The mist had subsided in the forest that Rainbow Dash and Gilda were battling the siren Fluttershy in. Fluttershy’s puddles that she used to fire off those tentacles that sucked the magic right out of a creature’s body were still lying around all over the place, but with Rainbow and Gilda both getting their second wind and an enormous magical boost from Pinkie Pie’s spell reinvigorating them, Rainbow was confident they didn’t have anything to fear.

Rainbow charged magic into her fingers and pointed them like a gun in front of her, firing a barrage of lasers at the ground that exploded, covering a trail in smoke that shielded Gilda from Fluttershy’s sight as the quetzal charged into punching distance.

As Gilda jumped out of the smoke and wound up a punch, Fluttershy’s tendrils shot out of two puddles on either side of her to shield her, but Gilda just grabbed them both in her claws and tore them away from Fluttershy, gripping them tightly as they tried to slither and squirm out of her grip.

Rainbow knew what to do next, zipping across the battlefield at lightning speed to appear behind Fluttershy, who was still a little off-balance from taking a hit from Rainbow’s attack earlier, and now Gilda’s sudden pressure.

Rainbow charged up her laser and fired it directly into Fluttershy’s back, Fluttershy letting out a pained howl as she was blown forward by the explosion, blood spilling out of the open wound on her back. The tentacles in Gilda’s hands went limp and she dropped them to the ground; Fluttershy’s stamina was directly related to the power of the tendrils, it looked like. Interesting.

With that in mind, applying constant pressure to Fluttershy was now the name of the game, so Gilda grabbed the siren by the shoulders and punched her hard in the stomach, wind exploding out of Gilda’s fist and blowing Fluttershy away, causing her to hit the ground with a thud and throw up blood.

Fluttershy stood to her hooves, grunting and panting. She was running out of energy. Granted, while Rainbow and Gilda had their magic reinvigorated, the adrenaline boost was starting to wear off and they were going to need to start considering their stamina soon too.

But not until they’d defeated Fluttershy!

“Cover me, Dash!” Gilda growled as she charged after Fluttershy.

Unsurprisingly, the tendrils were hot on Gilda’s heels, so Rainbow flew up into the air to avoid get snuck up on by any puddles that may have been behind her, and she fired her lasers directly into the tentacles. It didn’t destroy them like she was hoping, it barely even seemed to faze them, but it slowed them down just enough for Gilda’s fist to connect with Fluttershy’s face.

Fluttershy reeled from the attack but she was able to get her slithery tentacles around Gilda’s legs, but then Rainbow zipped behind her and charged up her laser. Fluttershy spread her feathery wings and flew into the air to avoid Rainbow’s attack, but she just fired the laser at the tendrils instead, freeing Gilda to slam into Fluttershy’s jaw with a flying uppercut that sent the siren crashing to the ground face first.

Fluttershy struggled to pick herself up, but halted and looked up at Rainbow Dash as she held her charging laser to Fluttershy’s face. Then Gilda came down from the air, stomping on Fluttershy’s back and crushing her even further into the grass and mud.

Confident in the pair’s victory, the two women let their guard down for a moment, allowing Gilda to get her leg caught by a nearby tendril. Gilda tried to fly up to escape it, but another tendril grabbed her arm on the same side.

Rainbow readied her laser, but Fluttershy put her hand on the ground at Rainbow’s feet, freezing it into a small sheet of ice, and then grabbed Rainbow’s leg and yanked on it, forcing her to lose her balance. It was just for a fraction of a second, but it was enough for the two tentacles to subdue Gilda and drag her under the water again.

“No! Gilda!” Rainbow screamed as she flew over to the puddle, her talons aching horribly from the sheet of ice encasing them, but then she wisely flew far away from the puddle and landed on the ground near Fluttershy, who had gotten to her hooves. Rainbow pointed her laser at Fluttershy. “Bring her back!”

“Your strategy was a little too predictable,” Fluttershy sighed, the wounds in her chest and back slowly healing up, but judging by her heavy panting and listless expression, just having those wounds sewn up didn’t do her that much good. “I just want to talk for one moment.”

“Cuz you know you’re gonna lose?” Rainbow spat.

“I wanted to talk from the beginning,” Fluttershy said shortly. “And you spoke of making me an ally. It was your friend Gilda who attacked first, so forgive me if I don’t want her present for these negotiations.”

Rainbow hesitated, but she couldn’t deny the truth in Fluttershy’s statements. Gilda was definitely more a ‘punch first, ask questions never’ type, and if there was a chance to get Fluttershy on their side, Rainbow wanted to take it.

“Okay,” Rainbow said, lowering her hands and letting her laser dissipate, “what do you have to say?”

