Rainbow Dash, most colorful of all the pegasi taking refuge in what was left of Ponyville, had gathered together with the few others who had joined her. She had been on a 3 day flight across the nation, finding those brave enough to push back against the force of evil who had claimed Equestria as their own. She was on a mission of great importance to find those willing and able to fight, since... Well, she didn't usually talk about it.

With her collection of refugees, she had one last stop to make before she stormed the capital, and it was to an old friend. One who had somehow, lost all will to oppose.

She landed in Sweet Apple Acres in front of the dilapidated house where the Apple family once lived. Only now, it was just Applejack. Rainbow opened the door, and turned her head away from the ominous creak coming from the unused hinges. "Aj? Are you still here?"

"Go bother somepony else..." Aj called back from another room. "Ah got work to do."

"Sure you do," Rainbow replied, stepping into the living room. She saw Applejack, who was once a mighty pony, who stood for truth, lay in a mass on her couch, which dipped low under her weight. "C'mon, Aj. I need a favor."

"Ah said git lost!" Aj threw a lamp at her. Dash stepped to the side with ease, then cringed a little as the lamp shattered against the far wall. "Aww, hell, look what you did..."

"I know it hasn't been easy, Aj."

"Do you?" Aj fired back. "Last Ah checked your little Scootaloo is still alive. Mah brother, sister, and granny are all gone. Ah'm it. It's just me. What do you know?" Rainbow dashed toward Aj, her luminous wings leaving a trail behind her as she made her move, and just stood in front of her. "Ah ain't scared o' you."

"I don't want you to be. You used to be strong, fit, and healthy. We used to have our family, our friends. And now it's just you and me. And you're the closest thing I have to a family left..."

Aj's expression changed to somber. "What d'you mean?"

With great hesitation, and a small turn to the side, she answered, "Scoots is gone... Never came back from her last outing. Her entire squad was..." Rainbow let a few tears out. "We're losing, Aj. We need you back."

"Lookit me, Dash. Look what Ah turned into." Aj gestured to her overgrown form. Where the earth pony who bucked apples and wore a dusty old hat once was, sat a thrice larger mare, with no ambition. "Fat, lazy an' that's how Ah'm gonna stay."

"Maybe, but without you... Look, can you just come back with me to Ponyv-"

"It ain't Ponyville. It's not even a town, it's an... it's a grave..." Aj fought to her hooves and stumbled a bit. "If it makes ya feel better, fine. Ah'll come see yer mighty mob o' misfits."

The two of them spent a few hours getting Aj to the bunker Dash was staying in. There, she was greeted by her followers. A pink unicorn who once owned a village sat near the wall, looking on at the others, a grey pegasus with a lazy eye was sorting through the few barrels of food they managed to recover and a patchy stallion with a sword on his hip was sharpening the weapons near the side table. "I'm back, and I brought company." Rainbow stepped to the side and let Aj hobble in. Though she needed help, she was able to make it down the stairs. "Aj has at least come to hear us out."

Aj sneered menacingly at the others in the room. "Just you four? That's all you got?"

"Hey, she came and got me from Our Town. After the Fall of Canterlot... my village was destroyed by stray magic. It was only stupid luck I was able to make it to a nearby cave to wait it out," the pink one said.

The grey pegasus didn't say anything, so Aj turned to the patchy stallion. "Pipsqueak, is that you?"

"Just Pip, actually, and feel free to call me Captain." The stallion got on his hooves and bowed a little toward Aj. "Though, in truth, I am captain of nothing. When Rainbow found me, the ship I was on had been obliterated, I had washed ashore and my only possession was this sword. But to me, this sword is a treasure."

"Rainbow, why did you bring us... this?" The pink one got up and walked over to Aj and began poking at her belly fat.

"Because, Starlight, our 'mob' as she calls it could use all the help we can find." Rainbow looked at Aj with a disappointed look. "Even if all we got was a fat and lazy has-been."

Aj swatted Starlight's hoof away. "An' that's how Ah'm gonna stay. Why didn't you tell me we had such powerful magic on our side?"

Starlight looked away. "Tch." She found her way back to her seat at the wall.

Rainbow looked on as she walked off. "Starlight did try. And she failed... But it wasn't just her."

Aj looked down at the cobblestone floor. "Ah know... you don't gotta say it..."

