> Oncoming Storm: Family Matters
>  by Chengar Qordath
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> A Simple Misunderstanding
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nobody likes homework. Okay, maybe Twilight Sparkle, but she’s kinda weird that way. Personally, I’ve always found it tedious. I do enough schoolwork in school. I’d like to be able to relax once I get home.

At least I had good company. Rainbow’d come home with me, so we were knocking out our history essay together. There was only one problem with that: I was doing homework with Rainbow Dash. If Twilight was on one end of the spectrum, then Rainbow was at the opposite. If not for me, her other friends, and her parents all keeping an eye on her, she’d probably never do her homework and end up dropping out.

Rainbow groaned and glared down at her paper as if it had done her some grievous personal wrong. “Essays are the worst. Hey Cloud, who was that one leader? Won the battle of ... something in like, 1400?”

Way to narrow it down, Dash. I tried to get a little bit of context for the question. “What're you doing your paper on again? The Hundred Years War?”

“Yeah.” Rainbow sighed and shook her head. “You'd think a war that lasted a hundred years would be a little bit cool.”

“It’s not that boring, even if there’s a bit too much politics and backstabbing for me.” I’d always enjoyed the military side of wars more than the rest of it. Blame it on my family background. “So which battle was it? The one where all the knights got shot with arrows?”

“Sounds right,” Rainbow grunted out.

That narrowed it down a fair bit, at least. “I think you mean King Swift Archer or King Sure Shot. Were the knights going uphill and attacking their own crossbowmen, or were they getting bogged down in the mud?”

“I think there was mud. That means it was Sure Shot, right?” I nodded, and Rainbow scratched a few things down. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” I smirked and poked her in the side. “Though really, next time you could just GTS instead of bugging me.”

“GTS?” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “You’re speaking in Acronym again.”

One of the perks of being an army brat, I’m fluent in the language. “Google that ... stuff.”

Dash was versed enough in the ins and outs of Acronym to recognize the cleanup I’d just done. “Yeah, sure, ‘stuff.’ Anyway, what’re you writing yours about?”

“The War of the Roses.” Admittedly, part of why I’d picked that was the awesome TV show loosely inspired by it. Shame the real war didn’t have any dragons or ice demons. “Stupid family wars. Why couldn’t White Rose and Red Rose just work something out?”

Rainbow shrugged. “Probably ‘cause they both wanted everything for themselves. And they had a bunch of jerks manipulating everything. Like sirens, except with less rock music.” She frowned and tapped her chin. “Actually, come to think of it didn’t Sunset say they got banished to here thousands of years ago? For all we know, they were stirring up all kinds of trouble.”

There was a line of thought I was a lot happier not exploring. The Sirens had been bad enough when they were just a bunch of mind-controlling singers. The idea of them touching off wars and massacres was ... yeah. “Anyway, just about done with my paper. How’s yours coming?”

“Uh....” Rainbow showed me her essay. Or, to be more accurate, she showed me a blank sheet of paper with her name and the words ‘King Swift Archer’ written on the first line.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. “Want me to just take care of it for you?”

Rainbow scowled and pulled her paper back. “No .... I just want it to be done. I hate essays. At least with stuff like math you have the problem all written out to solve. With papers, it’s just a blank sheet staring up at me. Mocking me...”

I gave her a reassuring pat on the back. “Shame you can’t super-speed through it.”

“Ugh, no kidding.” She sighed and shook her head. “One of the first things I tried when I found out I had magic. Turns out that when you type at over a thousand words a minute it fries your keyboard, and writing super-fast just rips up the paper.”

“Bit of a problem.” I saw an opening that was just too good to resist. “Plus, there’s the fact that while your body might go at super speed, your brain doesn’t.” I grinned and poked her in the ribs. “That’s still moving along as the same old pace it always did. Slooooow.”

Rainbow snorted, flopping back on my bed. “Hey, compared to me, your mind is so slow that it’s actually going backwards.”

I settled down across from her, grinning. “Then why am I done with my homework before you’ve even started?”

“Because you’re not doing awesome stuff like me,” she countered.

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “Rainbow, we’ve both been in my bedroom since we got out of school. Exactly what ‘awesome stuff’ were you doing?”

Rainbow huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. “I came up with three new offensive plans for soccer, football, and lacrosse, plus a new strategy for water polo.”

