Inside the windmill at the top of AutumnBreeze Hill...
The sounds around her were intensifying. Her clouded senses were at last beginning to respond.
Fluttershy, unconscious until just a few seconds ago, slowly opened her eyes. Everything was dark. She couldn't see a thing, which made sense given the airtight latex helmet she was wearing. But that wasn't all: what she perceived next filled her with unease at once.
She couldn't move her body freely.
"What happened?" she murmured in a barely audible voice, struggling in vain.
The muffled voices around her were beginning to take shape. It didn't take long to understand that a conversation, far from friendly in its tone, was unfolding very close to her.
"Applejack? Rainbow Dash?" she whispered again, with a thread of hope.
The conversation — which she was still shut out of — continued, and though she recognized the voices of her friends, there was another that made her blood run cold.
She didn't know it. It was deep, intense, violent... and by the way it expressed itself, it was clear it was anything but friendly.
Almost without thinking, she adjusted her head inside the helmet, secured it, and stayed still, attentive. Listening to everything being said in the middle of the conversation.
No, it wasn't a conversation. It was an argument.
"Twilight... Fire Alicorn... wait... King of Harmony?" she repeated, memorizing it, trying to process each word.
She had no time for that — the argument stopped. A heavy silence filled the room.
Danger.
Her survival instinct screamed inside her. Something very bad was about to happen.
Seconds passed. And the tension in the Pegasus didn't stop growing, nearly cutting off her breath.
Finally, the silence shattered at once. The words that reached her ears confirmed her worst fears.
"What do I do?! What do I do?! Twilight, what should I do?!" she pleaded in a desperate whisper, with tears forming inside her helmet.
It was then that, as if a spark had lit up her mind, Fluttershy remembered something. Something Twilight had told her a long time ago, about the magical gift a queen had given her.
The answer was clear. She knew what she had to do.
An instant later, the mesh bag she was trapped in shuddered... and was crushed.
[---]
Moments before, in that same place...
"Please... I need to find the princess..." The deep voice echoed through the gloomy space.
Barely visible in the shadows, a threatening-looking creature — an enormous beast with horns — stood upright in the center of the room, her gaze fixed on her prisoners.
"...only Princess Twilight has the power to defeat the evil mare who imprisoned my people..." she continued.
Facing her, swaying without wind, three mesh bags hung from the ceiling. Applejack and Rainbow Dash, trapped in two of them, watched their captor without saying a word.
"...that is why I need you to take me to her. I beg you..."
The beast finished her speech. Her voice, which had begun as a threatening roar, now trembled on the edge of breaking, reflecting her desperation.
Or at least, that was how it appeared.
The ponies stayed silent, even as the creature's expression grew more impatient.
"Don't you understand that I need help?!" she suddenly roared. "The lives of every inhabitant of my world depend on her! The evil Fire Alicorn will stop at nothing to steal all the magic in existence. If we don't defeat her soon, your world will suffer the same fate as mine!"
The words rang out against the walls, charging the atmosphere with palpable tension.
Even so, silence returned. And it held until, contrary to the mood, a voice dripping with disdain broke it:
"I see, nice story... 'the Fire Alicorn'?" said Rainbow Dash, cracking her neck. "Do you know if she has a less stupid name?"
The beast held still for a few seconds, suppressing the immediate reply that burned in her throat. After a moment, she finally answered in a grave tone: "Opaline Arcana."
"Aha!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, tilting her head. "Applejack, do you remember if Twilight ever mentioned anyone called Opaline Arcana? The 'evil Fire Alicorn'?"
"No..." Applejack replied, not taking her eyes off the creature.
"Exactly. She never did, and we've never heard of her before. Which means that, very likely, all of this is nothing but a bunch of lies!"
"You think I'm lying?" the beast growled, this time without holding back her fury. "It's the absolute truth! Your princess knows! Take me to her and she'll prove how wrong you are."
"Oh, really?! You giant furball!" Rainbow Dash burst out, flapping her wings. "If you want us to take you to her so badly, why don't you let us go first?!"
"I've already told you: it's for your own safety," the beast replied, lowering her tone. "This shelter has already been invaded by Opaline's servants. If I free you now, you could fall into enemy hooves..."
