the only form of currency they take is something call Gil, which are like her own bits, but they were made out of some kind of rich copper than gold.

"Pth. Didn't want to buy anything, anyway..." Seeing there was nothing of value for her to buy, and being unable to buy anything at all, she decided to get to learning about what she had missed in the past millennium, to her chagrin, starting with these Crusaders. Entering the lodge, she saw two mares sitting at the nearby table, one of them a gray earth pony with long, elegant black hair, and the other a white unicorn with a messy electric blue mane, wearing a pair of purple tinted sunglasses. "Uhh, hey. You guys work for the...Crusaders?"

"Yes, we are," the earth pony answered. "Are you wanting to enlist?"

"No," Rainbow shook her head. "I was kinda wondering what the Crusaders are."

"...Are you serious, dude?" the unicorn said, lifting up her glasses to reveal her red, suspicious eyes. "How do you not know what the Crusaders do?"

"Vinyl, don't assume." The mare calmed her partner down, giving Rainbow an apolegetic look. "Sorry about her. She's also new to the Crusaders, though she joined because she couldn't stay away from me...no matter how much I tried."

"Aww, you do care about me, 'Tavi. Come here, buddy!" Vinyl was about to pull the other mare into a hug, only to have her hooves slapped away.

"Vinyl Scratch, stop calling me 'Tavi." The unicorn whimpered, feeling dejected. "My name is Ocatvia Melody, and this is Vinyl. She's not exactly serious about a job that's highly important throughout all of Spira, but she has the spirit. And the reason why this mare does not know about us, 'buddy', is because she washed up ashore, possibly suffering from Sin's toxin."

"...Oh. That was her out there?" Ocatvia slapped her forehead, irritated by her friend's obliviousness.

"She also has a very poor memory." She received a glare from the unicorn as she lowered her glasses back down over her eyes. "If Sin was close to the island, then it might attack at any moment, but it hasn't yet...It's really unnerving."

"Try being near that thing twice," Rainbow mumbled, her words actually heard by the shocked Crusaders.

"...Wow. Your head must really be screwed up then." Octavia slapped Vinyl in the back of the head, slamming the unicorn's face into the table.

"She can also be insensitive." The dazed unicorn lifted her head back up, her glasses askew as her eyes rolled in her head. "I better explain to you what the Crusaders do. You see, it's our duty to make sure Sin doesn't destroy the villages and towns throughout Spira, where we have different outposts all over the world. Anypony's free to join and aid our struggle. The Crusaders were founded around 800 years ago, founded by a soldier named Mi'ihen, the Crusaders formerly known as the Crimson Blades. Afterwards, ranks began to grow, and we were given the newly named organization, The Crusaders."

"Wait, so you guys have fought that thing for 800 years, and you still haven't beat it!?" Rainbow exclaimed.

"...Yes, unfortunately, but that's not the case," Octavia corrected. "We're enforced to protect the towns, temples, and ponies from Sin, steering it away from them rather than kill it. It's impossible to kill it, unless of course you're a summoner."

"Summoner?" Rainbow questioned.

"That knowledge is out of my hoof. You can learn about them in the temple." She looked outside the tent at the temple, watching a few ponies enter and exit the doors. "Maybe you can pray there and Faust can help regain your memory."

"Ok..." Rainbow left the tent as Vinyl babbled in her delirium, knocked too far for a loop after insulting the pegasus's "condition". "Maybe I don't really know that much because I have no idea how everything works in this time period. I'm not mentally insane...though I thought I was when I met the Al Bhed and Pinkie...Why does nopony like the Al Bhed anyway? The machines they use?"

As she pondered why Pinkie said the Al Bhed were looked down upon and hated, Rainbow entered the temple. Her ears perked up when she heard what sounded like a choir singing a hymn the moment she walked in, but it echoed all throughout the temple and nopony was singing. It sounded familiar to her, but she had no idea where it came from.

Inside, she saw many of the ponies inside praying to some of the statues in the room. The biggest out of all of them were two mares, both of them with a horn and wings, something she had never seen before on any one pony. She approached some of the other statues, taking note of one of them that looked recently sculpted. It showed a pegasus stallion, wearing a robe and held a staff in his right hoof. Whatever he was, his face didn't seem like the type to be depicted as a heroic pony, or a symbol of heroism.

"It has been ten long years since Lord Kindred Heart became high summoner." Rainbow turned to face a monk as he spoke, not knowing if it was to himself or to her. "Now, we finally received a statue of him in his honor."

"...What's a high summoner?" The whole temple broke it in shocked gasps as they all stared at the pegasus like a blasphemous heathen. Growling in her head, she had to break out the 'Sin's toxin' card, yet again. "Uhh, sorry. I kinda got too close to Sin and...my head's all fuzzy from its toxins..."

They soon murmered apologetically, some of them praying to her for being so lucky to be alive. "How tragic," the monk said as he prayed to her, which Rainbow still found weird about their method of prayer. "Allow me to enlighten you, miss. The summoners play an important role, sworn to protect the ponies of Faust all throughout Spira. They must travel on a pilgrimage, visit the other temples and earn the entities of great power that rest inside: the aeons. They are the blessings sent to us by Faust."

