The village that Rainbow and her comrades in the Lightning Knights were rushing in to save wasn’t a ‘village’ in the traditional sense, more a community of monsters that had gathered around small forts and keeps that had been built like a gazillion years ago. They were wearing with time, but they were still better than sleeping in the open.

Gilda and Rainbow made a beeline for the secret weapon, a siren who used her enchanting song to hypnotize the people of the village and turn them against the Knights; a strategy that the Family of Whispers, dishonorable vermin that they were, had used countless times.

But this time would be different. The Knights had a leg up on the Family thanks to some spywork or something— Rainbow didn’t really understand, or care for that matter, much of the details. What she did know was that she and Gilda knew exactly where the siren would be, and when she would be there.

The inside of the village was chaos, with the Lightning Knights being fought back against by members of the Family and villagers hypnotized to do their will.

The siren would never risk herself by stepping foot into that, so she lingered on the outskirts, surrounded by tall trees whose gnarled roots covered the ground and made walking around them a huge pain, even worse since a recent rainfall left several puddles in its wake that littered the ground.

A thick mist covered the area, but Rainbow and Gilda were more than alert enough to see through it to the siren.

She had smooth yellow scales and a serpentine face, with a flowing waterfall of pink hair that rolled down her back and across her shoulders. She wore a small black dress and her prehensile tail swayed rhythmically back and forth as she stared down the approaching Knights.

“Two?” the siren hummed, seemingly unimpressed. “Just two? I almost feel insulted.”

“Two is enough,” Rainbow boasted, pounding a fist against her chest. “There’s like twelve of us total in our company, and that’s been more than enough to butcher your army.”

“I didn’t bring an army,” the siren let out a single acidic laugh. “Your soldiers are ‘butchering’ the very civilians that you claim to be here to save.”

“Not our fault,” Gilda scoffed and pointed a finger at the siren. “It was your magic that turned them against us!”

“You turned them into weapons,” Rainbow added through gritted teeth, “it’s only natural that we would have to break them to get through to the ones that were able to resist your control!”

The siren tried to respond with something, but she quickly clammed up when Gilda fired a bullet of wind that tore through the mist at the siren, and while she was able to dodge it by spreading her golden feathery wings, the bullet left a destructive impact in the tree behind her that made it obvious that Gilda wasn’t messing around.

“So quick to resort to violence,” the siren sighed and shook her head. “Shouldn’t diplomacy still be on the table? We don’t even know each other’s names yet.”

“We don’t have anything to talk about,” Rainbow spat, “not with the Family of Whispers!”

“Now Dash, let’s not be so hasty,” Gilda chuckled. “Fine, siren, you wanna talk? How ‘bout you join our crew instead? Turn on the Family and help me and Dash climb to the top of the food chain on this Circle.”

“I’m afraid I have to decline,” the siren said flatly. “I would never debase myself by working with your kind, barbarians that call themselves ‘knights’. But if you want to free yourself from that life of squalor, you’re welcome to join the Family instead.”

“Hard pass,” Gilda let out a single chuckle.

“Always time to change your mind,” the siren said softly as she gently floated to the ground. “My name is Fluttershy, by the way, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“That’s a nice name,” Rainbow said with a genuine smile. “I’m Rainbow Dash!”

“Thank you,” Fluttershy smiled sweetly. “I chose it myself, so I’m quite fond of it. I like yours too.”

“Thanks!” Rainbow beamed. “I picked mine out too!”

“That’s so cute,” Gilda said smarmily, grabbing Rainbow in a headlock. “Now, if you keep trying to suck our enemy’s hooves, the next thing you two are gonna have in common is ‘being beaten up by me’, you got it?”

“Yeah, G, I get it,” Rainbow rolled her eyes and pushed Gilda away to focus on Fluttershy.

Fluttershy took a deep breath and started to sing a haunting melody, Gilda and Rainbow both immediately alerted to what a bad situation that was.

“Don’t let her!” Gilda yelled as she fired another wind bullet at Fluttershy.

“I know!” Rainbow replied as she pointed her fingers and charged up a laser that fired into the tree behind Fluttershy and exploded behind her head, disorienting her and disrupting her song, and also allowing Gilda’s bullet to hit its mark directly in Fluttershy’s stomach, knocking the wind out of her.

Gilda charged Fluttershy to put more pressure on her, but a slimy tendril appeared out of nowhere to defend Fluttershy, grabbing Gilda around her stomach and dragging her into a nearby puddle, where she promptly disappeared.

