• Published 27th May 2012
  • 7,439 Views, 175 Comments

Griffin Over the Line - Emeral Bookwise



A Lunaverse fic, where Raindrops must contend with the antics of Rainbow Dash and Gilda.

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Chapter 2: "The Reckless Jerk"

To all the world it looked as though Raindrops had been shocked into a catatonic state, the only motion left in her body being the steady wing beats holding her aloft. In actuality she was counting slowly backwards from '10' under her breath, while silently offering up a prayer that the moon might grant her the patience not to strangle the pair of guffawing idiots rolling about on the cloud in front of her. As her count down reached the number '4' she pegged her odds of self-restrain at about fifty-fifty.

As Rainbow Dash and her griffin cohort continued to laugh Raindrops stomped over towards them, an impressive display considering she was still hovering a few dozen feet in the air.

"Whoa, Dash, I think your friend here might be mad," came the nonchalant voice of the griffin.

Raindrops fumed as she locked eyes with the half-eagle half-lion, "oh we've already left mad behind, try furious," she answered in a forcibly calm tone.

"Lighten up Drops," chimed Rainbow Dash as she hopped from her perch and glided between the two, "it was just a joke." Dash let out a last few chuckles as she smiled, but Raindrops only stared back sternly. "Anyhow, Drops, I'd like you to meet my griffin friend ──"

"Gilda," Raindrops interrupted flatly.

"Aw, you've heard of me," the griffin responded with a somewhat sarcastic sounding croon as she stroked a talon through the loose feathers atop her head, "I'm flattered."

"After the fuss Rarity was making this morning, I'm rather sure everypony in town has heard of you."

"Heheh, yeah, that was pretty funny," chuckled Rainbow Dash, "Don't know how she figured out it was us though?"

"Given that you showed up with your friend here at her boutique last night just before closing, professing that you had finally given into your marish desires and were ready to let Rarity give you a full fashion makeover, which of course she immediately dropped everything to do, what with how she's always fancied what she could do with all those colors of yours. Then at near the crack of dawn she comes storming through the downtown streets, wrapped head to toe in a trench coat and scarf, practically beating down the spa door to demand an emergency full body treatment. What did you two do to her anyway?"

"Nothing much, just replaced her fancy bodywash with grape jelly," Dash snickered, "and that fashion snob deserved to get knocked down a peg or two anyway, especially after what she put me through while I was distracting her so Gilda could make the switch. I was stuck there for over an hour trying on all her dresses."

Gilda seemed to make quite the effort of suppressing a new set of her own snickers at being reminded of her friend's distress. "Aw, but I thought they made you look quite, dashing!" With that she broke into a full fit of uncontrolled laughter.

"Yeah, yeah," moaned the multi-hued pegasus, "Laugh it up before I shut you up."

The image of her boss dressed up in all the finest Carousel Boutique had to offer briefly made Raindrops forget how angry she was trying to be. The accompanying image of the shop's proprietor staring into her bathroom mirror, shocked horror plastered on her face at the sight of her normally pristine white coat stained with thick purple patches was almost as distracting, "Okay maybe, but did the rest of the town deserve to have to put up with two hours of whining at a pitch so intense that it ensured no pony within a three block radius could sleep in?"

"Meh, a little lost sleep never hurt anypony."

Raindrops blinked as her brain struggled to process how Rainbow Dash of all ponies could say that with a straight face. "Right... Well now that I've found you, I think it's about time I got you to the back to the patrol station so you can start making up that shift you missed yesterday."

"About that..." started Dash in a disturbingly calm tone, "See the way I figure it I've got about three days of vacation time saved up, so I was planning on just taking the rest of today and tomorrow off, then float my weekend break to the day after. That'll see me through to the end of Gilda's visit"

Raindrops could already feel the veins in her forehead fighting to break free again. "You're supposed to clear schedule changes like that a full week in advance, preferably two," she forced out between tightly clenched teeth.

"I did," she answered with the widest most obnoxious grin imaginable plastered across her face, "I got full approval from the weather captain herself."

Gilda snickered.

The sound of her own heart beat echoed repeatedly through Raindrops head. Her eyes narrowed, a rage clearly building to a boil, rising up and into her throat as she bellowed, "You know that's not how things work when you are the weather captain!"

"Yeah, yeah," Dash droned as she waved off the technicality, "Take it up with the weather captain, when she gets back from her vacation," and with that she was off, quick as her namesake.

Gilda was close behind, but twisted midair for a single flap to offer up a mock salute, "Smell ya' later, Dropsy."

Raindrops repeated her earlier countdown, though this time giving herself significantly worse than the fifty-fifty odds of her first. She was broken from her exercise in self-restraint as she reached the number '3'.

"Hey! If you're quite done up there, do you think you could come back down so I can finish going over the routine," Trixie called out from bellow.