"And aren't we already?" Rainbow Dash shot back with sarcasm, but was ignored.
"You're safe now, you don't need to worry about that. Just tell me where Princess Twilight is."
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, exasperated, and turned her gaze to her friend, who had stayed mostly silent the entire time.
"Applejack, can you help me out here with a little common sense? So that this thing—"
"I'm GAM," the creature interrupted.
"Who cares!" Rainbow Dash growled. "Just let us go already!"
Applejack didn't respond right away. She exhaled from deep within and, without looking at her friend, said:
"No, Rainbow Dash. She's right." Her voice sounded firm, decided. "She needs help."
The beast's eyes flickered and an almost involuntary smile appeared on her face. Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, opened her eyes wide, dumbfounded.
"Are you serious?!" the Pegasus shouted, indignant.
"Yes, I am," Applejack confirmed calmly.
"Good. Very well," the beast nodded, letting a hint of relief escape. "The King of Harmony is on our side. Will you tell me where Princess Twilight is?"
"Of course. But first, you can do us a favor," Applejack added with seriousness.
"Gladly!" the beast exclaimed with enthusiasm.
"Good. Then you could start by being honest for once."
The creature's expression tensed, as if a bucket of cold water had been dropped on her. The silence that followed was broken only by the sound of her quickened breathing.
"Honest?" she repeated, puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"Who are you really?"
"I am GAM, emissary of the King of Harmony..."
"No, you're not," Applejack interrupted. "I don't know how much of your speech is true or false, but one thing is clear to me: you need help. You're desperate — I can see it in your eyes."
The beast said nothing. Applejack, holding her piercing gaze, added:
"If you truly want our help, start by telling us the truth. Who are you?"
"You keep asking that question... why?"
"Because I want to help you. I have the feeling we already know each other... am I right?"
The air grew even heavier. The beast's silhouette contracted and her eyes gleamed with a threatening brightness.
"Help me?" she hissed with mocking scorn. "Will you tell me where Princess Twilight is?"
"Will you tell us who you really are?" Applejack replied, without yielding.
"No," she growled, in a tone even deeper than before.
"Then... I won't tell you a thing," Applejack stated, defiant.
A deathly silence took over the room. But unlike the previous ones, this was charged with hostility, as if the very air were foretelling imminent danger.
At the center of it all, Applejack and the beast remained motionless, locking eyes in a battle of wills.
Rainbow Dash, who until then had limited herself to watching, fidgeted in her mesh cell, wings tense, expectant of what was about to happen.
The silence deepened further. The ponies' breathing seemed suspended, and the only audible sound was the subtle creak of the ropes keeping them hanging.
Splat! A sharp crack suddenly split the air, slicing through the atmosphere like a whip striking the floor.
The ponies startled and searched for its source with their eyes. They found it quickly: a sinuous shadow, resembling an enormous snake, lashed behind the beast.
It was her tail, now revealing the shift in her intentions.
"You're a disappointment... all of you. And your princess... is no different," she pronounced, with palpable contempt in the darkness.
Applejack narrowed her eyes. The beast's face was pure shadow in that lightless space; the incandescent lamps that were her eyes had gone out.
"Applejack... this is bad," Rainbow Dash whispered from her cage.
The farmer didn't get the chance to respond. At that very instant, the beast's eyes snapped open, blazing with a ferocity that froze her in place.
"I don't need all of you. Two will be enough," the creature growled.
Suddenly, sliding silently through the darkness, the beast's claw flashed, aiming toward Applejack.
No... it wasn't aiming at her.
"No!" Applejack shouted uselessly. At the same moment, the claw became a violent fist directed at where Rainbow Dash was hanging.
A whistle, like blades slicing against each other, rang out through the air.
The movement stopped dead.
Applejack, heart in her throat, watched what had happened, shaken.
The claw pulled back.
To Applejack's relief — and the beast's annoyance — a colorful silhouette emerged from the shadows.
Still inside her cage, Rainbow Dash stood upright, wings deployed like blades, planted as firm as a hedgehog before the claw that had tried to crush her. Without hesitating, she spat to one side, removing a strand of mane that had gotten stuck to her mouth.
"Try again," she challenged with a smile, as the beast returned to her starting position.
