Out in the open waters, it gets cold. It’s the dead of night in the middle of fall, and water is spraying all over us whenever the boat hits a wave, and there are a lot of waves. Pillow Talk has the right idea. He’s wearing a rain jacket. Bastard looks nice and dry. Rainbow Dash just doesn’t care. She’s laying on the bow taking it all in. The cajones on that mare.

We’ve been going for about ten minutes at this point. We’re at the midpoint between Manehattan and the shore of the Equestrian mainland. Pillow Talk is focused on what’s ahead of us. He had to steer around a couple of shallow points in the river. It’s a bit hard to see when you have no light to navigate.

I, at the moment, am fixated on the trunk opposite of me. Inside is the blue suitcase, once belonging to Tanya. Inside the suitcase is a cornucopia of strange objects I can only describe as other worldly. Tanya said she was going to have a large payday with this thing. I wonder who she would sell it to.

“You know the first thing we’re going to do when we get to shore,” Rainbow says. It’s the first thing anyone’s said since we departed. It’s been a silent ride.

“Go to the nearest train stop and head straight for Las Pegasus?” I know the Badlands might be safer, but I’ve been hooked on the Las Pegasus idea for so long I’ll die before I give it up.

Rainbow looks at me with a huge grin. “Nope. We’re going to find the nearest convenience store, go to the soda isle, and you’re going to purchase me all the lemon-lime soda they have in stock. And I mean all, including the off brands.”

My eyebrow raises at the pegasus. “Pfft, as if. Even if I had the money, I’m not buying all the soda in a store.”

“Hey, we made a bet, and I’m dying for a taste of lemon lime. Genicorn had the gall to only give me water. Water!”

“You’re pulling that card? If anything, you should be buying me soda. You said it yourself, I almost died trying to save you. I need the electrolytes.”

“I’ll share if you want some,” Rainbow says. “We’re friends, right?”

Pillow Talk interjects as we bump up against a wave. “I have to give it to Gilda. Saving your life beats any prior bets.”

I clap my claws together. “Ha, two against one.”

Rainbow waves me off. “Doesn’t count. He wasn’t present at the bet. He can’t play referee.”

“True, but joke’s on you. If you’re a Blacklight monster like me, then you can’t taste jack shit!”

The pegasus sits up. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve drunk a lot of coffee and booze over the past couple of days. Didn’t taste a thing. Heck, I drank bleach and didn’t taste it. What do you think that says about you?”

Her head tilts to the side, and she shrugs. “I’ll still make you do it.”

“Well aren’t you bull headed.”

She grins at me. I roll my eyes.

“Do you think Cole Slaw is going to call his buddies to follow us over the river?” I ask Pillow. "The guy looked pretty upset in the fact we're escaping.

Pillow Talk shrugs. “I hope he doesn't say anything. I’m driving the boat. I’d be put in front of the tribunal if they caught me with you.”

“I hope not too,” Rainbow says. “I don’t want to go back to that box. I'd punch hom in the dick if he turned us in.”

I scan the horizon for any sign of an airship heading our way. Most of Manehattan is glittering in the night, at least the part that isn’t the Red Zone. That area is pitch black. With all the lights against the sky, I don’t see any of them heading towards our boat. Either they’re coming at us in the dark, or no one is going to come.

We fall back silent after that thought. I look back at the trunk in front of me. To think a strange suitcase was the end of Tanya. I’d thought it would be her drinking problem to take her life. Either liver failure or she’d choke on the stuff. Magic cursed sword, who’d have thunk?

Curiosity gets the best of me, and I lean forward to open the trunk. Just as Pinkie said, the cursed thing is inside. The light blue case is striking against the black box. It’s an insignificant thing on its own. I wonder how much it’s worth.

Pillow Talk leans forward to look in the trunk. “What’s that?”

“Magic suitcase,” I say. “You open it, and you can pull random items out of it.”

“Hmm, that sounds interesting.” Pillow Talk leans closer to touch the outside of the suit case. He nods, satisfied his hoof didn’t burst into flames. “Do you think it can pull a bag of bits out?”

“Maybe, who knows? It won’t do you any good. The items disappear after a while, and there’s a chance you’ll pull something cursed.”

“Oh, like what kind of curse.”

“My friend pulled out a cursed sword. Made her go crazy and obsessed with cutting off heads.”

“Ah, that’s a curse alright.”

“And it turned one of her eyes into a green fire. No clue what that was about.”

“Could’ve been magical overflow. Excess energy has to go somewhere,” Pillow says. “That’s an interesting item you have there. You can pull out anything, be it blessed or cursed objects. Sounds like something Daring Do would go for.”