"Are you serious?!"

"Quite, I need to make sure everything is as exciting as possible."

Raindrops simply stared for a beat then let out in a huff, "Why don't you try throwing a knife at somepony's face!" With that she flew off to the weather patrol station to see just how much shift juggling Rainbow's impromptu vacation was going to require, while she muttered to herself, "I know that would excite me right about now."

What Raindrops never saw was Trixie raise a hoof to her chin in contemplation, "That just might work."

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Ponyville Elementery. Young students sat at their desks in front of trays of sopping sticky goo and strips of thinly sliced paper. At the front of the room paced a plum colored mare, baring a trio of smiling flowers on her flank, currently engaged in a lecture on the finer points of papier-mâché. As Miss Cheerillee turned to the black board to write out the latest keyword for her class, Rainbow Dash poked her head up outside the open window, a straw held between her hooves that she immediately blew into before ducking back out of sight.

The wad of wet paper flew through the air, striking a young colt in the back of the neck. Suddenly jerked to full alertness, the colt turned his head, only to see one of his classmates lazily running a single strip of paper back and forth in a tray of glue. Not to be taken for a pushover, the colt grabbed one of his own strips of paper, soaked it in the tray, then crumpled it up and hurled it at his presumed assailant.

The classmate was struck across the side of the face. He glared in stunned surprise at the snickering colt in front of him, and then proceeded to return the favor. A quick dodge though and the wad instead struck the filly just beyond.

By the time Cheerille turned back around the class room was a flurry of commotion as fillies and colts flung the supplies of their arts and craft lesson at each other.

"That's enough of that my little ponies, settle down," she chimed with only the barest hint of frustrated harshness as she ducked a rogue projectile. When the class showed no signs of heading the request, she repeated with somewhat more forced authority, "Ehem! That's quite enough now. We've all had our fun, but ──" She was cut off as another rogue, and rather large, wad of gooey paper that she wasn't quite fast enough for was abruptly plastered across her face.

With slow deliberate motion the teacher reached up with a single hoof, clearing away the mess and revealing eyes that weren't nearly so infinitely patient as usual.



A pair of birds where happily chirping in a tree outside the schoolhouse when, "I SAID, THAT'S ENOUGH!!!"

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A sea green unicorn mare made to enter a candy shop when, she suddenly found herself spun about in a whirl as a flash of colors whizzed past her. She staggered about, her eyes still spinning in their sockets when, WHAM, something large brown and feathery slammed into her.

"Hey watch where I'm flyin' why don't'cha!" a rather gruff and irritated voice called as it too sped away.

Lyra picked herself up off the ground dazed and dizzy as she thought to herself how rude some ponies, or whatever that thing had just been, could be. Dusting herself off as she regained her bearings, Lyra proceeded about her original business as she stepped though the still open door.

"Hey BonBon, I was wondering..." Lyra's golden eyes scanned the room. Two customers had just left, but the musician could see no sign of the shop's cream coated owner.

"Up here," she heard that most familiar voice call out, though it lacked any of its usual honey.

The unicorn's eyes slowly rose up, where to her stunned astonishment she saw Bonbon, the mare's curly blue and pink locks permeated by some sticky substance plastering her to the ceiling.

"How, how did you...?"

"Don't ask," came the earth pony's indignant reply, "now why don't you stop staring slack jawed and use some of that fancy magic to. Get. Me. Down!"

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The gray coated mailmare cantered merrily down her route in her bright blue uniform with satchels stuffed full of letters slung over her sides. Her bright yellow eyes roamed about her surroundings, seeming to take in everything but the path directly in front of her, yet she never faltered a step.

She came to a stop and opened the mailbox in front of her, but before she could reach into her bag her eyes seemed to roll into a focused forward alignment as her brows furrowed in curiosity. She reached into the box, and pulled from it a small hive. Its tiny occupants buzzed about her outstretched hoof but none seemed to make a motion to sting the gentle mare.

"Aw, I love it when ponies leave me gifts," she smiled, "and Dinky will be so glad to have some fresh honey to go with dinner tonight."

The pegasus then stretched out a single wing and balanced the hive lightly atop it. She then proceeded to finish delivering the kind pony's mail, before turning to continue her route.



In a nearby tree sat a rather disappointed and bepuzzled griffin alongside her pegasus cohort.

"See, I told you there was no point in trying to prank Derpy," Dash said with an exasperated sigh, "that mare is just too vapid to realize what's going on."

Gilda shrugged, "Yeah I guess so. Come on lets go see if we can find some actual fun," and with that the pair flew off to find their next victim.



Ditzy Doo merrily continued down the road, one eye fixed ahead, as the other tracked a pair of unaware would-be pranksters as they flew away.

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"Thanks again for helping me get today's stock to market." said the golden coated earth pony mare with the curly orange mane.