Applejack let out a sigh.
"I had almost forgotten how untameable you are, Rainbow Dash," the beast replied with an unsettling calm.
The Pegasus raised an eyebrow. Those words confirmed Applejack's suspicion: this creature, whom they had never seen or given a name to, knew them.
Applejack swallowed. Her expression made clear she had understood the full weight of that revelation too. Though knowing it only added more pressure to her aching head.
Then, in the gloom, a sharp smile split the beast's face.
The ponies tensed in their cages, ready for whatever might come.
It was no use; neither of them could predict what happened next.
The beast's claw extended again, even faster than before, this time aimed at the third of the ponies.
In the blink of an eye it reached the bag where Fluttershy was, and without the slightest effort or resistance from her victim, it crushed it.
The first thing heard was a dull thud, followed by the creaking of the ropes. That last sound repeated with harrowing clarity, again and again, accompanied by a chilling whistle, similar to what a body being squeezed might make... or rather, a wrapping being deflated.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash, stunned by the brutality of that act against their friend, went motionless, absorbed, unable to pay attention to anything else that might be happening.
And indeed, something else was happening.
"Uhhhhhh..." In the middle of the crushing, the beast bellowed in a clumsy tone, very different from the one she had shown before. Confused, she squeezed her fist harder and harder, as if searching for something. However, the more she did so, the more her grotesque face twisted in pure bewilderment. Until at last, reacting to her incomprehensible shock, she pulled back, releasing her claw, her prey, and breaking the state of paralysis in the other ponies.
Some indefinite remnants fell into the darkness, but the sound they made on impact was not what the friends or the beast had expected.
Still without understanding what was happening, Applejack and Rainbow Dash watched as the beast launched herself upward. With one leap she reached the ceiling and brought it down, letting light into the dark room.
A whitish, artificial luminosity invaded the space. Everyone blinked, blinded by the sudden brightness.
When they could finally see clearly, the scene that revealed itself left them baffled once more.
The mesh bag where Fluttershy should have been was empty. Yes, the latex suit was still there, torn and twisted like a balloon popped from excessive pressure... but there was nothing else.
Not a feather. Not a single hair. Not a trace of fur. Nothing.
Even the beast looked as disbelieving as they did.
"What the heck...?!" she roared, unable to comprehend what she was seeing.
"Hahahahahaha!" A burst of laughter suddenly erupted at Applejack's side. Rainbow Dash, grinning from ear to ear and with tears in her eyes, was rolling with laughter inside her mesh cell.
"That coward Fluttershy..." she said between laughs. "She ran away as always, hahahaha!"
Applejack stayed silent, still trying to take in what she was seeing. At what point had her friend escaped? She had no explanation, but what she did have was a stomach, at last, free of the knot of anguish that had been strangling her from within.
The beast, for her part, was beginning to grasp the magnitude of the disaster.
"Fluttershy...?" she barely managed to say, with difficulty. "Not Rarity...?"
"Of course Fluttershy, you furball!" Rainbow Dash replied, beaming, with absolute certainty. "She must be on her way to the base right now to warn Twilight and the others about what's going on. Hahahaha!"
Applejack watched her, confused by the mention of Twilight, until Rainbow winked at her in a knowing way.
The farmer blinked and, the next instant, understood her friend's intention. Then she added firmly: "That's right! Twilight will come to rescue us and give you what you deserve. Even Badwhiz is joining this time!"
The beast's face contorted with rage.
"That brat is still alive?!" she roared.
"Yes, and what are you going to do about it?" Rainbow Dash replied with a defiant smile.
The beast didn't respond with words. She extended both claws and seized the two ponies in a lightning-fast movement.
Applejack and Rainbow felt the crushing pressure of those colossal fists at once. Their bodies shook under the brute force, but their spirit remained intact.
"You're... wasting... your time..." Rainbow Dash forced out her words with difficulty, turning red as she felt the air escaping from her lungs.
The creature held the grip for a few more seconds, until, perhaps because of the Pegasus's words or because of the stubbornness of both in refusing to give in easily, she stopped her attack and let them go.
Both dropped exhausted to the floor of their cages, gasping in unison.
