Taking a seat at his new desk, Featherweight cast a quick glance around the dark, drab basement that was now his domain. "I'm really glad you all decided to keep working on the school paper!" he said to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who smiled back at him from across the desk. "Without you all, I'd be stuck writing all the stories myself!"
"Aw, it's no problem, Featherweight!" Apple Bloom replied. "We're just glad we finally get to do some real reportin'!"
"Not to mention," Scootaloo chimed in, "we're finally out from under Diamond Tiara's hoof."
"So what's our first assignment, Chief?" Sweetie Belle inquired.
"Hmmm..." Featherweight scratched his chin with his hoof. "Well, next week is the 30th running of the Cloudsdale Derby. Maybe you could do a preview for it!"
"That sounds cool!" Scootaloo agreed. "I know everything about everypony who's in that race—this'll be a cinch!"
"Ooh! Ooh!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed. "Will Rainbow Dash be in it? We could do a story on how she prepares for the race!"
Scootaloo shook her head. "Sorry, Sweetie Belle," she said, "but Rainbow Dash gave up running in that derby years ago. She says it's too easy and not worth her time."
"Well," Apple Bloom suggested, "she still might have a good perspective on the event—you know, havin' run it a bunch of times and all. She'd still be a good pony to talk to about the whole thing."
"Great!" Sweetie Belle said. "I'll do it!"
"Wait a minute!" Scootaloo objected. "I wanna interview Rainbow Dash!"
"But we need you to write about the rest of the field!" Apple Bloom pointed out. "Me and Sweetie Belle don't keep up with pegasus racin' like you do. We'll need your expertise for predictions and stuff!"
Scootaloo sighed. "Fine," she agreed. "So what are you going to write about, Apple Bloom?"
"Let me think..." Apple Bloom racked her brain for a few moments. "I got it! Since this is supposed to be a big anniversary, I could do a piece of the history of the event! I could look up some old articles, and talk to Granny Smith, and—"
"Sound great!" Featherweight said. "We can dedicate a whole section to the race!"
"So what are we waiting for, ponies?" Scootaloo asked her friends. "Let's get out there and make some news!"
"Yay! Cutie Mark Crusader Cloudsdale Competition Chroniclers!" The three filles exchanged a high-hoof and headed for the door.
"Hi, Twilight!" Apple Bloom called out, as she burst through the front door of Ponyville's treehouse library.
Twilight looked up from the letter she was writing. "Oh, hello, Apple Bloom!" she replied. "What's got you so excited?"
"I'm here on an assignment from the newspaper!" Apple Bloom explained.
"The newspaper?" Twilight flinched at the revelation. "You're not still writing that Gabby Gums column, are you?"
"Oh no, nothin' like that!" Apple Bloom clarified. "We're writin' a whole bit on the upcoming pegasus race, and I was wonderin' if I could look through the newspaper archives you had downstairs to learn about the race's history!"
Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. "That sounds innocent enough," she said. "No problem, Apple Bloom—come with me, and I'll show you where we keep the old papers."
Twilight led Apple Bloom down the basement stairs, through her makeshift lab, and eventually to a small, windowless room filled with stacks of old newspapers that were piled almost to the ceiling. "Spike and I went through the whole collection last month," Twilight explained. "We've got everything cataloged and indexed by date, so finding old articles on the race should be a snap!"
"Great! Thanks, Twilight!" Apple Bloom raced into the center of the room and started looking over the paper piles.
"I've got to get back to my letter to Princess Celestia," Twilight said, "but let me know if you need anything else!" With that, Twilight turned and headed back upstairs, leaving Apple Bloom surrounded by a treasure trove of information.
"Hmm..." Faced with the task of scanning thirty years of copy without a search engine, Apple Bloom pondered her next move. "Well," she reasoned, "the derby runs about the same time every year, so any papers from this month are bound to have something on the race!" Scanning the stacks, she spotted a few dated six years ago this month, and carefully pulled them from their spot so as not to bring the entire stack of papers down onto her head.
Spreading the papers out on the floor, Apple Bloom began searching for any mention of the Cloudsdale Derby. She quickly found a couple of articles that mentioned that year's upcoming race, and eventually struck pay dirt in the form of a front-page article describing the derby proceedings in great detail. Unsurprisingly, the winner of said derby was Ponyville's own Rainbow Dash, and a large picture of the rainbow-maned pegasus holding her trophy above her head took up half of the front page.
