//------------------------------// // 06: Rainbow Dash, Session 1, Pride // Story: The Personal Files of Dr. Mindwell // by rillegas08 //------------------------------// A few minutes after I finished eating my supper the evening after my session with Scootaloo I heard a knock on my door. Strange; I wasn't expecting anypony tonight. "Come in," I said as I opened the door and made my way from the back. To my surprise, I saw Spike sitting on Rainbow Dash's back outside. He jumped off and made his way inside again toward the sofa. "Hey, Doc. Good to see you again. Boy, have I got a story to tell you!" "Hello again, Spike." I looked to the blue mare. "Are you coming in too?" "I can wait until he's done." "It should take a few minutes. I wanted to tell you about one of the things we talked about the other day." "All right, what happened?" "When you mentioned I should take some time for myself, I mentioned comic books. Well, I went out later and bought a comic book, and brought it to the ruins of the princesses' castle in the Everfree Forest while Twilight and her friends cleaned up the place. Long story short, I accidentally activated a spell that pulled us all into the comic. They got the cool heroes, but I became the powerless sidekick, but that actually turned out for the better. They got captured, and I ended up saving the day. Like you said, I was at my best when I was helping others." A comic book with a spell that can be activated by non-magic users? I'd heard of other mundane objects with magic infused into them for the same purpose, but never something as commonplace as a comic book. I asked him where he got it, and he said it was from a shop in Canterlot that sold enchanted comic books, but that he'd misunderstood exactly what was enchanted. Perhaps it was a new shop, but when I lived in Canterlot I hadn't heard of such a comic shop. "Do you still have the comic book?" "No, we must have left it in the castle." "Thank you for the update, Spike." "No problem. I'll see you later, then!" He hopped off the sofa and headed toward the door, which I'd apparently left ajar. Rainbow Dash pushed at it with her hoof, allowing him enough space to walk out and came inside herself. After she'd entered, I closed the door. "Hey, Doc. We all just came from the abandoned castle ruins." "Being sucked into a comic book dimension sounds like quite the adventure." "Yeah it was! It was pretty awesome. Pinkie Pie was could run a few miles in a millisecond, Applejack had a lasso and all these cool gadgets, Twilight and Rarity used their magic as usual, I could control the weather, and Fluttershy could turn into a big rage monster!" I wondered if the roles they were put in had any semblance to their personalities. Only time will tell. "And Spike was the sidekick who was pretty clumsy but saved us all when it mattered." "He left the clumsiness part out earlier," I mentioned. "Yeah, but here's the thing. This wasn't our first time being superheros." "It wasn't?" "No, we all basically had a turn being a hero several months back." She started talking about herself, namely how she was having a great day one day, having saved somepony who was in danger and having a fanclub led by her protege Scootaloo. She admitted that her ego started getting in the way of helping other ponies, but that she hadn't noticed it at the time. "Then suddenly there was a new hero on the scene, a mysterious mare dressed in purple and wearing a big hat. She started getting to ponies in trouble before I could, and I was getting jealous. Even all my friends were singing her praises, and right in front of me too!" She talked about how she always seemed to know what was going to happen, her strength, her agility, and her speed, and how she realized that she couldn't compete with all that. "She even had a horn and a pair of wings!" I was shocked. "She was an alicorn?" "It seemed like it at the time, but I'm getting to that. Even the Rainbow Dash Fan Club turned their focus from me to the Mysterious Mare Do Well. It got to the point where I was using my hero status to help in vain ponies by doing mundane tasks, just to prove that I was still awesome. I got desperate and annoying. Anyway, I interrupted a ceremony that Mayor Mare had set up for her, and chased the Mysterious Mare Do Well through the streets of Ponyville. She seemed to teleport away whenever I thought I had her cornered. As it turned out, there were four different mares all dressed as Mysterious Mare Do Well. Two of them were earth ponies, one was a unicorn, and the other was a pegasus. Can you guess who Mysterious Mare Do Well was?" "I have to admit I don't know many of the ponies well enough to suggest anypony for sure." "I dropped quite a few hints, but you do make a good point. Mare Do Well was all of my friends. Applejack used her strength to stop the carriage from going over the cliff, Pinkie Pie used her Pinkie Sense to know which construction workers were in the most danger, Twilight used her magic to fix the dam, and Fluttershy flew away after the dam was fixed. Rarity made the outfits." "How did you feel when you realized that your rival was actually your friends?" "At the time I felt betrayed. Why would my so-called friends put so much effort into being better than me?" "Why did they?" I asked. "Because I'd forgotten why I was being praised in the first place. Because I grew accustomed to the fame and glory, and forgot the things I did to earn that glory in the first place. Because my ego got so big that having my friends become my rival was the only thing that would snap me out of it. By the time my actions became a problem, they knew I wouldn't listen to reason anymore. I really ought to thank them for teaching me that lesson that day." "What lesson would that be, in your own words?" "It's okay to be proud of your accomplishments, as long as you don't brag about them. And I can be pretty boastful." "I had noticed that you and other ponies have boasted that you're the fastest flyer in Equestria. What's the difference between the Mare Do Well incident and that?" "Huh. Guess I never thought of that." I gave her a few minutes to think. "I brag about being fast, but I can always prove how fast I am, so it's never been much of a pride problem. I mean, c'mon! I got my cutie mark by making a Sonic Rainboom and winning a race! With Mare Do Well, I wasn't proving that I could do things. Huh. I don't know if that's enough of a difference to matter." Her ears lowered and she looked down at her hooves. I took a minute to figure out what I was going to say next and how to say it. Rainbow Dash did have good control over her emotions, but I wasn't sure I wanted to see how sad she could get. In fact, I knew I didn't want to; like with Scootaloo the day before, I wanted my clients to feel comfortable enough to freely express their emotions. "I think that whether pride is good or bad all comes down to motives. Your motives that caused your friends to take on the persona of the Mysterious Mare Do Well were clearly selfish, though they started pure. What are your motives when you brag about being the fastest flyer in Equestria." "That's easy. I wanna join the Wonderbolts! They're the fastest and the best flyers in Equestria, so it only makes sense that they'd want a pony who was able to perform not one, not two, but three sonic rainbooms, an event which everypony used to think was impossible and just an old mare's tale." "In our session with Scootaloo, you said you'd left the Wonderbolts Academy because of questionable practices. Why would you still want to join them after that?" "Oh yeah. I guess I forgot to mention the next part of that story. Spitfire, the leader of the Wonderbolts, came up to me as I was about to leave, and said... hey, that's right! What she said fits perfectly into what we're talking about right now!" "What did she say?" "First of all that I was right, and then something like 'Being the best should never come at the expense of our fellow ponies. It's not just about pushing ourselves. It's about pushing ourselves in the right direction'. The first time I ever performed a sonic rainboom, I did it by accident, and it was what caused the six of us to get our cutie marks. The second time was when I had to save my friends from falling from Cloudsdale to the ground. The third time... well, that's an exception, because I performed it at Shining Armor and Princess Cadance's wedding. With the Mare Do Well incident, I did nothing but push myself in the wrong direction. Thanks, Doc. I probably wouldn't have been able to figure that out if I hadn't come here." "I'm glad to be of assistance, then, Rainbow Dash." The blue mare looked at the clock. "Uh, do you remember what time I came in? Has it been an hour?" "We've still got 12 minutes left. If you need something to talk about, may I suggest we talk more about your relationship with Scootaloo?" "Sure, no problem. What would you like to know?"