“But no homework,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, well...” She picked up one of my pillows and smacked me with it. “Shut up, Kicker.”

I quickly made sure none of our homework was in the battlezone, then armed myself to retaliate. “It’s on now!” I feinted low, then went high and hammered a blow onto the top of her head. Rainbow grunted, then rolled away before I could follow up on my initial success.

Her counterattack came fast and fierce. She wasn’t using her magical superspeed, but she didn’t need that to be quicker than me. However, Rainbow had never been the most tactical of fighters. Instead of planning her attacks out, she was just bombarding me with pillow strikes to try and overwhelm me. However, she had to wind up for each attack, while I knew how to use a defensive stance that let me block with minimal movement. The fact that Rainbow massively telegraphed her attacks helped a lot too. She still got a couple hits in, but nothing I couldn’t tank and push through.

Finally, I saw my chance to turn defense into offense. Rainbow overextended one of her attacks, and instead of outright blocking it, I deflected it down and to the side, knocking her pillow even further out of position. “You’re wide open!” I took advantage of that with my own pillow, slamming her right in the face.

Rainbow reeled back, stunned by my attack. However, she wasn’t going to let me win that easily. She opted for a radical shift in strategy, dropping her weapon and tackling me around the stomach, slamming my back onto the mattress. Once I was down she re-armed herself, raining blow after blow down upon my crumbling defenses.

I knew I had to get out, so I took a chance. I locked my legs around her midsection, then heaved her over. I followed the movement, so that instead of being trapped beneath her I was mounted on top. She smacked me a couple more times with her pillow before I managed to grab her wrists, leaning across her body to pin her arms over her head. The move left the two of us facing each other, mere inches separating us.

Suddenly, I was intensely aware of just how close I was to Rainbow. How much we were touching each other. How warm and soft her skin was, and how cute she looked when she was breathing heavily and had just a hint of a blush on her cheeks.

The same thoughts must have been going through her head, because her lips met mine halfway. We dropped our pillows, and the grapple holds quickly turned into an embrace. After what felt like entirely too little time, I reluctantly broke the kiss. “Um ... we should probably finish up our homework before...”

Rainbow slowly nodded, scooting away from me. “Yeah ... plus your Mom’s home, and your sisters.” She ran a hand through her hair, trying to fix where I’d mussed it. “S’always ... we can do stuff like that later.”

“Exactly.” I got off the bed and moved back to my chair, just to prevent any temptation. As I watched her struggle to get started on her essay, I saw a chance to move the conversation to safer territory. “So how come you don’t want me helping with your homework as much as I used to? Back in middle school you were always asking if you could copy off me.” Thankfully, whenever I’d let her we’d had enough sense to avoid the common pitfalls of copying. Plus she caught a couple mistakes I’d made, so it helped my grades too. Rainbow’s problem with homework wasn’t understanding the material, just not having the patience to do all of it.

“Well yeah, but that was middle school.” Rainbow glowered down at her essay and shook her head. “It’s different now, especially since we started being ... us. I don't want to, y'know, owe you.”

I sighed patiently. “Dash, we don’t keep track of that kind of thing. I know I didn’t before we hooked up, and I don’t see any reason to start now. I help you because I like helping you, not because I care about who helps who the most.”

“I know, but...” She trailed off uncertainly, running a hand through her hair. “I dunno. It just feels like now that we’re dating things are kinda different. Like ... like it’s okay for my awesome gal pal to help me, but s’different when it’s my girlfriend who’s helping me.”

I frowned, trying to figure out what was bothering her. “Dash, you do stuff for me all the time.”

“Yeah but that's different,” she insisted.

“I don't see how.” I shrugged. “I help you, you help me, it’s all good.”

“It’s...” One of her hands waved vaguely through the air as she struggled for the right words. “Like, I don’t mind when it’s you helping me out during a soccer game or something, ‘cause we’re always helping each other out. But in all the time we’ve been friends, have you ever asked me to help you with your homework? Do you think you ever will?”

“Um...” I tried to come up with a diplomatic way to answer that question, or at least a lie that was plausible enough to pass muster.

My hesitation wound up answering the question before I could get any words out. “Exactly.” Rainbow nodded grimly. “And now it’ll be like you’re only helping me ‘cause we’re dating or something. Or I’m getting you to help me by ... doing stuff.”