"Miss Dash has never had much use for drama and intrigue," Apple Bloom read aloud, "and today's event was no different, with the outcome decided by the halfway point of the race. The rest of the field should be applauded for their valiant effort, but as one stallion put it after the race, 'It's Rainbow's world right now, and we're just racin' in it—for second place.'"
Deciding that eloquent prose about Rainbow's awesomeness wouldn't help her—they could get enough of that straight from the horse's mouth—Apple Bloom started scanning the article for any historical tidbits that might help her with her own piece. Finally, she spotted an interesting morsel buried on page two of the story. "This victory marked Miss Dash's sixth consecutive triumph in the Cloudsdale Derby," she read, "breakin' the previous record of five straight victories set by the famed flyer, Greased Lightnin'. This is also the fourth such record of Lightnin's that Rainbow Dash has matched or beaten in the past year, and it brought the debate over Equestria's greatest flyer to a roarin' boil among those in attendance."
"Greased Lightnin'?" Apple Bloom scratched her head in confusion. "I've never heard of anypony by that name. How great could they have been?"
Apple Bloom continued reading the article. "Lightnin's backers insist that were it not for his tragic accident while trainin' for his own six-peat several years ago, the speedy colt would have pushed his records beyond the reach of any other racer. Dash fans, for their part, point to her own successes, earned at a much younger age than Lightnin's, as proof that she would have broken his records no matter what they had ended up bein'. Miss Dash, as usual, was not shy about sharin' her own feelings about the debate, offerin' a succinct 'Lightnin' Schmightnin!' when asked about it."
Suddenly, Apple Bloom got an idea. "I know!" she said. "I'll write a story about all the great fliers that have competed in the Derby, and where they are now! I can talk to Rainbow Dash, and see if I can find this Lightnin' feller, and there were probably tons more great racers who competed before them. It'll be perfect!" She reached for another set of papers from a different year. "Let's get cracking!"
Unfortunately, in her excitement, Apple Bloom was less careful with the paper piles than before, and her removal of the papers from the middle of the stack caused the entire pile to start wobbling. "Uh oh," Apple Bloom said as she realized her mistake. Anticipating the fall, the filly covered her head with her hooves. Instead of tumbling down on Apple Bloom's head, however, the pile fell off to the side, crashing into another paper stack and setting off a chain reaction that took out nearly every paper pile in the room; leaving a stunned Apple Bloom sitting in the middle of a sea of newsprint.
Apple Bloom sighed. "This is gonna take a while."
After several hours of researching her story, and another several hours of re-stacking papers, Apple Bloom emerged from the basement of the library, a bit weary and sporting a few new paper cuts.
Twilight looked up from her writing desk. "Goodness, Apple Bloom!" she said. "I thought you'd left hours ago! What were you doing down there?"
"Discoverin' that journalism is a contact sport," Apple Bloom grumbled.
Twilight glanced out the window at the glorious sunset outside. "It's getting late," she noted. "Have you eaten anything today? I can have Spike fix you something, if you want."
"No thanks," Apple Bloom declined. "I'd better get back home pronto. Granny Smith'll be worried sick if I miss dinner." She turned to go, then had another thought. "Hey Twilight," she asked, "did you ever hear of a pegasus named 'Greased Lightnin'?"
"Greased Lightning?" Twilight racked her brain for a few seconds. "Gosh, I'm sure I've heard that name before, but I just can't place it. Who was he?"
"Some pegasus who used to race a lot," Apple Bloom explained. "He was supposed to be awful fast, and—"
Something clicked in Twilight's brain. "Oh, that Greased Lightning!" she remembered. "Now I know where I've heard that name! My brother was a huge fan of pegasus derbies back when we were young, and Greased Lightning was one of his favorites."
"Do you know whatever happened to him?" Apple Bloom asked. "All the papers downstairs talked about him havin' some sort of accident, but I didn't find any stories that had any details about it." She conveniently left out the fact that the reason she hadn't found any articles was because she had knocked over all of Twilight's meticulously-ordered-but-precariously-balanced paper stacks.
Twilight racked her brain for a few more seconds, but came up empty this time. "Sorry, Apple Bloom," she apologized. "I usually zoned out whenever my brother talked about anything athletic."