Raindrops was happy enough to help her friend retrieve a supply of vegetables. Carrot Top had even promised her a few of her signature namesakes as compensation. Not that such a reward was strictly necessary, but after the less than satisfactory meal she'd had yesterday in exchange for helping a friend, the pegasus found it reassuring that she'd actually get something edible this time.

As the pair approached the shed where Carrot Top stored her goods Raindrops hoof sank into a mud puddle. Lifting it back up to stare briefly with a furrowed brow, she then slowly craned her head, eyes scanning left and right across the cloudless sky. Without having even given it much thought the experienced weathermare had spread her wings wide, feeling the air around her. There was a rather unusual amount of humidity in the immediate area, but why? Her eyes drifted back down to the ground, where more patches of mud dotted the surrounding path, growing ever more concentrated as one approached the ──

"Wait! Carrot Top don't open ──"

The warning came too late, as no sooner had the farmer begun to lift the latch than the shed's doors flung open drowning the two mares in a sudden torrent of water.

Moments later as the two came to their senses some dozen feet from where they had been standing, coughing up water and thoroughly coated in the freshly made muddy slurry that was now all around them, a steady sound came to their ears, that of raucous and guffawing laughter.

Carrot Top hardly seemed to notice staring about in a dazed confusion, but Raindrops already had her eyes focused sharply at the base of a nearby tree, just outside of the flood's path.

Raindrops rose, her eyes narrowed and full of vengeance. She began to stomp her way over to commence teaching a rather harsh lesson, only to slip and fall face first into the fresh mud sliding to halt not too far from her intended quarry. Though caked in mud, her eyes contained no less fury as she glared up at the source of her ire.

Without even rising again she hissed, "You are so dead Rainbow Dash."

Rainbow Dash wheezed a bit as she fought to choke out a reply through her fits of laughter, "Gee Drops ... it's not like ... I meant to prank you twice ... even I know not to take a joke that far."

Raindrop's eye twitched as she finally managed to get her hooves steady beneath her. That might have just been the closest thing she had ever heard from Rainbow Dash that even remotely resembled an honest and sincere apology, and it was directed at her. Not at Carrot Top, to whom they had recklessly inflicted who knows how much property damage while nearly drowning the poor mare in the process. No, instead it was directed at Raindrops who'd received no more than a brief fright the day before and a little bit of accidental water logging due to nothing more than her proximity to the true victim in all of this. It was in that moment that she realized just how silly yesterday's anger at the pair had been. This, this was true fury, and she was about to unload it all over their sorry flanks.

Rainbow Dash seemed to remain oblivious of the erupting inferno building within the jasmine pegasus. Gilda, however, seemed to have a better clue of what was just about to go down. Her eyes locked briefly with Raindrops' own. The two glared defiantly, as if each were daring the other to make the first move until, "Uh, Dash," the griffin squeaked as she tapped her cohort's shoulder, "I think we best beat wing before things get ugly."

The pegasus speedster seemed to only stare confusedly at her griffin friend, until finally turning to take note of the expression chiseled into Raindrops face. She gulped, "Well then, guess we'll just um... bye."

The pair of pranksters were off in a flash, barely more than a brown blur and a chromatic streak, as they darted rapidly about the sky. They probably thought themselves to be cleverly shaking off any would-be pursuit. They clearly did not understand the nature of the fury they had brought upon themselves.

With a force that seemed to make the very earth tremble, Raindrops leapt into air. She knew she could never keep pace with the rapidly fleeing speedsters, but she also knew she didn't have to. Sooner or later they'd get tired, or bored, then they would set down to rest, probably start planning their next act of vandalism disguised as humor, and that would be when Raindrops would pounce. No, she didn't need to keep pace, just fly true and steady, never letting the zigzagging pair out of sight. So let them run; it will only make them all the easier to handle when I catch them, she thought as visions of violence danced in her head.

"Wait!" she heard Carrot Top call out from below.

The now embodiment of righteous fury slowed her ascent, but kept her eyes sharply focused on the rapidly fleeing pranksters, "No! Don't you dare try and talk me out of this," she shouted, "those two have been asking for this and it's about time someone taught them a lesson."

"It's not that," came the reply, "I need your help right now. If we don't get this mess dried out fast my whole stock will be ruined."

Raindrops was torn. If she left now, she could keep sight of her quarry until the pair eventually set down for a breather, but was any pay back, no matter how deserved, worth her friend's livelihood? True, it was the thoughtless prank that had caused this particular crisis in the first place, but what kind of friend would Raindrops be if she left while there was still a chance to salvage the situation?

"Fine!" she let out with an exasperated sigh, as she turned and descended back to the ground. She gave one last glance over her shoulder as the paired streaks vanished into distant specks. Raindrops whispered to herself in a muttered growl, "You can run Rainbow Dash, but you can't hide."