Before the end of the beast, when Fluttershy made the decision to fight and took the first step.
At the same time, somewhere else…
[---]
"Which plan?"
A distant crash, like an explosion, shook the barn. Applejack flinched, but Rainbow Dash only grinned in defiance: the plan was going far too well…
At least, for her.
After the explanation, Applejack clenched her teeth. She had something to say.
"WHAT?! That's the plan?!" she roared, brow furrowed and a vein throbbing on her forehead.
"Yes! It's a great plan!" Rainbow Dash replied, bursting with enthusiasm and not a trace of doubt. "And now it's my turn to finish it! See you at the library!"
"Rainbow!!" Applejack shouted, but she wasn't heard. With a powerful leap, her friend blasted off the ground like a missile, punching through the plastic barn roof and vanishing beyond the cartoonish hole she left behind.
Submerged in deep darkness and under a rain of fragments striking her back, Applejack could only stare helplessly at the bright hole above her head—her only source of light—through which her friend had disappeared.
"Idiooot! Idiooot! Yooouuu…! Ughhh! This is going to end badly!" She wanted to bite her hat right then, but she wasn't wearing it, so she could only vent her frustration by stomping impulsively against the floor.
A growing rumble began to echo inside the shadowy barn.
Startled, Applejack snapped out of her cloud of frustration and returned to reality at once.
"I've gotta get outta here!" she ordered herself, scanning her surroundings for an exit as the trembling ground climbed up her body, urging her onward.
As if by divine answer, her gaze stopped right where the beam of light from the roof illuminated the silhouette of a mechanical shape parked a few meters ahead.
Applejack cracked a smile. It was exactly what she needed.
"If you're gonna do things your way… then I'll do things my way too, Rainbow!"
With a neigh, the farm pony ran toward the machine and, after checking that it was indeed what it looked like, turned the keys to start it.
The roar of powerful engines exploded inside the barn.
[---]
The world around her changed rapidly.
The ground fell away like a photograph drifting downward, while the sky opened wide with its artificial glow. Small pieces of the barn roof still clung to her rainbow mane. None of them managed to stay there for long; all of them eventually broke loose like ashes amid her rapid ascent.
By the time Rainbow Dash reached the peak of her climb, her mane shone as bright and unmistakable as ever—perhaps even more so, fueled by the fighting spirit now flooding her.
Yes, she was tired, with barely any real food in her streamlined body. Still, those details were insignificant compared to the mission resting upon her wings.
And that mission was singular.
"It's time to fix my mistakes!" she proclaimed, letting her words vanish into the air. That summed it all up.
But at that moment, there was no wind to carry them away—nor any short explanation for her determination.
The firm voice and resolute gaze of the rainbow pegasus were the physical answer to a long list of failures: the train attack, Morrigan, the Knights of Order, Twilight, Badwhiz… and every wrong decision that had led her here.
Rainbow Dash carried a long list of faults she hadn't been able to shake from her mind since they awoke in that world… but now, at last, she could set them right.
Or so she believed.
A powerful roar advanced rapidly toward her, immediately drawing her attention.
She smiled confidently when she saw the source of the noise. It was exactly who she had been waiting for.
The beast charged straight at her, bellowing thunderously and making all the air in that toy world vibrate.
"There you are, furball!" the pegasus shouted, determined to face the creature. Without another word, she dove headlong into the brutal charge.
It was a reckless attack—very reckless—considering the creature's size and how insignificant the pegasus was by comparison. Rainbow Dash had no chance of stopping it. Still, she trusted herself: her speed and agility were all the advantage she needed to execute her plan.
And what was that plan?
"Its eyes! The key is its eyes!" That was the conclusion she had reached while thinking about how to defeat the beast. Truth be told, she hadn't thought it through very deeply. But since eyes were the most vulnerable point of any creature, betting on that target seemed reasonable.
However, with every millisecond of her descent, Rainbow Dash began to realize that her plan… might not be as simple as she had imagined.
The creature's charge was surprisingly fast—accelerated and, above all, violent. So violent that every object in its path was struck and hurled into the air by its overwhelming, explosive advance.
Could Rainbow Dash really handle that?
"You can do it, Rainbow! You can do it, Rainbow! You can do it, Rainbow!" she repeated inside her head as she closed in on her target, trying to convince herself. Her initial confidence still held—but it was evaporating at an alarming rate.
While her mind wavered, adrenaline surged at full force, driving every wingbeat as an instinctive reflex, oblivious to danger.
She kept her speed the entire way, but in the final milliseconds before impact, her flight began to veer. It wasn't a conscious choice; her flying instincts had taken over. A minimal correction—almost imperceptible. Just in case.