Rainbow flew over to the puddle and it looked like just an ordinary puddle; Rainbow couldn’t wrap her head around how Gilda was able to disappear inside it.

“What did you do to her?!” Rainbow demanded, pointing her fingers like a gun at Fluttershy as said fingers charged with light blue magical energy.

“Don’t worry about her,” Fluttershy said calmly. “Unlike some creatures, I’m not interested in violence. So I have no intentions of killing you or her, but she does need some time to sit quietly and think about her bad habits.”

“I— I don’t know what that means!” Rainbow scoffed and scraped a talon against the grass in irritation. Her and Gilda were a team, and they weren’t nearly as strong on their own, so Rainbow needed to get G back as soon as possible. “I’m gonna defeat you! And I’ll save Gilda!”

Rainbow fired her charged up laser in the air above Fluttershy; if the siren dodged Rainbow’s direct attack like she did with Gilda’s wind bullet, that’d be a pointless whiff. But if Rainbow could fire attacks around Fluttershy that made it hard for the siren to predict exactly where the attack would land, then Rainbow’s odds of hitting her went way up.

The laser exploded above Fluttershy’s head, raining dangerous magical sparks on top of the siren but she was able to shield herself with a sphere of water. She should’ve checked first though to make sure that Rainbow hadn't managed to dash right behind her and line up another shot while Fluttershy was distracted.

Cuz yeah, Rainbow did exactly that.

Fluttershy spun around quickly and backed up, and one of those slimy tendrils sprung out of a puddle behind Rainbow Dash. Rainbow jumped into the air and dashed away from the tendril, quickly reclaiming a spot right next to Fluttershy with her laser pointed directly at the siren’s head.

“Did you think I wasn’t paying attention?” Rainbow laughed as she charged up her laser. “As soon as you used that tentacle trick, I knew those puddles were dangerous, and I wasn’t gonna let my guard down around them.”

Fluttershy looked Rainbow dead in the eye as one of the puddles ejected Gilda right in front of Fluttershy, the siren using G as a shield as the quetzal was coiled up tight by the tendril, pinning her arms to her side and sealing her mouth shut as her soaking wet body dripped water onto the ground beneath her.

Rainbow knew Gilda would chew her out if she accidentally hurt her, but would be just as mad if Rainbow decided to be a pussy and not take the shot, so she fired her laser regardless, splitting it into several beams that moved around Gilda to land directly on Fluttershy, detonating on impact and blowing the siren away.

Fluttershy wasn’t out yet, struggling back to her hooves with a groan, but the blast disrupted her concentration enough that the tendril dropped Gilda on the ground and vanished at least.

“Not a bad tactic, Fluttershy,” Rainbow sneered. “But if you thought I was gonna pull my punches even for Gilda, you’re dead wrong.”

“Alright, don’t start giving her a medal or anything,” Gilda said irritably. “She’s still our enemy.”

Rainbow held out her hand to help Gilda stand up, and Gilda hesitated. She grabbed Rainbow’s hand but as she was pulling herself up, she tugged a little too hard and dragged Rainbow down to her knees, Rainbow quickly pulling herself up to stand beside Gilda.

“Well we couldn’t’ve asked for a better enemy, I think!” Rainbow cackled. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such a fun fight. “And we might as well get a read on her if she’s gonna be working with us!”

“I’m not—” Fluttershy panted as she glared at Rainbow and Gilda. “I’m not interested in working with you!”

“You aren’t gonna have a choice,” Gilda cackled and cracked her knuckles, “once we beat you into submission!” Gilda charged at Fluttershy like a rampaging train, shouting back at Rainbow, “Dash! Watch the puddles!”

Rainbow prepared her laser to fire at any tendrils while Gilda powered up her fist with her own magic, an explosion of wind bursting from it as she punched, but Fluttershy was slippery and she managed to get out of the way with only minor scrapes.

Right on cue, two tendrils from two different puddles tried to grab Gilda from either side but Rainbow was ready with her laser, until right when she fired it and another tendril grabbed her leg from behind, knocking off her concentration and causing her laser to fire in an aimless direction.

Rainbow looked behind her, and was startled to see a puddle she hadn't seen before; then she remembered, that’s where Fluttershy had been using Gilda as a shield! The water dripping from her body must’ve created this new puddle!

