Chapter 1
It was a bright and sunny day in Equestria at the Carousel Boutique. Ponyville's premiere fashionista was taking a short break from her designing to do some chores. She was busy dusting, holding her feather duster in the air with magic, and humming a little tune. And then she came across the Mare Do Well costumes that she had designed for her friends to teach a certain blue pegasus humility, and she took a moment to feel proud of herself.
"Some of my finest work without a doubt, if I do say so myself." There were four outfits being supported on mannequins. One for Applejack, one for Pinkie Pie, one for Twilight, which was distinguished by having extra lining on the head for her horn, and one for Fluttershy, with extra lining on the back for her wings.
As Rarity was admiring her handiwork, a flash of rainbow colors came out of nowhere and all of a sudden, the mannequins were all naked and the suits gone. The white fashion pony was shocked and thrown into a state of panic. Her glorious creations had been swiped away right in front of her.
"Oh no, no, no, no, NO! How could this be?! They were all just here not a minute ago! This is THE… WORST… POSSIBLE… THING!!!"
As she pulled herself together, Rarity began to realize who the obvious culprit was: Rainbow Dash. She picked herself up and went to tell the others of what their friend had done.
* * *
"Now why in tar nation would she go and do a thing like that?" asked Applejack.
"I don't know, but we're going to find out." Twilight exclaimed as the gang of five ponies plus Spike galloped off to look for Rainbow Dash.
* * *
The six friends arrived at powerful flier's house in Cloudsdale. Twilight had recast the spell to allow non-pegasi to walk on clouds. The living room was empty with no sign of their rainbow-maned friend, but then they heard an almost shaving-like sound coming from upstairs. The group hurried up the stairs, came to the door and saw something rather strange. Rainbow Dash grabbed one of the stolen Mare Do Well costumes and tossed it into a large shredding machine. At the sight of this, the lady-like unicorn fainted as the pieces of torn fabric flew.
"Rainbow Dash!" exclaimed everyone in unison. Rainbow turned around, surprised to see her pals standing in the doorway.
"Uh, hi guys." Rainbow said casually. "What's up?"
"What do you mean 'what's up'?" Pinkie asked. "Why did you steal the Mare Do Well costumes like a Theivey Theiverson? Why are shredding them all up like a Shreddy Shredderson? What's going on with you, Dashie?"
The guilty pegasus looked around at the glares of her friends, including Rarity. Dash decided that she might as well come clean.
"Alright. The truth is that these costumes just bring back too many bad feelings for me."
There was a stunned silence all around, which lasted for about six seconds until Fluttershy, of all ponies (or dragons), spoke up and broke it.
"What do you mean 'bad feelings' Rainbow?"
Rainbow Dash gave a sigh and then began to explain: "I know I was bragging too much, and I get that you were all trying to teach me a lesson, but during that time that everyone liked Mare Do Well more than me, I just felt so all alone."
The others shared a quick glance with each other before letting the colorful mare continue.
"I'd never been so depressed in my whole life. It was as if every pony in town was suddenly against me and I was a has-been and an outcast. Like nopony even cared about me anymore." Tears began to form in her cyan eyes.
"I hated feeling like that," the tone in her voice changed to one of mild anger, "and it was all because of Mare Do Well. So now, I'm making all of her stupid outfits feel THIS!" Rainbow Dash took another one of the suits and practically shoved it into the giant machine.
"Would you please be a dear and stop that?" Rarity demanded. "I worked really hard on those."
Spike approached his troubled pony friend. "I'm sorry you were so lonely, Rainbow Dash, but to be fair, you did kind of bring that on yourself by being such a big show-off."
"You're not helping, Spike," Twilight said as she glared down at the young reptile.
Rainbow Dash cut in. "Still, about that, you could've just told me I was acting like a jerk instead of humiliating me and making all the ponies in town forget I existed." The blue flier stated with a resenting voice.
"We never meant to do that," said the purple magician, "and I suppose we could have tried to explain it to you, but even if we did, you probably wouldn't have listened to us." Rainbow glanced to the side. She figured that Twilight was right. "We never meant to make you feel abandoned, Rainbow Dash, but you know you should never think that way."
"Yeah!" said the pink cheery mare in her perky voice. "You're not alone, silly. You've got all of us here with you."
"Yes, and you have Scootaloo and Tank," Twilight added.
Upon hearing his name, the copter-propelled tortoise hovered into the chamber and up to his owner. He rubbed his face up against hers. Rainbow Dash started to become reassured.
"Tell ya what. If they're really troublin' ya that much, then bah all means, let's junk' em for good." Applejack said, chucking another costume into Rainbow's device. Rarity was stunned and offended again, but she figured it was for her friend's well being, so she followed the country pony's example and threw away the last of the outfits with her magic to be destroyed.
Rainbow Dash had stopped crying. She felt much better now. The whole Mare Do Well thing was in the past and she knew that hers really were the greatest friends in all of Equestria. Then the entire gang rushed over and held the pegasus tightly in one of their traditional group hugs. Rainbow shed another tear, only this time, it was a tear of joy, knowing that she'd never have to feel lonely again.