That last precaution, however, proved unnecessary.
"What?!" She barely managed the exclamation as she braked in midair, when the beast—without even noticing her—slammed into the ground with a powerful, explosive leap and, in a shocking midair spin, turned itself into a massive ball of fur (or rather, a cannonball) that continued its parabolic trajectory straight over her.
Rainbow Dash couldn't believe it. The beast's impossible agility had outdone her. But the surprises didn't end there.
Following the arc of the creature's airborne attack, at the far end of its trajectory—right at the point of collision—another revelation caught her completely off guard.
"Fluttershy?" She blinked several times and rubbed her eyes. She couldn't believe her vision was tired enough to deceive her like that. Had she just seen an oversized version of her friend, standing atop the false Ponyville?
When she looked again, the scene remained unchanged, confirming that what she was seeing was real. A gigantic Fluttershy stood in the middle of the false Ponyville in a defensive stance, wings tensed and eyes cold with calculation. She extended her forehooves skyward in a posture reminiscent of a diamond spider about to seize its prey.
And that is exactly what happened in the next instant, right before Rainbow Dash's incredulous eyes.
The immense cannonball came crashing down upon the brave Fluttershy. However, contrary to Rainbow's first impression, her friend did not meet the beast's impact with open hooves, as she had imagined. In a move of pure brilliance—worthy of the toughest Buckball competitions—Fluttershy spun in the opposite direction of the cannonball's rotation. She pulled her massive body around like a giant windmill, projecting an elastic current of air that absorbed the force of the collision and hurled her attacker back up into the skies.
Suspended in midair, Rainbow Dash held her jaw wide open for the entire spectacle.
Next, Fluttershy—still on the ground—beat her enormous wings and, with the same grace as an eagle launching toward its prey, lifted off and vanished from the speedster pegasus's sight in the blink of an eye.
A compressed shockwave lashed across the false Ponyville, sending lightweight debris and loose pieces flying everywhere. At the same time, a gray cloud of pulverized plastic blanketed the area; beyond that, however, no major damage was done to the town.
In the sky, choked by a rain of fragments, Rainbow Dash remained frozen in place, stunned as she watched events unfold.
A piece of cardboard grazed past her.
"Woooow…" Rainbow Dash murmured, dodging it belatedly. More debris whizzed past, but she paid it no mind; her thoughtful gaze remained fixed in the direction where her friend had disappeared.
Her previous plan could take a break. She had a new mission now.
"I'm coming, Fluttershy! Hang on!" she suddenly shouted, beating her wings hard.
With renewed determination shining in her eyes, Rainbow Dash had everything she needed to catch up to her.
And she would have—if not for a framed painting that smashed square into her face, knocking her unconscious on the spot.
[---]
"Ow… my head… cough… cough…" murmured Rarity, still lying on the ground. She felt sick and had not the slightest desire to get up. Had she been stretched out on her faithful sofa, beneath warm blankets and by the light of a fireplace, she would have stayed there until she felt better. But since that was not the case, much to her displeasure, she forced herself to rise, dust herself off, and examine her surroundings.
Shattered walls, splintered furniture, crushed books and props lay strewn everywhere beneath a steady rain of tiny plastic fragments. The ruined place was hard to recognize at first glance, but it was the same spot where she and her friends had taken refuge over the past few days: Twilight's false treehouse.
Even so, to Rarity—who saw everything through constant blinking—the sight of so much destruction barely moved her. Still disoriented, she let her gaze wander across the wreckage until it stopped on an almost-intact mirror beside her.
"Ugh… what a dreadful mane!" she complained with visible disgust at the mare reflected in the glass. "What could a lady possibly be thinking, wearing a mane like that in the middle of—eeeeeh?!"
A flustered shriek escaped her mouth, and in the next instant the unicorn began rubbing her hooves all over her body. Desperate, she tried to rid herself of the plastic fragments clinging to her coat. It was an exaggerated and futile effort, since the constant rain of debris covered her again within seconds.
More concerned with her appearance than with the very real danger around her, Rarity might have remained trapped in that endless cycle of pointless cleaning, had it not been for the sudden, euphoric shouts reaching her from behind.
"That's it, Fluttershy! Put her in a bear-killing hold!"
"Pinkie Pie?!" Rarity replied, spinning around quickly.
Indeed, not far away, atop a tall pile of debris, Pinkie was bouncing excitedly, cheering nonstop with her eyes fixed on the horizon.
"Hey! Rarity, you're awake! You have to see this! It's amazing! Fluttershy is fighting a huge beast—and she's winning!"
"What are you talking about? What huge bea—by my stars!"