I nod. Maybe that’s who would buy this thing, Daring Do. I could get a pretty penny from her if she was real.

I glance over at Rainbow, but the glance turns into a stare. The pegasus isn’t relaxing on the boat tip, but is now sitting upright. Rainbow is hyper focused on the suitcase. Her eyes are locked on to it, and her face is visibly straining. Oh great, the mare is hypnotized.

I snap my talons by her ear. “Hey, Earth to Rainbow! Did I lose you?”

It takes a couple snaps, but Rainbow shakes her head and blinks. “I, uh…” She mumbles for a moment. “Who’s Daring Do?”

“A fictional adventurer,” Pillow Talk says. “She’s always going out to look for mythical items. Although a suitcase would be outside her M.O. She goes for more of the relics of dead civilizations.”

Rainbow’s little stare off with the suitcase has me worried. I shut the trunk and put the subject out of view. “Rainbow, stay with me. It’s a cursed object. I have no clue what it can do.”

The pegasus doesn’t look at me, but instead trains her eyes on Pillow Talk. “I do. I have a clue.”

Rainbow get up from her seat, climbs over the trunk, and gets up in front of Pillow Talk. The purple pony looks at her with interest. “Hi, how can I help you?”

Out of nowhere, Rainbow slugs Pillow in the face. The stallion slumps down against the steering pole, unconscious, and the boat turns in a wide circle. My stomach lurches as the turns. Rainbow punches Pillow again, and again. With her monster strength, she caves in his skull with just three punches. Pillow Talk lies on the steering, blood and brain leaking from the crater in his head.

“What the fuck!” I yell. I scramble to the front of the boat, putting the trunk between me and the now homicidal Rainbow Dash. “The suitcase cursed you! You’re cursed! Cursed!”

The pegasus chuckles as she stands over Pillow’s lifeless body. “Fool. I’m not cursed. You have no clue what power you have on this boat.”

Shit shit shit! I already lost one friend to this damn suitcase! I’m not going to lose another! “Resist it, Rainbow. Don’t let the suitcase drag you in.”

She laughs louder this time, and deeper. “You truly are an idiot. I knew it from the moment I met you, and you keep proving yourself on any occasion you can get.”

Wait a moment, something’s not right. Sure, Rainbow just murdered a pony, but that’s not what I mean. Rainbow’s different, like what Pinkie said. She’s different different. There’s something in the back of my mind screaming something. It’s loud, screaming the obvious. It’s obvious. Think, you moron. What’s standing right in front of you? Say it. Say it!

The obvious clicks in my mind. All the clues slip into place. When Pinkie said Rainbow was different, she didn’t mean Rainbow had a different personality. This Rainbow is a completely different pony!

My eyes thin into slits. “You’re not Rainbow Dash.”

An eyebrow goes up on not-Rainbow Dashes face “Oh, and what gave that away.”

I yell the biggest clue off the top of my head. “The real Rainbow Dash hates lemon-lime soda!”

In the back of my mind, I can hear several voices collectively smack their faces and call me a dolt. Right answer, wrong reason, one of them says.

The Not Rainbow Dash cackles. Her cackle grows into a laugh. Then she throws her head back and goes into an all out howl. Green flames lick the hooves of the fake, and the flames shoot up into a roaring blaze. When the flames die out, gone is the blue pegasus I know I love. In her place, something sinister.

Standing a foot taller than me is a slim, black figure. Her skin is dark and shiny, with a few glints of green in some places. Her legs are long and full of holes. A set of transparent wings stretches out across the boat. Green strands of sticky fiber drape across the creature’s face. A crooked horn on her forehead glows a sickly green, lighting up her snake-like face.

I stare up at the creature who has revealed herself for what she truly is. I’m sure this show is supposed to be awe inspiring, but I don’t feel the awe. If anything, it’s confusion, and a bursting blood vessel in my head. “Who are you?” I ask.

The creature shows a set of fangs when she grins. “I am Queen Chrysalis, your new ruler.”

I tap my chin. The confusion is going away now. The burst vessel in my head is getting hotter, though. My vision is going a bit red too. “Nah, doesn’t ring a bell.”

“No matter. Soon all of Equestria will know my name, and fear it!”

Oh, that blood vessel his hot. Sweet mercy, I feel like cutting a bitch. “Yeah, you’ll have to hold off on that. I was under the impression I saved my best friend Rainbow Dash”-

“I lied!”

“And therein lies the problem. See, that’s a betrayal of my trust. You took my most treasured feelings for another living being, and you squashed them, squashed them like a bug, no pun intended. I have no words to describe my feelings for you at this moment. So in place of words, I give you actions.” My talons shift into tumor claws, and I swing them both at the giant bug lady. “Die motherfucker!”