"Twilight disappeared in that fight. And left us with no clues. None save for the few words she gave me as it happened. 'Luminous wings.' Whatever that means," Starlight offered.

Rainbow walked further into the room and sat on the couch, one of the last things recovered from Golden Oaks Library. Aj looked at it, then teared up. Rainbow patted the couch for her to come sit. "Ah thought everythin' turned to dust in that tree..."

"Apparently, Twilight had once cast a spell on it that redirects lightning. Guess with magic of that strength, this sofa was all it could spare."

Aj clambered up to sit on the couch and curled up. "What is it you think Ah could do?"

"Well, right now, you're the biggest paperweight we've ever had. And you're so lazy that you're fine with it. I mean, when's the last time you bucked a tree?" Aj let out a chuckle. "Yeah, that's what I thought." Rainbow turned her attention to Pip. "Pip, what's the status of those weapons?"

Pip gave the only other sword he had one last pass with the stone. "Looking good, but I don't think we'll have enough, now that you brought us a fifth..."

Starlight kicked off the wall and started practicing her magic. "I'll be fine without one. She can have mine."

"And what was hers?" Aj asked, looking around.

Rainbow pointed to a large sledgehammer leaning against the wall. "She was the only one strong enough to lift it, though given who you are... who you once were, you shouldn't have a problem." She saw Aj tumble off the couch and make her way to the hammer. "It's heavy, trust me."

"Not t'me it ain't. Watch." With one motion, Aj got to her hind legs and hefted the massive-headed hammer off the ground. And she did so with such force, she overcompensated and it went over her head behind her, crashing into the stone floor. "Okay, yeah, it's a mite heavy."

Pip asked, setting aside the sword. "Are you sure you are up for this?"

"Ah'm fat an' lazy, an' that's how Ah'm gonna stay. Don't mean Ah'm weak. Under all this fat is a mighty layer of muscle, trust me." Aj picked up the large hammer once more and rested it on her shoulder. "Ah got this."

"I'm sure..." Pip reluctantly agreed.



The following morning, the mob of miscellaneous misfits set off for the ruins of Canterlot Castle. No train would still reach, and there was no direct path that didn't involve flying, since the castle itself had broken free from the mountainside and crashed to the ground far below. While no trail had been blazed to the ruins, Rainbow Dash took Pip and put him out front, cutting through the brush to make a path.

Rainbow was surprised about the lack of resistance they met along the way, considering the force that was released upon Equestria those many years ago. He must be hiding it all in the ruins., Rainbow thought. When they reached the ruins, Rainbow had Starlight light up her horn, providing luminosity just strong enough to see a few feet in front of them. They eventually came to what looked like a sealed door. It was stone, large and emblazoned with a sigil that pulsed red.

"What's the plan for this thing?" Aj said, looking at it. She cast her gaze to Starlight.

"You, Aj, are going to swing your hammer at it. You probably couldn't tell, but that hammer is a magic item. So far, you were the only one who could move it."

"Then how'd you get it to the bunker?" Aj asked.

Starlight chuckled. "I carried the dirt underneath it. Apparently, that hammer can sense when somepony's moving it and make itself unmovable. But dirt isn't a pony, so..."

Aj shook her head at the talk of magic and hoisted the hammer high, and with a strike as mighty as a lightning bolt she brought it cashing down upon the stone door. The sigil shattered and the stone blew away, leaving a cloud of dust and a mob of coughing ponies. The grey pegasus who had been waiting for her turn at doing something useful, started blowing the dust away with her wings. "Mah work is done then, right?" Aj asked, setting the hammer down. "Ah can go home an' laze around some more?"

"No, we still need you," Starlight said. "I'm detecting strong magic further in."

"Of course you are, Starlight. He's down there," Rainbow retorted.

"I meant sealing magic, Dash. There's another door." Starlight hopped down the new hole in the ground and bound a ball of light to the floor. "It's safe-ish."

Rainbow looked at the grey mare. "Derpy, I need you to stay up here and keep watch. Let us know immediately if something goes sideways."

"Understood," she replied. With that, she landed and set her saddlebags aside.

Rainbow was next down the hole, then Pip, then finally Aj. The latter-most pony landed with such a heavy thud that Pip looked surprised to see the ground didn't give way.