Having rushed to her pink friend's side, Rarity barely got the words out when a new tremor shook the toy world. The ground vibrated beneath her hooves, and a deep echo thundered in the distance. Far away, right where Rarity had fixed her gaze after her initial startle, an enormous cone-shaped cloud of multicolored dust rose into the air—an unmistakable sign of the latest turn in the clash unfolding over the candy lake.
Moments earlier, Rarity had thought she saw Fluttershy and the beast smash straight into the ground. Now, with her heart clenched, she wondered where her friend was, so close to the center of that explosion. Her anguish didn't last long.
From within the chromatic cloud emerged a towering, familiar silhouette. A gigantic Fluttershy appeared in the distance and, after tracing a wide arc through the air, landed with surprising grace outside the blast zone.
At the sight of that, Rarity couldn't help letting out a cry—half surprise, half relief. For a moment, she had feared the worst for her friend. Now she could breathe again, knowing Fluttershy was safe and seemingly unharmed.
"Wait a moment! Why is Fluttershy so big?" Rarity asked, bewildered.
"Because of the conveniently situational magical properties of the amulet Queen Novo gave her offscreen months ago?" Pinkie Pie replied at lightning speed.
"Huh?" Rarity uttered, even more confused by Pinkie's question-answer.
Pinkie, for her part, didn't elaborate. She simply shrugged and went right back to cheering.
"Fluttershy! Over here! Fluttershy! Giant Fluttershy, we're over here! We're okay!" Pinkie Pie shouted at the top of her lungs, growing ever more enthusiastic as she tried to catch her pegasus friend's attention in the distance. However, Fluttershy had her back to them, her full focus fixed on the apparently defeated beast at the center of the candy lake.
"I don't think she can hear you, dear."
"Hmm… you're right, Rarity. We're really far away. We need to go help her!"
With a hop, Pinkie jumped down to the ground, ready to set off at her trademark trot.
"Wait! I don't think she needs our help right now," Rarity tried to stop her, catching up just as the pile of debris they'd been standing on collapsed dangerously beside them. "Ugh… the ones who need help most urgently are us. We don't even know where Applejack or Rainbow Dash are!"
"Applejack's on her way in a mini-tractor, and Rainbow Dash is right where you are," Pinkie Pie replied, pointing straight at Rarity in perfect unison as her fluffy tail began to twitch.
"Where I am?"
"Yes! Watch out!"
With a sudden leap, Pinkie shoved Rarity backward. In the very next instant, a body fell from the sky, slamming violently into the spot where Rarity had been standing.
Both ponies looked up from the ground and were met with the unmistakable sight of a colorful mare they recognized at once.
"Rainbow Dash!" they shouted together.
Yes, it was their pegasus friend—but in a rather pitiful state. Thrashing weakly on the ground, her body was tangled in plastic cables and cellophane; her head was embedded in an exquisite painting of Applejack, and her mouth was full of cardboard fragments. The once-prodigious athlete looked more like a beached seal, trapped by trash and cursed with spectacularly bad luck.
Without waiting for any call for help from their choking friend, Rarity and Pinkie got to work at once, freeing her from the cables and pulling the cardboard from between her teeth. It wasn't until Pinkie yanked hard on the painting pressing against her neck that the pegasus was finally able to breathe again—and mutter her first words.
"Thanks, girls… nice work… ughh…" she murmured, before losing consciousness once more.
For a moment, silence fell over them.
"Rainbow! Noooooooooooooo!" Pinkie wailed, heartbroken, clutching her friend's body to her chest. Beside her, Rarity bit her hooves, ears drooping and breath coming in short gasps. Her eyes never left the fainted face of her dear pegasus friend.
The scene—so heavy with drama and emotion—might have continued indefinitely… if not for Pinkie Pie herself, who suddenly froze in place.
"Wait a second…" She tilted her head quickly, pressing an ear to Rainbow's muzzle. "Rainbow's still breathing. She's strong. She'll be fine! Fluttershy is the one who needs our help. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm…" The pink pony nodded to herself, convincing herself, then gently laid Rainbow Dash back on the ground and resumed her trot toward the candy lake.
Still struggling to recover from the emotional whiplash of everything that had just happened, Rarity barely had time to block her unpredictable friend's path.
"Pinkie Pie, wait! You can't just leave us like this. You need to take me— I mean, we need to take Rainbow Dash somewhere safe."
"Eh, I'm not abandoning you. Applejack will be here any moment and she'll take care of things. It's giant Fluttershy who needs Pinkie Pie's help right now!"
"I don't see how a tiny Pinkie Pie could be much help to a giant Fluttershy in a fight of such monstrous proportions. Besides, the situation already seems under control!"