The monk gave the prayer bow again, though Rainbow still couldn't get all of this information through all the way. "So, summoners call these...aeon things to help them fight, and they use them to fight Sin?"

"Well, in a sense yes, but not with the aeons they acquire on the way to their final destination. It is a test to show their worth to wield the Final Aeon, which they must summon as they confront Sin, and defeat it." Rainbow nodded her head, somewhat understanding how the summoners do their job.

After getting enough information, she decided to head back outside and meet up with Applejack. She didn't want to say it out loud, in case others wanted to beat her to a pulp for being ignorant to something she doesn't know, if the summoners were supposed to stop Sin, then how come it's still around after a thousand years when possibly hundreds of summoners tried to kill it? As much as she wanted answers, she didn't want to cause a scene and risk being thrown out of the village.

The moment she entered the tent her new captain was in, her mouth watered at the aroma of baked apple goods were being made. "Food ready yet?"

"Not yet. Should be done in a few." Rainbow whined, her stomach growling louder than ever. Applejack stood up, grabbing a first aid kit and approached the pegasus. "Now, let's fix up that wing of yours. Which one's hurtin'?" She touched the left wing, making Rainbow Dash wince. "Welp, that answers that. Since ya don't need your wings in blitzball, we're gonna patch ya up with some water-resistant bandages. If we need ya to practice, we can't have that cast all soggy."

"I'm starting to get sick of water at this point," Rainbow glowered, flinching as Applejack eased her injured wing open to straighten it.

"Hmm...Doesn't seem to be broken. Probably just sprained." Applejack began to bandage the wing, being careful not to put too much pressure on the pegasus's muscles. "Ya got some pretty strong wings, sugarcube."

"I usually prefer flying most of the time, but playing blitzball was kind of like a challenging way of flying," she said. "Through the air, I feel free, and being in the water is kind of similar to that, the only difference is holding your breath and feeling sluggish."

"Never actually saw it that way." Applejack finished dressing up Rainbow Dash's wing, the pegasus slowly unfurling it back to her side. "That should get better in a couple days. More than enough time before the tournament. Food'll be ready soon."

"Can soon come now?" she asked, practically begging.

"Cookin' takes patience, Rainbow." Rainbow sulked, only to let out a big yawn as the previous days' events had really taken a big toll on her. "Why don't ya take a nap? You look like ya haven't had a good night's sleep in a week.

"You have no idea." Applejack pointed out to the nearby bed, which Rainbow gladly took.

As soon as she felt the soft mattress under her hooves, she collapsed on the bed, sighing deeply as she immediately fell asleep. After sleeping on solid ground for the past few days, her body needed something comfortable to rest in. She would prefer a cloud, but the soft feather mattress would do.

While resting, her ears twitched as she overheard Applejack as somepony walked into the tent. "Applejack." The same monk Rainbow spoke to earlier in the temple caught the mare's attention, greatly worried. "We need to find out what's going on in there."

"Ya know Ah can't interfere right know," she said. "It's a rule we have to follow."

"But it's been nearly..." Their voices soon droned out as Rainbow moaned in her sleep, having another flashback to a moment in her life from hearing those exact words.

At Rainbow Dash's home in Zanarkand, there were a few officers standing at the docks, along with a few other ponies who were watching. The pegasus's mother stood before them, her face matted with tears.

"It's been nearly a day, ma'am. There's been no sign of your husband yet." The mare sobbed, fearing the worst. "We'll have the city look everywhere for him. Everypony wouldn't want to have Jet Stream disappear on us, being the famous athlete he is."

"Thank you so much." The officer left and began putting out an APB on Jet Stream, many of his fans helping assist the distraught mare.

Rainbow Dash, as a filly, overheard what had happened, hiding behind the door to her boat home. She walked out as soon as the other ponies were gone just as her mother turned around.

"I don't care if he comes back or not," she said. "He's nothing but a stupid drunk."

"Honey, how could you say something like that?" The pink pegasus crouched low to look the filly in the eyes. "He could die."

"Fine! Let him!" Rainbow turned away from her mom, crossing her forelegs in spite.

"...Dashie...do you really hate your father that much?" The filly nodded her head. "...If he dies, you may never tell him how much you hate him." Rainbow scoffed. Her mother tried to hug the angry filly, but she shrugged away from her embrace and ran back in the house. "Oh honey...Why are you so mad at him?"

Rainbow slowly stirred awake, the memory of her father's disappearance still haunting her to this day. She sat up, smelling the already cooked fritters cooling on the table. She expected Applejack to sneak up on her and pull another prank, but the blitzball captain was nowhere to be seen.

"Applejack?" Rainbow got off the bed, snatching a fritter as a little snack before looking outside the tent. She saw a few of the villagers rushing into the temple, almost in a panic. "What's going on?" Next Chapter: Chapter 6: Besaid Temple Estimated time remaining: 12 Hours, 11 Minutes