Part 5: Bleeding Rainbow

I fell for what seemed like millennia, and when the dark ground finally came rushing up to meet me I did not feel my bones liquefy or my body erupt in pain. I felt nothing at all. I was in a veritable pit of nothingness.

And then, impossibly, there came form, swirling at first and then coalescing into discernable shape. The dust-like forms made no sound as they looped and whirled around in the blackness. It was like watching an explosion in reverse.

It took about a minute to form completely, and when it was done I was in a new land.

The first thing I noticed was the sky. It was bright, bright blue, so bright that at first I had to shut my eyes. Then I looked down and realized I was standing on a fluffy red cloud.

Not a fluffy white cloud. A fluffy red cloud.

Red like blood.

“Hi there!”

I whirled around and stared at…

Oh God.

“Derpy?”

It was indeed the odd-eyed pegasus, but there was something much different about her.

She didn’t have eyes, only bloody, empty sockets. And yet she was smiling like she was holding a newborn puppy. Did she not realize?

“Hiya, mister! Welcome to Cloudsdale! I’m Derpy Hooves!”

“Derpy…your eyes…”

“What’s that, mister?”

“What the hell happened to your—”

Demon.

You’ve done this.

I remembered what happened—Rainbow Dash had been taken. The demon that plagued this land had kidnapped her, and I had gone in to save her.

I was inside Rainbow Dash’s mind. But this wasn’t just Rainbow Dash. She had an unwanted guest, the demon that wanted nothing more than my death but was having too much fun to kill me.

“This is the work of the beast,” I whispered to myself. Derpy lazily rolled over.

“East? East, west, south, potato…”

“What?”

“Nothin’.” She smiled so bright that I wanted to smile too, but I could not stop looking at her eye sockets. What kind of monstrosity was this?

No. Focus. Find Rainbow Dash.

“Um…Derpy?”

She stopped doing loop-de-loops and looked at me, and I briefly wondered how she knew I was there if she didn’t have eyes.

“Where is Rainbow Dash?”

For some reason, I thought I knew how she would react. I thought she’d grin and do a somersault through the air. Why did I think that?

Instead, fangs poked out of her mouth and she screamed like a banshee. Twin flames burst in her eye sockets, and she came at me with full force. I had no time to react. My sword was gone. My wings were gone.

My wings were gone?! Then how did I…

“DIE!” Derpy screamed. And suddenly I was tumbling. She had knocked me off.

I fell through rain, but it wasn’t rain. It was blood that rained down from the crimson clouds above me. The sky itself was no longer blue but a pasty whitish color, and I could see nothing below me. I did not feel air rushing by me as I fell, only blood that fell in torrents.

Then the ground appeared.

Once again, I felt nothing as I ran out of sky. It was as if the ground was marshmallow, bouncy and chalky and white like snow. But a few moments after I hit the ground, color began to form over the shapeless forms as though inkwells had burst all over them. The forms began to sharpen, and soon I could see the faint outline of a town.

I knew what town it was. What else could it have been?

Sure enough, Ponyville appeared before me, but like Cloudsdale before it, this wasn’t the Ponyville that I had come to know and love.

The town was a wreck. There were burned out buildings everywhere. Some houses that had not been completely torched floated upside down over their foundations, slowly spinning in the misty air.

The marshmallow ground had turned to hard cobblestone, and I rose and observed my surroundings further. I couldn’t see any ponies. The whole place seemed deserted, abandoned. But I knew better. It was the work of the damn demon, and I knew it wanted to humiliate and torture me before it killed me.

I knelt down and felt the cobblestone. Under my palm it felt nothing like rough rock, but more like glass. It was smooth and a bit slippery. Another illusion in a sea of deception. The sky above was gray like soot, and though smoke and ash swirled around me, I felt none of it in my nose or lungs.

This was not Ponyville. How could it be? And yet it was plain as day…except day did not exist down here. Night held no credence either. What could it be, then? A place where time was nonexistent? Or perhaps something more sinister.

Was I…in hell?

I never imagined Rainbow Dash’s brain would be so…caustic. But I had to remind myself that this was not Rainbow Dash’s mind. This was the mind of a foul, cruel demon. I had to find the real Dash. I could not bear to let her suffer any longer. I could no longer search with my eyes or my mind.

No, I had to search with my soul. Because that is what the demon wanted most. My soul. He wanted it for himself, wanted to corrupt it, twist and turn it until it was a vile mess. But he could not have my soul, not while I lived. Thus, I had to die. But he would not let me die. He was having too much fun.  

So I would search with my soul, and welcome the dangers ahead.

I found a staircase that led into the clouds, but it descended. There were clouds beneath my feet.

I could think of no other choice but to descend the steps, and as I walked, the clouds formed images that I instantly recognized. There were images of ponies, of dragons and minotaurs and all manner of creatures in their daily lives, existing happily, being content with themselves. But I would not let myself be fooled. The demon was corrupting Rainbow Dash’s mind, playing games with me like it always did. It loved to play games, to prolong my suffering and watch with glee.