“I don’t want to fight anyone,” Fluttershy said, pacing back and forth and looking solemnly at the ground, “at all. But I can’t stand idly by while the Lightning Knights terrorize villages and whip them up into a frenzy to attack anyone that doesn’t fall in line with them.”

“Is that right?” Rainbow said in disgust, scraping a talon across the grass. “Cuz it seems to me like your little ‘Family’ has no problem brainwashing people into its cult and punishing anyone who disobeys them! You say you’re just trying to ‘protect’ people, but all you’re really interested in is power!”

“It sounds like you’re projecting,” Fluttershy said coldly. “I have no interest in personal power, or in propping up the Family as the one and only structure of power on this Circle—”

“Yeah? Then why is the Family’s sigil blasted into the sky each night?” Rainbow scoffed.

“To guide those lost in the dark,” Fluttershy responded immediately. “It’s a beacon of hope.”

“Not to the creatures that already fear you.”

“Because of horror stories the Lightning Knights fed them?”

Rainbow took in a deep breath, and let it out as an aggravated sigh.

“I guess we don’t have a lot to talk about,” Rainbow said.

“I suppose not,” Fluttershy replied.

“You’ll learn how wrong you are,” Rainbow pointed her laser at Fluttershy, “once I beat you and bring you to the Lightning Knights!”

“Perhaps,” Fluttershy hummed. “Or maybe I can still convince you or your friend to join the Family.”

Fluttershy’s tendril appeared out of the puddle, and Rainbow aimed her laser at it, but to her surprise the tendril didn’t go after her, it went after Fluttershy, picking her up and carrying her to the puddle, where the siren quickly disappeared inside.

Rainbow flew over to the puddle and grit her teeth. She knew she was probably walking into a trap, but could she really just leave Gilda alone with that siren? Without Gilda, she was a nobody; Gilda was the one with all the good ideas, and Rainbow was just the wingpony.

Besides, Rainbow couldn’t live with herself if she just let that siren get away and do whatever she wanted, so Rainbow dived right into the puddle, appearing once again in Fluttershy’s underwater pocket dimension.

Fluttershy was already hovering around Gilda, who was restrained with her legs splayed apart, her arms behind her back, tentacles across her chest, stomach, and neck, and one in her mouth sucking out her magic. Her eyes were fluttering like she was coming in and out of wakingness, and Fluttershy was singing her enchanting siren song directly into her ear.

Rainbow was furious.

She readied her laser and was prepared to absolutely annihilate Fluttershy; how dare she treat Rainbow’s friend like that? But if Rainbow tried to shoot Fluttershy from this distance, she would just use Gilda as a shield. Rainbow could try firing around her like she did last time, but Fluttershy didn’t seem like the type to fall for the same trick twice.

But if Rainbow were to fire her laser through Gilda…

Which meant it came down to whether Rainbow prioritized Gilda’s safety, or Fluttershy’s defeat. A simple question with a simple answer: the first didn’t mean anything without the second, so the second took priority!

“What are you thinking, Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy said sweetly, her voice carrying underwater as if it were all around Rainbow’s ears. When she tried to respond, unintelligible blubbering and air bubbles coming out of her mouth were all she could bring to bear. “Are you thinking you’ll fire through Gilda to get to me? How bold of you.

“You really don’t know anything other than violence, do you?”

Rainbow grit her teeth. She was pissed off that Fluttershy could act so damn smug, act like she knew everything about Rainbow Dash, and she wanted to prove Fluttershy wrong so bad.

But she couldn’t.

What she could do was fire her laser, letting it tear through and around Gilda’s body as it exploded in Fluttershy’s face.

Being underwater diluted the power of Rainbow’s explosion quite a bit. It pushed Fluttershy back, but it didn’t seem to faze her at all. The laser though? That worked like a charm. Too bad it only shredded Gilda up and not Fluttershy.

That said, Fluttershy’s tendrils immediately patched up Gilda’s wounds, Rainbow blinking in surprise at what she was watching. Still though, she needed to get her friend outta there as quick as possible.

Fluttershy sang her song in Gilda’s ear, and the tendrils quickly fell away from Gilda’s body. Not a good sign, honestly.

“Funny thing,” Fluttershy giggled. “While my tendrils were patching up your friend’s wounds, they were also using my magic to make her just a little more open to suggestion. Abyssalmancy is a marvelous thing, isn’t it?”

Gilda charged through the water at Rainbow Dash, tackling her and dragging her up through the portal before throwing her to the hard ground with a painful thud. Gilda’s eyes were glowing with teal magic that made it super clear that she was under Fluttershy’s control, and Rainbow just couldn’t stop being furious at how Fluttershy had treated Gilda.