"It's no big deal," Apple Bloom replied. "I'll ask my sister Applejack when I get home—she's bound to have heard of this guy on the rodeo circuit!" With that, the young pony headed for the door. "Thanks, Twilight!" she called over her shoulder as she exited the tree.
"You're welcome!" Twilight replied as she turned back to her writing,
The Apple family was already sitting down to dinner by the time Apple Bloom made it back to the farm. "Hey, everypony!" Apple Bloom greeted her kinfolk as she raced into their farmhouse. "Sorry I'm so late!"
Applejack smiled mischievously as Apple Bloom took her place at the table. "It's about time you showed up," she teased. "Me and Big Macintosh would have been forced to eat all of Granny Smith's fresh apple pie ourselves! Ain't that right?" Applejack nudged the large red pony sitting next to her.
"Eeyup," Big Macintosh agreed, without changing his facial expression.
"What were you doin' out so late, anyway?" Applejack inquired, as Apple Bloom carved out a piece of pie for herself.
"I was doin' research for my next article for the Foal Free Press," Apple Bloom explained.
Applejack and Big Macintosh did a double-take in unison. "The newspaper?" Applejack finally asked. "You're not still—"
"For the thousandth time, no, I'm not doin' any more Gabby Gums columns!" an exasperated Apple Bloom insisted. "I'm writin' a story on some of the great fliers who have raced in the Cloudsdale Derby."
"Phew!" Applejack wiped the sweat from her brow. "That's a relief!"
"It would be, if I could find out what happened to some of them," Apple Bloom remarked. "Speakin' of which, Applejack, do you know anythin' about a pegasus named Greased Lightnin'? I figured you might have heard of him on the rodeo circuit somewhere."
"Greased Lightnin'?" Applejack scratched her head with her hoof as she considered the question. "Sorry, little sis," she finally admitted, "I don't reckon I've ever come across anypony by that name."
"Really? Darn," Apple Bloom muttered.
Big Macintosh's ears, on the other hoof, perked up at the sound of the name. "Lightinin', you said? I remember him—he was awful fast back in the day. It's a cryin' shame things ended the way they did."
"You know what happened to him?" Apple Bloom's eyes lit up at the revelation. "Well, don't just sit there, tell me! I couldn't find it in any of the papers!"
"Are you sure?" Big Macintosh pressed, as a conflicted look crossed his face. "It don't make for real good dinner conversation."
"Yes!" Apple Bloom reiterated, standing up on her chair and leaning over the table. "I need it for my story!"
"All right, then." Big Macintosh sighed, then took a deep breath. "Well, like I said, Greased Lightnin' was real fast. He flew circles around just about anypony he went up against. He won most every race he entered, and set himself a bushel of speed records."
"I know that already!" Apple Bloom interrupted. "What about the accident?"
Big Macintosh sighed again. "It happened durin' the Fillydelphia Preakness," he continued. "It's a tough off-road course that even cuts through the Everfree Forest for a spell. Lightnin' entered the race as a warmup for the Cloudsdale Derby, which was comin' up in just three weeks. The Derby was gettin' a lot of attention, since it was supposed to be the first meeting between Lightinin' and some young filly who'd been makin' a lot of noise up in Cloudsdale." Big Mac paused to take a bite of apple pie. "I reckon you can guess who that was," he offered.
"You mean Rainbow?" Applejack deduced. "Shoot, I don't remember hearin' about that."
"It was a while before she moved to Ponyville," Big Macintosh explained. "Anyhow, Lightnin' was doin' his thing in the Preakness, dominatin' it like always, when about halfway through the race, he crashed."
"Crashed?" The tale had Apple Bloom on the edge of her seat. "What happened?"
"I don't rightly remember exactly," Big Macintosh admitted. "He got tangled up with somepony he tried to pass, I think, and just went crashin' out through the trees. He wound up in the hospital for a good solid month."
"Gosh," Apple Bloom offered. "That musta been horrible."
"It gets worse," Big Mac noted. "It took the paramedic ponies half an hour to find Lightnin' after the wreck, and when they did, he had a wing bent so far the wrong way it'd make you sick. The doctors did the best they could, but in the end, they had to amputate."
"What?!" Apple Bloom shrieked. "You mean they just... Took it off?"
"Eeyup," Big Macintosh confirmed. "That was the end of Lightnin's racin' career. His whole life, really. He stopped carin', started drinkin', squandered all his bits, got locked up a few times, and eventually just disappeared. Nopony's seen him for quite a few years now."