With a roar of frustration, the beast delivered a punch that brought down one of the room's walls. Her fierce gaze fell on the fake Ponyville stretching out on the other side.
After staring at the place for a long moment, she exhaled forcefully through her nose, like an enraged bull, and turned her attention back to the two ponies still hanging — trembling and without the strength to resist.
"You'll be useful to me... whether you like it or not," she whispered in a venomous voice.
Moments later, the beast descended AutumnBreeze Hill, carrying two bundles on her back, and disappeared into the dark cardboard forest.
[---]
Everything was moving very fast. That was fine for her, but not the other thing.
"...Tick, tick, tick..."
A sharp sound was drilling into her ears. Rainbow Dash squinted, dizzy. Everything around her swayed like a ship at sea. Was she on the ocean? Her thoughts drifted while the steady blows, like waves, kept reaching her ears.
Where were the waves coming from? From below? Why did the ground seem to be rushing past? Was she running... or was someone carrying her?
"Tick, tick, tick. Rain...bowww...." The Pegasus flicked her ears, distracted. The sound kept repeating itself, growing more and more annoying. On instinct, she started turning her head, moving her mane as much as her bonds would allow.
But the effort wasn't enough: the bothersome sound persisted.
"What a nuisance! What's going on? Ugh... I'm so hungry..." the Pegasus complained under her breath. Her sight was exhausted, her head hurt terribly and, to make things worse, her body felt weak. The recent lack of air and the empty stomach had started to take their toll on her physically. With no energy to recover, Rainbow Dash was barely a shadow of herself.
Thanks to her complaints, the uncomfortable sound disappeared, returning a bit of peace to her.
Then, something unexpected happened: a sweet taste began to form in her dry mouth. Instinctively, her tongue stretched out to catch it.
It was round, with a solid coating, and sticky when chewed. The flavor spread through her mouth, making her smile at once. Chocolate always had that effect on her.
She swallowed it all at once and, immediately, wanted more. As if her wish had been heard, more bites began to appear. Without wasting time, Rainbow Dash devoured them one after another. She kept going until there was nothing left. She was still hungry, but she wasn't going to complain: what she had just eaten had given her enough energy to begin coming back to herself.
Some way to come back to herself...
"Rainbow Dashhhh!" A shrill voice burst in one of her ears.
"Waaaaa..." Rainbow Dash's body shuddered with surprise. She would even have jumped into the air if not for her precarious state.
She opened her eyes just enough to realize she was tied inside a mesh bag. Beside her, Applejack remained unconscious in a similar state. Beyond that, the ground — and everything around them — was passing quickly, as if they were on some moving vehicle.
Her memory refreshed in an instant and connected the pieces: the kidnapping in the middle of the candy lake, the dark conversation with the beast in the windmill, the crushing, and the beast's subsequent promise to make use of them.
The Pegasus's feathers ruffled as she grasped the situation.
Indeed, that was what was happening. Both ponies were traveling on the creature's back, which was crossing the cardboard forest in long strides, carrying them to her lair...
Or somewhere worse?
She didn't need to think about it any further — Rainbow Dash started struggling against her bonds. However, she hadn't managed much before the previous voice that had been bothering her came back to interrupt.
"Rainbow Dashhhh! You woke up, thank goodness you're all right!" the shrill voice squealed inside her head.
"What in the—?!" The Pegasus shook her stinging ears.
"Rainbow Dash, it's me! Fluttershy! Don't shout... Aaaaaaahhhhh!" the voice shrieked insistently.
Among Rainbow Dash's movements, a small lump emerged from her ear.
"Fluttershy?" she exclaimed, shocked, as she watched a tiny pink insect that had been inside her ear crawl with effort until it clung to the ropes in the middle of the rocking motion on the beast's back, before at last settling on her nose.
Though she looked very different, it was Fluttershy: tiny, delicate, and transformed into a Breezie.
Rainbow Dash was left open-mouthed, unable to believe what she was seeing. Little by little, her mind began to process the situation.
"Queen Novo's gift... the pearl... it transformed you into a Breezie?" she murmured, still absorbing the information.
"Yes... yes..." the tiny Fluttershy replied, excited. "I was with you before and..."