Before Rarity could say anything else, a brilliant light streaked across the sky above them, startling both ponies.
"What in the—?" Rarity exclaimed, confused.
More lights tore through the sky, followed by the thunder of violent detonations that lit up the horizon.
With their faces bathed in the distant reddish glow, Rarity and Pinkie Pie stood in stunned silence, watching the spectacle unfold.
"Maybe Rarity is a little wrong about the situation."
"And maybe Pinkie Pie shouldn't rush so much to get to Fluttershy," she added as even more projectiles crossed the sky. "Staying here to wait for Applejack with her other friends is also helping."
"Helping a lot!" Rarity concluded, hugging a Pinkie Pie who was just as frightened as she was.
[---]
Finding a providential mini-tractor inside the barn had turned out to be a tremendous stroke of luck for Applejack. Not only had it helped her escape easily from the place where she and Rainbow Dash had been trapped by the beast, it had also served as protection during her difficult journey back to Twilight's false treehouse.
Of course, galloping would have let her arrive faster—but considering the current state of the terrain, and how it changed with every passing meter, that would have been a very bad idea.
"Oh, come on!" Applejack shouted, punctuating her words with the roar of the mini-tractor's engines. "Is that all you've got?!"
Showing off her skill at the wheel, Applejack had just dodged the impact of a rolling cardboard house. It was the ninth one to cross her path without warning.
"Yeehaw! This is like dodging cider barrels in Appleloosa," she neighed enthusiastically, flooring the accelerator and leaving behind a tenth attempted collision.
At the same time, as if responding to her drive, the vehicle let out a hiss from one of its sides.
"Hey, easy there… don't get stressed, Big Root. We're almost there, buddy—my friends are waiting."
Yes—if anyone were wondering who in Equestria Big Root was, the answer lay directly beneath Applejack. She'd named the mini-tractor herself just minutes earlier. Though it had been a spur-of-the-moment idea, she'd already grown fond of it. She had no idea how it worked on the inside, but it responded far too well to her reflexes.
"Alright! Final stretch!" she exclaimed, pushing the throttle even harder.
She had finally reached the straight street that led directly to the center of the false Ponyville… or at least, that's how her visual memory of the place remembered it. Now, most of the road was blocked by a large number of cardboard trees that had arrived there from who-knew-where.
This last obstacle didn't faze the fearless Applejack in the slightest. She zigzagged at full speed between them without any trouble. By the time she reached the end of the grove, she barely had a bead of sweat on her brow.
"We finally made it!" Adjusting her mane beneath the construction helmet she was wearing, the farm pony allowed herself a brief breath before taking in the disastrous scene stretching out before her.
And the moment she saw it, a low—
"Ho… huu…"
—escaped her lips.
The ruined state of Twilight's false treehouse was shocking to behold. Panic would have overtaken her in an instant, had something even more urgent not demanded her attention.
Or rather… screamed for it.
"Applejaaaaack!!"
Shoved from the side, a euphoric—and clearly frantic—Pinkie Pie appeared out of nowhere beside her seat, making Applejack lose control of the mini-tractor for a split second.
"Pinkie Pie? Where did you—?"
"No time! Step on it! Go, go, go!"
"We don't have time for explanations, Applejack! Drive!" ordered another voice behind her, sharp and authoritative.
A quick glance in the rearview mirror was enough to confirm it was Rarity—along with an unconscious Rainbow Dash, held aloft by her magic.
Applejack's response was immediate.
"Where to?"
"To Fluttershy!" Pinkie Pie answered firmly, pointing with her whole body like an arrow toward one of the streets leading out of town and, beyond it, toward the candy lake.
[---]
Once, Twilight had joked that putting Pinkie Pie in charge of a ship in the middle of a storm was just as bad an idea as skipping one of her parties. And, assuming that premise to be true, if that party were also to take place aboard the same hypothetical ship, the situation would result in something capable of producing a curious Boolean ellipse of decision-making.
After finishing that explanation for her friends, the princess couldn't help but laugh. The others joined in, having no idea what she was talking about. All except Applejack, who had turned the idea over in her mind with focused concentration. And Pinkie Pie herself, who—smiling—was very busy captaining a ship… also in her imagination.
Now, in the present, Applejack found herself in a situation very similar to the one Twilight had described. Only instead of being on a ship, she was riding a mini-tractor.
"Left! Right! Left! Right! Right! Left!"
How many times had the farm pony swerved at full speed? It didn't matter. She wasn't thinking about it. She wasn't even seeing the obstacles in her path. Her thoughts, trapped in a loop, left no room for anything else—stretched taut between Pinkie Pie's urgent commands and the desperate race to save Fluttershy, whom she had seen fall from the sky just moments before.