I neared the end of the stairs, and suddenly the clouds grew dark. An iron door appeared at the foot of the staircase, and I reached out and tugged. It would not open.

Suddenly I heard voices behind me, but I couldn’t make out any intelligible words. I turned around.

The clouds turned dark above me and formed a scene. I recognized it as Ponyville, and sure enough, there were Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle. They appeared to be at some sort of construction site. Rainbow Dash was gesticulating, no doubt going on about how awesome she was as Twilight listened patiently. A construction worker set down a few boxes of nails and accidentally bumped a propane tank, loosening the nozzle a little. A pegasus was welding above it, hot slag raining down around the tank.

“I’m not worried!” Rainbow Dash said, not looking where she was going. “I’m too awesome to worry about anything! I mean, if something bad is going to happen, I’m so fast I can stop it from happening! I am THE Rainbow Da-”

Before I knew what was happening, it was too late.

BOOM!

Rainbow managed a half turn before the nails ripped through her body. She didn’t even get a chance to scream before her flesh was ripped from her body. The explosion shred one of her wings right off, with feathers, bone, and muscle flying off in all directions. One of the nails went into her eye, and blood flew through the air. All this happened in the span of a millisecond. Once the shrapnel stopped flying, Rainbow Dash spun and fell to the ground.

She landed hard on her belly. Twilight stared in horror as her friend started to twitch. The maimed pegasus managed a few sobs, then tried to speak.

“T-tw-wil-lig-”

A flat piece of metal suddenly fell and embedded itself in the ground before Twilight, cutting Rainbow Dash in half. Her one remaining eye went wide with horror. She twitched and writhed as she started to pull herself forward. Her mouth opened and closed, desperately trying to form words, but only blood poured from her mouth. She lifted herself up on her remaining hooves, looked up at Twilight, twitched once more, and fell.

Twilight remained frozen, staring at what was left of her friend.

Then she screamed.

I screamed with her. I could not believe what I had just witnessed. But before I could fully process what had happened, the iron door opened and an ethereal black hand grabbed me and pulled me into darkness.

“You cannot save her from me. Just as you cannot save yourself from me.”

I sat up, heaving as if I had woken from a nightmare, but I realized quickly that the nightmare had only just begun.

The darkness that was around me suddenly melted away, and I saw image after image of Rainbow Dash…but the images were gruesome, disgusting, and horrifying. I tried to shut my eyes, but it seemed that the images had penetrated my mind, as they would not leave my sight.

Rainbow Dash with her eyes plucked out.

Rainbow Dash being violated by a manticore.

Rainbow Dash being flayed alive.

Rainbow Dash with meat hooks through her body.

No…no…

Raped, murdered, violated, mutilated. Burned, flayed, cut, shot, skewered, melted, beaten…

Senseless…relentless…

“You cannot save her.”

I forced myself to stand up. If I were corporeal I might have thrown up. There was so much debauchery, so many foul images that penetrated my consciousness. But then, there came an even greater horror: the sound.

Screams, bloody and pained and horrible, ripped through the air. They were so loud that I thought that my ears would start bleeding. They had to be Dash’s screams, and I could no longer hold back my tears. I let them fall freely as fear, pain, and confusion seized my body and twisted my insides.

“No…Dashie, no…”

“You cannot save her.”

“SHUT UP!”

There was nothing I could do. The screams continued, and the images flashed by so fast that I could barely see anything except the blue skin of Rainbow Dash and the harsh red color of blood.

“Why…why, why, WHY?! WHY DO YOU TORTURE ME?”

“Because it’s fun.”

“I am not…” I said, gasping. “…your plaything!”

“Oh, but you are. You are my pet, my prized attraction. I could kill you at any time, but I choose not because it is so much fun to watch you suffer. In a way, you are already dead, child.”

“No…”

I slowly stood up, the pain in my gut receding.

“I will kill you, demon.”

“Ha. You are but a pathetic weakling. Your mind is weak, your body is weak, and the weakest of all is your soul. You have let darkness in before, and you will always let darkness in until it consumes you. No amount of fighting will ever free you from my grasp.”

“You’re wrong. Your arrogance blinds you.”

“Does it now? Am I the blind one? Tell me child, is this all a dream? Are we in your head or are we in the real world? Does the real world really have ponies and friendship and kindness? When you came to that spit of land they call Equestria, did you honestly think you were really there?”

“I…I don’t understand…”

“And you never will. You will suffer. You will die slowly, alone, in a cold, dark place. You will be weak. You will have no one to save you. You will die, knowing that I have won.”

“Won?” I looked around. “You need me. You need a body.”

“No, child. I need only to feast on a body. When I have sucked your soul from your bones, when I have crushed your will and ripped your mind from your body, then I will eat you. I will consume you. From your bones I will create a new body. From the shattered shards of your soul, I will forge a new being.”

“You’ll never take me,” I growled. And then, from the outer reaches of a mind, a thought surfaced like a piece of timber in a pond.

“You can’t kill me. Not yet.”

Silence for a few moments.

“Can’t I?”