Rainbow tried to stand up but Gilda stomped onto her stomach and kept her pinned to the ground, Rainbow charging up a laser and directing it at Gilda, hoping that would get Gilda to fly off of her and she wouldn’t have to fire it, but Gilda responded by pushing her paw even further into Rainbow’s stomach, knocking the wind out of her.

Rainbow had no other option, so she grit her teeth and fired the laser, letting it blow up in Gilda’s face. She made sure it was weak enough to not kill her, just maim her a little bit, and Rainbow fired another laser into Gilda’s stomach, knocking her off of Rainbow Dash and letting her get back to her feet.

For about one second before a tendril grabbed her and dragged her back under the water.

The tendrils wrapped around Rainbow’s body as she struggled against them, but just like last time they forced her hands behind her back, and one of them squirmed into her mouth. She dug her fangs into it, but it was like chewing rubber and she wasn’t even remotely making a dent.

The sound of Fluttershy’s siren song echoed in Rainbow’s ears as the dry mouth from being sucked dry by Fluttershy’s tentacles started to kick in. Rainbow wanted to struggle, but what more could she do? Fluttershy locked eyes with her, still singing that song. It echoed all around her in this underwater realm that Fluttershy controlled.

“So what do you say, Rainbow Dash?” Fluttershy hummed, and she slowly, gently pulled the tentacle out of Rainbow’s mouth. “Do you want to join the Family? You and Gilda could finally have the power and control over your own lives that you’re so clearly desperate for, with us.”

“No,” Rainbow said weakly. “I don’t want to be anyone’s servant.”

“Not a servant,” Fluttershy shook her head, “a follower. Is that honestly so bad? You can lead an easy life, where you only need to care about what you care about, instead of whatever your commanding officer orders you to care about.”

Fluttershy swam closer, pressing her chest against Rainbow’s. Her lips were tantalizingly close, and when she licked her lips, little specks of drool dropped from her tongue and Rainbow felt so desperate for hydration that she wanted to reach her tongue out and lap them up.

“You could be free,” Fluttershy whispered directly into Rainbow’s ear, and Rainbow moaned and her body writhed as Fluttershy’s voice tingled her nerves.

It was true that Rainbow Dash and Gilda had no real loyalty to the Lightning Knights, but she really believed that the Family of Whispers were evil. Then again, if she and Gilda could get to the top of that food chain, they could change it for the better. Maybe stop all the fighting on the Second Circle once and for all.

But then… what happened to Pinkie Pie? Rainbow made a promise to meet with her after the battle, and it disgusted Rainbow that people like Lightning Dust and even Spitfire treated her like an object or a slave.

The Family sure knew a lot about slavery, considering they used the siren’s hypnosis to turn creatures into unwilling obedient servants.

Well, not servants. Followers.

Wait a second.

That’s what Fluttershy was trying to do right now!

Rainbow snarled at Fluttershy as the siren’s spell snapped like a twig, Fluttershy’s eyes widening right before Rainbow exploded with as much force as she could muster. She knew underwater it wouldn’t do much, but if it disoriented Fluttershy enough that Rainbow could struggle free of the tentacles— and it did— then that was good enough!

Rainbow fired a laser that separated into several lasers right at Fluttershy, tearing through her body. While Fluttershy’s underwater maneuverability was impressive, Rainbow’s agility wasn’t anything to sneeze at and even with Fluttershy’s home field advantage, Rainbow was still able to catch Fluttershy easily.

Rainbow tackled her and pushed her out of the water, the two rising with a splash back into the forest. If Rainbow was able to break her own hypnosis, she was sure she could break Gilda’s, especially with Fluttershy weakened and under pressure.

What Rainbow didn’t expect was to see Gilda lying flat on her back, eyes fluttering as a tendril in her mouth sucked her bone dry. She wasn’t restrained in any other way, but she was already so weakened by the battle that she simply couldn’t resist anymore.

“Oh,” Rainbow said flatly. “Well, crap.”

Fluttershy flew out of Rainbow’s grip as the tendrils rose out of the puddle behind Rainbow and grabbed her, wrapping her up like a present and forcing her to her knees. Fluttershy walked daintily up to Rainbow as the last tendril entered her mouth for the third damn time today; she didn’t even bother to put up a fight this time.

“This is what happens,” Fluttershy sighed like a disappointed mother, “when you cross the Family.”

Rainbow’s magic was soon sucked dry, and the tendrils left her, her body flopping to the ground unable to move even as she was still conscious.

“Don’t worry, Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy said with a smirk, licking her lips before turning around and disappearing into the mist, leaving two defeated women on the ground in a heap behind her. “I won’t forget you.”

If you enjoyed this chapter, please let me know by leaving a comment! I absolutely adore reading them!
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!