As the mob moseyed along the only path, Starlight started looking more panicked. Rainbow walked up beside her when the unicorn stopped. "What's up?"

Starlight fired a ball of light and bound it to the floor just before the second stone block. "We're here." Just as before, the stone block depicted a red sigil, pulsing with magic.

Aj stepped up to the plate and readied a swing. Just then, a shadow dashed across the bit of light and plowed into Aj, sending her tumbling to the wall of the hall. As she got to her hooves, albeit with difficulty, she saw the others struggling to fend off an unseen entity.

"Starlight, make that one light brighter. I want it to cover this section of hallway," Rainbow ordered. Starlight did as she was told and made the ball of light reach the ceiling. "Aj, get that door open. Pip and I will hold them off." Rainbow extended a spear that had been tucked away and stood in defense of Aj.

Keeping the darkness at bay, Aj had a clean shot at the sigil stone and swung away, blasting it down the hall in one go. "Done deal!"

"'Fat and lazy, huh?" Pip asked. "Go on! I will cover you!"

"What's he mean Rainbow?" Aj asked. Rainbow gave him a nod and took off down the hall with Starlight. "Wait up!" Aj did her best to run after them.

When she caught up, likely because Dash had slowed down, she got her answer. "Starlight's luminous spell only lasts for a few minutes. After that, those creatures will come back. And..."

"You sacrificed Pip?! Just like that!?"

"I don't have a choice! Our enemy isn't afraid of playing dirty, which means we have to make the hard choices. They knew what they were getting into when they joined me." Rainbow looked ahead to Starlight. "How close are we to the next door?"

Starlight fired off a ball of light to the ground many feet ahead. As the light traveled, it revealed a serious movement on the walls. "We're surrounded and it's pretty far. Don't worry, this one's mine." She lifted Aj. "You got this, now fly!" Starlight threw Applejack through the air after encasing her in a shield. With the added momentum, her hammer swing was far mightier than anything she'd done before. The blast sent debris even further down the hall.

Starlight started firing of spell after spell at the creatures around her. Rainbow gave her one final nod. as she flared open her wings and flew down the hall by herself.

Applejack looked at her hammer. "Magic, huh?" The hammer gave a little shimmer, and pointed a single beam of light down the hall. "Throw ya? But hang on? Arite." Aj wound up and chucked the hammer as hard as she could, letting it carry her down the hall fast enough to catch up to Rainbow. Runnin' o' the Leaves all over again, eh?"

"Yeah, except it's not leaves we're after." Dash slowed down so Aj could blast through the final door, which was far larger than the previous ones. The impact knocked down the stone, but stopped all momentum.

Dash sped along, while Aj stood her ground. "Go gettem, Dash. Ah got this."

It took everything Rainbow had to not stop and go back. Maybe she would have been better prepared with more training? More help? Stronger help? Better moves, a better plan, better weapons? Better anything? Just then, in the midst of her thoughts, Twilight showed up in a brilliant ball of light. "Rainbow Dash... You are the last one left... The only one who can destroy him now."

"Luminous wings, right? You gave those words to Starlight, but they were meant for me, huh..." Twilight nodded. "The Sonic Rainboom... But I'll need more magic for this one."

Twilight's horn lit up, pulling the magic from the friends who risked their lives behind her and gave it all to Rainbow. "You are all that's left of them now. And me, too..." Twilight started fading away. "Do... not... lose..." With that, she vanished. Rainbow's wings radiated brilliant energy as she jumped in speed faster down the black hallway. Her own luminosity strong enough to repel the worst of the creatures who sat in wait.

"It's not enough! What I got isn't nearly enough!" Rainbow retreated into her own mind and started taking away from her own life force. Her eyes started turning the various colors of her friend's magic as her speed increased even further.

"I HAVE TO KNOW I GAVE IT MY AAAAAALL!!!"

She screamed into the large room where the evil that had taken over had come from. Shining as bright as a star, Rainbow drove herself into the heart of the monster and broke past her personal best, starting a Sonic Rainboom to end all rainbooms.

And as the darkness over Equestria was lifted, there lay a grey earth pony wearing a simple burlap cloak. "And that's it. The greatest show of my live... and nopony will ever know..." Rainbow collapsed to the ground and breathed her last...