Before Rainbow could ready another laser, the tendril yanked her by the leg, knocking her to the ground and dragging her on her stomach into the puddle faster than Rainbow could cry out for help.

Rainbow was dragged under the water, and it was… surreal. Her body moved like it was underwater, but she could breathe just fine, only she couldn’t? She knew she wasn’t in danger from drowning, but she still felt like the world was wet and heavy all around her.

What was more concerning though, were the tentacles.

The one tendril around Rainbow’s shin slithered up the rest of her leg as several more coiled around her body, keeping her legs apart, her hands behind her back, and one coiled around her stomach and another around her neck.

Gilda was dragged under the water soon after Rainbow, and despite the portal being a shallow puddle, there wasn’t an end in sight to whatever underwater pocket dimension Fluttershy had created.

Tendrils wrapped around Gilda’s arms and legs and she struggled to fight them off, and her massive, muscular body and impressive physical strength let her keep them at bay for longer than Rainbow at least, but it was no time at all before Gilda’s legs were pinned together, her arms held behind her back, and a tendril inching closer to her mouth.

Another tendril was creeping up to Rainbow’s mouth too and while she kept her jaw clenched shut to keep it out, it pried open her lip and then pressed itself against her gritted teeth, turning into slimily, squishily squirming between her teeth before reforming and forcing her mouth open to accept the entire tendril.

Gilda wasn’t having any better luck, forced to suck down a tentacle just like Rainbow was. The tentacles weren’t doing anything though, except convulsing rhythmically, which felt weird against Rainbow’s skin and mouth, but it wasn’t the worst. It’d be easy enough to get used to while she worked on some kind of escape plan.

Trying to charge up her laser wasn’t working though, and Gilda didn’t seem to have any luck building up wind either as she struggled in vain against the tendrils, which as Rainbow quickly figured out after she mirrored Gilda’s struggling, tightened up as the girls tried to fight them off.

Rainbow was getting a serious case of dry mouth too, and as she watched the tendril in her mouth she realized it was kinda see-through. She could see something flowing through it, some kinda liquid. Her vision was starting to blur a little though and her mind was getting foggy, but soon enough she realized it was her spit; the tendril was sucking it out for some reason.

She didn’t have much time to think on that though, as she could feel her body getting heavier under the weight of her restraints, and she was slowly losing consciousness. She looked drearily over to Gilda, who looked to be doing just as bad at trying to stay awake, and when Gilda caught Rainbow looking, the quetzalcoatl immediately turned her gaze anyplace else.

Rainbow couldn’t blame her; of all the ways to lose a fight, this was among the most humiliating Rainbow could think of.

Everything started blending together and time became a mushy, blurry mess. Before Rainbow knew it, she and Gilda were above the water again, dropped on the ground at Fluttershy’s hooves and released from the tendrils, the two women gasping for air and neither able to lift their body more than an inch off the ground.

“Did you girls have fun?” Fluttershy said teasingly, scritching one of her tendrils as it slithered over to her. “My magic allows me to drain the magic out of any living creature by extracting it from their fluids. Blood is the most convenient, but that’s so tasteless, so spit can do in a pinch.”

“You won’t—” Rainbow gasped and sputtered. “You won’t get away with this.”

“With what?” Fluttershy giggled, and it grated against Rainbow’s ears as if someone had cut them with a shard of glass. “Winning this fight? I think I just might, actually.”

Rainbow couldn’t believe this. This was supposed to be her and Gilda’s moment! This was gonna be the turning point where they started to climb up the ranks for real, finally! And now here they both were, collapsed on the grass like a couple of ragdolls after having the spit sucked out of them by a weirdo siren.

It was enough to make Rainbow laugh in disgust, and she let out a pitiful chuckle.

And suddenly she felt a fire burning in her heart.

The first thing she thought of was Pinkie Pie, and how Pinkie made her and Gilda laugh, and it pissed Rainbow off that she wouldn’t be able to make her date with Pinkie if she lost here. Yet despite that, she couldn’t stop laughing.

Before she knew it, she was on her feet again, and Gilda was laughing too, and standing alongside her.

“Are you two okay?” Fluttershy said smarmily as she turned around to face Rainbow and Gilda, her eyes widening as the two Knights stood facing her, bodies burning with reinvigorated magic power, thanks to that spell that Pinkie had cast on them before the battle.

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said. “I think we’re doing pretty good.”

H

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