The bug lady yelps as she jumps into the air. My tumor claws smash together with a loud bang in the empty space she just was, sending a shockwave across the water.

“Fool,” the bug lady says. “You cannot kill me! I am beyond you in power!”

I look up at her. Her wings are buzzing as she’s hovering above me. “Hey, how come you can fly and I can’t? I thought we had the same powers!”

The flying bug throws back her head once again and laughs. “We have come from the same source, but I have had time to adapt my powers to the magic of Equestria. I am a far superior version of what you hope to be!”

I swing my big tumor claws at her, but she’s too far away for me to reach. “Why don’t you come down here and I can show you my superior ass kicking skills!”

The bug rolls her eyes. “Please, don’t you remember who the stupid one is here?”

I glare at that insect’s beady little slit eyes. I give the trunk a swift kick, and the lid flies open, revealing the blue suitcase inside it. “You want it, right? Come down and get it!”

The bug crosses her forelimbs. “Oh, precious plebian. I have magic.”

The insect’s horn glows green, and the suitcase glows the same color.

“Wait, no, that’s cheating!”

Before the suitcase shoots up into the air, I grab it and hug it tight. It carries me up in the air, high above the raging waters of the river. With Pillow’s dead body on the steering, the boat turns out from under us and goes off on its own.

I shift my claws to normal to get a better grip of the situation, all while the bug lady keeps on gloating. “Why don’t you give up,” the bug lady says. “Tell you what. You’ve been a faithful servant to me thus far. If you bow before me, you will be my personal right hoof griffon in my new empire. Sounds enticing, no?”

As is tradition with my people in these kinds of social exchanges, I flip the bug lady the bird.

“Very well,” the bug lady says. “Then you shall die.”

Green bolts of magic fly at me from the insect’s horn. One hits my face. Ow. Another hits my shoulder. Ow. One hits my foot. Ow. One after another, bolts keep hitting my all over my body. It stings more than the bolts Blackwatch throws at me all the time, but less than an explosion. Still, it all hurts!

It starts with a centimeter, then it grows to an inch. My claws start slipping from the suitcase. I scramble my arms to get a better grip. I grab something, but something clicks. The suitcase flies open, and I’m sent dangling underneath, barely holding on to the inside ridge.

A magic bolt hits the inside of the suitcase. The suitcase starts to rumble, and a loud roar comes from the inside. I take a peek at what’s going on, and I find a vortex opening up from inside the suitcase. Winds suck into the suitcase. I almost make the mistake of poking my head in there.

Bug lady isn’t hovering anymore. She trying to fly the opposite direction of the vortex, but the vortex is too strong for her. It’s pulling her in. Her magic isn’t lifting the suitcase anymore, it’s doing it by itself. Inch by inch, the insect is pulled closer to the suitcase. I can hear her scream in fear as she tries to escape.

At some point, something gives. The vortex becomes too strong for her, and she’s sucked in with a slurp. The suitcase snaps shut, trapping her majesty in whatever hell this thing contains.

Ha! Fuck you, bug lady! You suck! Hahaha!

Without anything holding us up in the air, the suitcase and I plummet into the water with a huge splash. I breach the surface and grab onto the suitcase for a flotation device.

Ha! Haha! Ha. Eh…

Fuck, that wasn’t Rainbow Dash.

I look up to Manehattan, which is still lit up for the night. I have no clue what time it is. It’s early in the morning, I know that. Son of a bison, I think I’ve been up longer than I was yesterday. Actually, no. I think it was about the same time. Got up at midnight, went on till ten or something. This morning was about eight, now it’s early in the morning. Yep, about the same amount of time.

Fuck, it’s been two days? It feels like years! And what did I get for those years?

Cockblocked! I got cockblocked! I didn’t find Rainbow Dash. I found a giant bug who pretended to be Rainbow Dash!

Fuck fuck fuck! Now I have to go out and try to find her again! The boat makes a pass in front of me as it continues to go in a circle. At least I have a way to make it back to the island. Sweet mercy, that’s painful to say.

As I swim towards the boat, the water underneath bubbles with a bright light. Out of nowhere, a massive beam of light bursts out of the water with a roar and burns the boat in two pieces. The pieces separate, and in between them a large fin glides through the waves towards me.

As the fin draws closer, a large shark head breaches the water in front of me. Deep within its mouth, a bright, red glow illuminates its teeth, and it grows brighter as it charges.

Oh shit, it’s a laser shark!

Author's Notes:

Developer's Notice: Our DRM system saw what was on that flashdrive. Seriously, don't install that mod. Nothing good will come from it.