Apple Bloom's eyes widened. "Do you think he... He..." She was cut off by the lump forming in her throat.
"Some ponies think he did," Big Macintosh replied. "Me? I think he'd died long before then. He was never the same after he lost his wing."
Applejack shook her head. "That ain't no way to go," she declared. "I mean, even after losin' a wing and all, he didn't have to let it go to his head like that. You ain't really dead 'til they shovel the dirt in your face. I'll bet he coulda found somethin' to do with his life, if he tried."
"I suppose," Big Macintosh conceded, "but it ain't as easy as you think. It'd be like Rainbow losin' her wings, or you losin' Bucky and Kicks back there." Big Mac gestured to Applejack's hind legs as he spoke. "What do you do when your special talent, the thing you do the best and enjoy the most, gets taken away?"
Applejack paused for a moment as she gave the question some thought. "You've got a point there," she admitted, "but I'd still figure somethin' out!"
"I know," Big Mac agreed, "but Greased Lightnin' never could."
Apple Bloom stared down at the barely-eaten piece of pie in front of her as a million thoughts raced through her mind. She had dedicated her whole life to finding her cutie mark and discovering the talent that made her special. To have it taken away so suddenly like Greased Lightning, and be left with nothing? The thought alone made her sick to her stomach. She pushed her plate away. "I'm not hungry anymore," she declared, jumping down from her chair.
"I warned you," Big Mac said as Apple Bloom trudged up to her bedroom. "Not the best story for workin' up an appetite."
Sleep did not come easy for Apple Bloom that night, as her thoughts kept coming back to her big brother's tale of lost talent and broken dreams. Fatigue finally won out, however, and Apple Bloom drifted off to sleep and slipped into a dream of her own...
In her dream, Apple Bloom found herself at the school playground on a typical sunny day, chatting with her fellow crusaders, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, as they sat at a picnic table. Suddenly, a bright, white light appeared on the flanks on the three ponies, and in a spectacular display of lights, music, and pyrotechnics, three cutie marks appeared: a microphone for Sweetie Belle, a tricked-out scooter for Scootaloo, and... Was that a circuit diagram on Apple Bloom's flank? Frankly, she was too excited to even care.
"Yay! We did it! We got our cutie marks!" The ponies sang, dancing around in a circle as some of their classmates gathered around to marvel at the new marks.
Without warning, however, a large shadow covered the three excited fillies, causing them to stop dancing. Turning around, the ponies found themselves face to face with a purple, amorphous blob rising up from ground.
The blob glared menacingly down at the three ponies, who were too paralyzed by fright to even move. "NO CUTIE MARKS FOR YOU!" it thundered, reaching down and snatching up Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo with an enormous, sticky arm. As the two fillies shrieked and tried to escape, the blob raised the ponies high over what appeared to be its head, then reached over with another tentacle and peeled off the ponies' new cutie marks as if they were stickers. "THOU SHALT BE BLANK FLANKS FOREVER!" the blob proclaimed, launching the markless ponies across the playground and into a nearby trash can with a shot that would have made Michael Jordan stand up and clap. "AND NOW, FOR YOU!" the blob announced, moving in on Apple Bloom.
"AIIEEEEEE!" Apple Bloom screamed and tried to run away, but the blob was too fast, and she was quickly wrapped up in another sticky tentacle. "No! Please!" Apple Bloom pleaded. "Anythin' but that!"
"PREPARE TO KISS YOUR SPECIAL TALENT GOODBYE," the blob cackled, reaching for the mark on Apple Bloom's flank...
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" Apple Bloom shot out of bed with a start, covered in a cold sweat. She looked around frantically for a few moments, breathing a sigh of relief as she realized she was safe in her bedroom. "Golly," she whispered, "what a terrible nightmare."
Not being overly anxious to go back to sleep, Apple Bloom wandered over to her bedroom window and stared out at the sky. As she watched a shooting star weave its way through the Ursa Major constellation, her mind drifted back to her assignment for the Foal Free Press, and the sad story of one of the Cloudsdale Derby's greatest champions. Was he still out there? She wondered. Had he ever found a way to cope with the loss of his talent, or had he died a broken and defeated pony? Somehow, someway, she had to find out.
Walking over to her desk, she grabbed her notepad and pen and stuffed them into her schoolbag. Her path was clear: Find out the truth about what happened to Greased Lightning, and tell the world once and for all how the story really ended.