And as if that urgency weren't enough, seconds after Fluttershy plummeted to the ground, an immense explosion erupted on the horizon, covering all visible space in a white, multicolored mist.
Wrapped in that milky, sugary atmosphere, neither Applejack at the wheel nor Rarity with her magic would have been able to keep moving, had it not been for Pinkie Pie's voice. Urging them not to stop, she began guiding them onward, even though they could barely see one another.
They kept up the pace of their mission this way, until a new command brought their journey to a sudden halt.
"Stoooop!" Pinkie Pie shouted, her tail quivering nonstop.
"What is it?!" Rarity yelled from behind, just as startled as Applejack by the abrupt braking that nearly sent her flying off the mini-tractor.
In response, Pinkie Pie simply looked up at the sky—or so it seemed, in the dense atmosphere.
After a moment of silence, a dark silhouette—like an impossibly long column—appeared to materialize within the glowing fog ahead of them. Unable to understand what it was, Applejack and Rarity could only watch as a sound like a waterfall swept quietly past them, drawing close for a moment before vanishing, along with the shadow from which it seemed to originate.
"What was that?!" Rarity screamed, terrified.
"A candy tornado," Pinkie Pie replied, narrowing her eyes.
Neither Applejack nor Rarity could add a word. With a brief flick of her pink friend's tail, the mini-tractor started moving again—this time at a much slower, more cautious pace.
After what felt like another twenty meters or so, the tractor came to a sudden stop.
"Is this it?" Applejack asked, her voice unable to hide her concern.
Pinkie Pie, deeply focused, didn't answer. She clutched her fluffy mane, turning her head from side to side, searching for a direction only she seemed capable of detecting with her internal radar. Then, finally, she found it.
"Yeees! There it is! I won't be long! I'm coming, Fluttershy!" she exclaimed, a growing smile spreading across her face.
With a single hop, she leapt off the mini-tractor and vanished from her friends' field of vision.
Several seconds of uncertainty passed. Around them, the thick fog only heightened the anxiety of the wait… until suddenly, the vehicle rocked again—this time from a boarding that instantly turned into a burst of excited noise.
"Fluttershy!" Applejack and Rarity neighed in unison when they saw their friend slumped across the back of the newly arrived Pinkie Pie.
Despite the hope they'd carried, the pegasus didn't respond.
Dread fell over them at once.
Pinkie Pie no longer wore a smile.
"What's wrong with her?! She's…!" Rarity shouted, unable to finish the sentence.
"Unconscious…" Applejack replied, carefully checking Fluttershy's vital signs. "No visible wounds… nothing broken, I think."
"We need to get her somewhere safe. Now," Rarity insisted.
"Yeah, I know! But where?" Applejack asked, struggling to stay calm as she searched for an answer.
"Rainbow Dash's lookout-house!" Pinkie Pie suddenly replied. "It's not very far, and it seemed high and safe. Right?"
Applejack's eyes lit up instantly. It was exactly the answer she'd been looking for.
"Of course! That place is perfect."
"Isn't it a bit far?" Rarity asked, still doubtful.
"No… well, yes—but it's high and safe," Applejack confirmed. "It's either that, or we go back to false Ponyville and hope things are better there than they are here."
Rarity grimaced and looked at her two unconscious pegasus friends. She had no argument to offer.
"All right… though I can only hope things don't get worse than they already are," she murmured, exhausted.
Almost instantly—as if some malicious genie had overheard her words—the light of the toy world, which until then had been the source of the intense glow reflected in the fog, began to flicker… then dim slowly, until it was nearly extinguished altogether.
Wrapped in the growing darkness, Applejack's uneasy gaze met Pinkie Pie's, before both turned toward the unicorn, who—guilty over her comment—lowered her head and avoided their eyes.
"Well then…" Applejack said, starting the mini-tractor's engine and switching on its headlights. "Things can only get better from here."
Then she added firmly:
"But hang on tight. This won't be a pleasant ride."
"That's the spirit, Applejack! Follow me, ponies!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed, leaping ahead and planting herself atop the mini-tractor's front trunk, striking a pose that made her look like a living radar.
Rarity and Applejack opened their mouths, ready to say something—but held back. This wasn't the best moment for their pink friend's antics. Still, given that it was Pinkie Pie—and considering how well she'd guided them so far—arguing didn't make much sense either.
Guided by Pinkie Pie through the darkened environment, and with the candy storm drawing dangerously close behind them, the ponies left the boundaries of false Ponyville behind, heading toward Rainbow Dash's lookout-house.