She didn't finish the sentence. Without warning, with a single lick, Rainbow Dash swept her into her mouth and went still, feigning unconsciousness.
The reason was beyond her cage.
The beast had stopped. Turning her enormous head like an owl, she was sniffing the air, as if detecting something between the cardboard trees.
Rainbow Dash's heart pounded hard, praying she hadn't been discovered. She subtly opened one eye while a shrill voice squealed trapped between her teeth.
The tense moment broke as fast as it had started. Without a word, the creature resumed her march.
Rainbow Dash spat out the tiny Fluttershy, who, covered in drool, looked as disoriented as the unconscious Applejack beside her.
"Oww... what was that?" the tiny pony protested.
"This is no time for explanations!" Rainbow Dash growled in a furious whisper. "Why in the hay aren't you with the others to warn them about what's happening?!"
The Breezie Fluttershy shook her head to recover and replied: "No... I couldn't. I don't know how to get there."
"What do you mean you don't know?! You have wings! You had the map! What more do you need?"
"Yes, yes... but the map tore apart... along with my suit."
"Ah... right. But... fly by sight! Use your wings!"
"No... I can't do that either. There's no wind in this place and I can't fly as a Breezie without it. My normal wings don't work. I'm so scared, Rainbow... I don't know what to do!" the tiny Fluttershy started to cry.
"Aughhh!" Rainbow Dash bit her lip, frustrated by her friend's helplessness. Everything Fluttershy was saying was true. Shortly after escaping from being crushed, she had tried to go to the other ponies to warn them, but it had taken only a couple of steps for her to become disoriented and unable to move forward on her own.
Accepting her own helplessness, the only thing she could think of was to return to Applejack and Rainbow Dash, hoping they could come up with a plan together to escape from that dangerous situation.
"So... you came back as a Breezie and clung to the beast without her noticing..." Rainbow Dash reasoned with a crooked smile.
"Yes... wasn't that good?"
"No!... I mean... yes. Aghh... why didn't you attack her or something? Does that pearl only work for turning you into a Breezie or what?"
"Ahh... I'm not sure. It's a magic pearl — Queen Novo didn't give me a manual with it... I was planning to ask Twilight at our meeting in Canterlot, but that never got to happen..." the tiny Fluttershy replied, overwhelmed.
"Ahhhh..." Rainbow Dash exhaled, making a great effort not to keep getting angry. The improvised and unexpected conversation with her friend on the beast's back wasn't going anywhere. Applejack was out of commission. Fluttershy... well, she wasn't being much help. Time was running out. They had to act!
More precisely, she had to think of something! But what?
"Twilight, what would you do in a situation like this?" Rainbow Dash implored inwardly.
After a concentrated effort that almost seemed to make smoke come out of her head, the Pegasus took a deep breath and recovered her confidence.
The master plan she had just come up with was, at least in her own mind, 100% foolproof. Twilight would definitely approve!... or so she hoped.
"All right!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. "Here's what we're going to do right now! Ready, Fluttershy?"
"Y-yes?" the Breezie-shaped Pegasus replied timidly.
Without waiting for a more enthusiastic answer, Rainbow Dash began to explain her plan in a low voice. Fluttershy listened attentively, nodding with her tiny head, while the beast's back continued swaying at the same urgent pace as the two of them.
[---]
The Apple family's big barn was only a few minutes from Ponyville. By comparison, in the toy world, the distances between the apparent building and the fake village were identical. That similarity was the only thing worth noting between both versions, since — just like the rest of the structures in the area — the big barn was made of plastic and cardboard, which made it look outlandish compared to its original counterpart. To make things worse, it had been painted such a garish orange that it was nearly unrecognizable.
Precisely for that reason, the beast didn't recognize it for what it was. To her, it seemed a building spacious and secure enough to hold her prisoners. Of course, "holding" them meant throwing them inside without the least consideration. Once that was done, she blocked the barn's only entrance with a cardboard log she had picked up on the way.
With that task complete, the beast directed her full attention toward the village of Ponyville, which received her with its loud, artificial colors.
"What in the hay is this..." she said, intrigued, just as the ponies had been the first time they saw it.