“No. You can’t kill me any more than I can kill you. We are on a different plane of existence, demon. This is my mind. Do you have a bad memory, you sadistic mongrel? You may remember that you didn’t let me die when I saved Fluttershy. You need me, demon. Without me, you can’t resist.”

“Your mind is mine, child. I don’t need you. I shall prove it.”

Suddenly…

Pain. Very, very intense pain. Invisible hands tore the skin from my bones, feasted on my heart and poured molten slag over my wounds. I tried to scream but no sound came from my mouth. The pain only grew. My body was on fire. He was breaking me.

Not this time.

If I could just…

My blade found its way into my hand. How it got there, I did not know. But I did not question my fortune. I swung, and the invisible hands stopped tearing me apart.

Then I fell, and I still had no wings to help me.

More darkness.

“H…Hello?”

A familiar voice.

“Who’s there? Is somepony there?”

Rainbow Dash.

I was in some sort of dungeon, a pitch-black room with walls of stone and a cold hard floor. I felt around, trying to make sense of my surroundings.

I was in a dungeon. Rainbow Dash was somewhere near me. I had to get her out of there. I had to save there.

“Rainbow Dash?”

“Who’s there?” Her voice was shaky. She was terrified.

“Rainbow Dash, it’s me.”

“Who?”

I sighed. “You should know by now.”

Silence for a moment, and then: “You. It’s you!”

“Yes.”

“Oh, thank Celestia! Where are you?”

“Follow the sound of my voice,” I said. We fumbled around for a minute before I finally felt cold pony skin. I gently moved my hand up.

“Is that you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Oh, thank you!” She hugged me, and even though we could barely see each other, I knew she was happy to see me. I could feel her quivering with fear, and as I felt her face her warm tears flowed down my hands. She was sobbing.

“Shhh,” I said, cradling her in the darkness. “It’s alright. You’re gonna be okay.”

“It…It…”

“Whatever it did to you, I’ll do to it ten times over. I promise you that.”

“We can’t…stop it. Too powerful. I…”

She sounded like she was in immense pain. Every breath from her mouth was forced and short. For a moment, I feared what I would see when we finally found light. How bad was it?

“We’ve got to get out here. Do you know where the door is?”

“It’s…to your left. I think it’s a little high. But…where am I?”

“This is your mind, Rainbow Dash,” I said, holding her close. “The demon thinks we’re trapped, but I know we can get out.”

“How?”

“I just know,” I said. In truth, I wasn’t sure. Would the demon leave a back entrance? No…unless I made one myself.

“Hold onto me,” I told her. “We’re getting out of here.”

I closed my eyes, and suddenly I could see. Somehow everything was visible. Whatever madness this was, I had neither the time nor the patience to question it. We had to escape.

“Rainbow Dash…I can see.”

“What?”

I looked to the left, and there was the door, black like tar. I pulled the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. Not that I expected it to. But every puzzle has its answer. There had to be another way. There had to be…

…nothing. I couldn’t think of anything. We were trapped.

“I…I can’t.” I opened my eyes and everything turned black again.

“What?” said Rainbow Dash again, shuffling close to me.

“I don’t know how we can get out. I’m sorry. I lied.”

Silence for a moment.

“No.”

I thought I could see her expression change, but I couldn’t. Closing my eyes didn’t. But there was something in her voice, something different.

“I was wrong not to trust you,” she said. In the cold darkness, her voice was like a comforting blanket that warmed my soul. “I believe in you. You came here to get rid of a horrible monster that threatened all our lives, and you’re doing a much better job than any of us could have ever done. I know we can escape, but…”

She stopped. “You are uncertain?” I said.

“I…well, I don’t anypony can be one hundred percent correct all the time. I don’t back away from a challenge, but then again, I’ve never faced anything like this before. So I guess I lied too. I don’t know if we can escape. I don’t know if we’ll survive much long. So…”

She moved closer to me, resting her head on my chest. “I have a small request. Please. If I die here, there’s one thing I want to know before it happens.”

“What is it?” I asked, though I almost knew what she was going to ask. Her head left my chest, and I knew she was looking up at me with determined but tearful eyes. She asked the question I knew she would ask, I knew they would all ask. The one question I didn’t want to answer. If the demon knew the answer…

“What is your name?”

My grip tightened on her back, and she gave a small yelp, as if she immediately regretted asking. But I stroked her mane reassuringly, shushing her as I held her in my arms.

The demon could not know. If revealed, it would be a deadlier weapon than any sword or gun or spear in any world. But I would not let him know.

And yet…she asked so nicely. I didn’t know how to get out, and even with her determination, she was still uncertain. We could very well die here. Who was I to deny her last request?

So I leaned close, put my lips to her ear, and whispered two words.

A loud sound broke through the darkness, a noise like a hammer on an anvil, and then the black melted away as light filled the room. I tried to hold onto Rainbow Dash, but I felt my grip loosen. I felt my whole body loosen, as if I was becoming undone. The light blinded me, blinded my thoughts, and when I passed out, even that darkness was bright.