She had been in other "worlds," each with its own rules and features, but this one struck her as strange in a personal sense. She had never visited the real Ponyville, but she had seen enough tourist postcards to recognize it.
It was the land she knew... turned into a parody.
"Did that blasted know-it-all goat have a point?" she thought with a shudder, advancing carefully. "Could it be that my world is actually the reflection of some other world's game?"
The very idea disgusted her. A bitter taste rose to her mouth, forcing her to spit.
"No. I am who I am. There can't be another version of me wandering around in another world. If another me really existed, no matter how similar she might be, she would have to be here with me, going through the same hell I am."
The beast took a few more steps, then stopped dead and slapped herself, covering her face with her enormous claws.
A bothersome buzzing was beating at her ears as her gaze fell once more on the village ahead of her.
She mustn't think about nonsense. She needed to focus on her objective: Twilight.
And on that point...
"Blast it all! How am I supposed to do this?!" she roared to herself, desperate.
During the journey she had hoped some brilliant idea would come to her, but nothing had arrived. The only advantage she had was that two of Twilight's friends were captured; it wasn't much of an edge.
The amulet that nullified magic was still her best card, but now Twilight had the help of the other two ponies: the pink one and the stuck-up unicorn. If she used the amulet against the princess at the wrong moment and one of them stepped in, she could lose it easily, just as had happened before to its previous bearer.
"I need to get rid of those two first... and then only the... useless one?... Ughhh!" The beast clenched her teeth. Just thinking about that other obstacle made her blood boil. She wanted to rip off the thick coat of fur covering her body and roll on the ground to release her rage.
"How did that useless Pegasus escape? No... more to the point, how did she escape from the train back then? How does Fluttershy dare keep breathing the same air as me?"
For the beast, ponies like Fluttershy were a mistake that needed to be erased. They were nothing but a headache for everyone else.
"The princess must have given her some powerful magic item... yes, that must be it. But... an item that only works to escape? Blast it, why do I have to be on guard against someone like that! Grrrrr..."
Having Fluttershy as a priority target was infuriating, but she knew that if she could get rid of her, only the princess would remain.
"Princess Twilight Sparkle..." she growled again.
She had to admit that Twilight was a princess in every sense of the word, an adversary capable of pushing her to her limits time and again. And for that, she had earned her respect.
But nothing more.
She would never accept her as her princess.
Silent, the beast crept across the meadow bordering the fake Ponyville. At this distance and given her size, she should already have been spotted; and yet, nothing happened. Either no one had noticed her presence, or they were already expecting her with a trap.
The latter was unlikely. She had hurried to get there. Not as fast as Rainbow Dash at full strength, but certainly faster than a below-average Pegasus like Fluttershy.
"Right... I just have to charge in with everything. Shock and opportunity..." she ordered herself, peering through the fake bushes. The terrain was in her favor: the buildings would serve as cover and, moreover, she already had a direct line of sight on Twilight's fake treehouse. Her instinct told her that was the base of operations for those meddlesome ponies.
"Crush them all and then the princess... isn't that too much?" The beast hesitated for an instant as she noticed the buzzing in her ears growing deafening.
Not only that. Her breathing was erratic and her stomach was burning. Considering her own exhaustion and Twilight's defensive abilities, the thought crossed her mind: wouldn't it be better to give up?
She sighed, resigned.
"I'm in deep trouble, aren't I? Breaking the deal now won't do me any good..." she lamented in silence.
With her gaze fixed on the treehouse, still tangled in her web of thoughts, she didn't notice how a small pink butterfly was leaving her back and casually disappearing among the nearby bushes.
[---]
A couple of minutes later...
"Find the others, get away, and then I'll handle it... Find the others, get away, and then I'll handle it... ha... haaa...", the tiny Breezie Fluttershy was repeating between sobs and gasps, nearly out of breath. The small tears in her eyes were blurring her vision, but the straight path before her allowed no mistakes, nor did the plan Rainbow Dash had given her — and which she was determined to carry out.
"Find the others, get away, and then I'll handle it!" That was the plan. She repeated it like a mantra one last time, wiping her eyes.
Fluttershy only had a few more meters to go before she reached the treehouse door.
Which, as if by fate, swung open to welcome her... or perhaps to welcome the inevitable confrontation drawing near.