I groaned and rubbed my forehead. “Rainbow, that’s ridiculous. I’ve helped you for as long as we’ve been friends, because that’s what friends do. It doesn’t have anything to do with us dating, and I’d still be doing the exact same thing if we were just friends.”

“Yeah, but...” She ran a hand down her face. “It’s just different, okay?”

There wasn’t much I could say to that: no amount of logical arguing could change how Rainbow felt. Emotions just don’t work that way. “Right, got it.” I smiled to let her know there were no hard feelings. “Not the end of the world. Besides, I bet Twilight and Sunset would make a big fuss if I did all your homework for you.”

“Yeah, that too.” She pitched her voice up to a mild mockery of Twilight’s “If you don’t do your homework then you won't be ready for the pop quiz, and then you’ll be working uphill for the next big test! Then you’ll get a bad grade on your report card, which will result in your GPA going down, and then you’ll never get into a good college! Without a good college you won’t get a good job, and then you’ll be miserable forever!“

“I think you’re exaggerating a little.” Granted, I didn’t know Twilight all that well, since she was still pretty new at school and not much of a socializer. In any case, I could understand where she was coming from—the good military academies were all pretty picky. I don’t think Rainbow even cared about college, beyond hoping she’d get a good athletic scholarship, and that it would be somewhere she could stay with her friends.

I watched Rainbow struggle with her essay for a bit longer, wishing there was something I could do to help. I couldn’t fault her for wanting to do it on her own, but ... well part of me had to wonder if she could do it on her own. Rainbow’s never been good at schoolwork—back before I helped her in middle school, a couple teachers thought she might have a learning disability. I’m not sure if it was that, or if she just didn’t have the right personality for schoolwork. All I knew was that she was struggling, and I couldn’t help her. And that sucked.

After she’d started her essay a dozen times and left a dozen crumpled up sheets of paper on the floor, she groaned and threw her pen and notebook to the side. “Okay, this is going nowhere. Maybe we could take a break for a bit?”

“Sounds good to me.” I tried to throw a little encouragement her way. “Sometimes getting away from it for a bit will let you start back fresh.”

“I’ll take what I can get.” Rainbow got up and stretched, and I had a hard time not noticing how nice it looked. She caught me noticing and smirked.

“Snack break?” I suggested.

Rainbow grinned. “Now that’s a plan I can get behind.”

“Fridge raid it is, then.” The two of us headed downstairs, finding the kitchen deserted. Dad was working late and Sparkler was working on a group project with Star, so Mom had left me and Alula to make do with leftovers, frozen food, and whatever else we could scrounge up.

Rainbow poked through the fridge, trying to find something she’d like. “Let’s see ... soda, frozen burritos, corndogs, lunch meat, leftover casserole, milk, eggs ... ooh, frozen pizza.” She pulled it out, then grinned. “Wait ... is this stuffed crust pizza with bacon stuffed into the crust along with the cheese? That’s the coolest thing ever!”

“There’s only one way to make it cooler.” I pulled out a couple strips of bacon. “Put more on it.”

I was about to get on that when Mom loudly cleared her throat. “I hope you plan on leaving me enough to make breakfast tomorrow.” She stepped into the kitchen, quickly inspecting the area to make sure we hadn’t made a mess. “How’s your homework coming?”

“I’m just about done.” I answered, leaving out Rainbow’s current lack of progress. “Just need to proofread my paper, and I can do that after food.”

Mom nodded, then frowned and looked both of us over. After a couple seconds of that I started shuffling, trying to find something to check my reflection on. If she was looking at me like that, there had to be something out of place. Maybe she could tell Rainbow and I had played around a bit when we were supposed to be studying?

Finally she nodded again, not saying anything, so I guess I must have passed the test. She stepped past me, and reached into the open fridge, pulling out one of her favorite micro-brews. She opened it up and took a sip, the paused to shoot a pointed look at us, holding up her bottle. “I just checked, and seven of these are left. I expect there to be seven when Rainbow leaves.”

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “I’m not that dumb, Mom.” I knew she watched her beer supply like a hawk—she kinda had to with three teenagers in the house.

“Just making sure everyone was clear on that.” She paused and shot both of us a wry grin. “And since you’re so smart, I trust you’re also smart enough to keep the bedroom door open from now on?”

I groaned, and I could feel my cheeks warming up. Rainbow didn’t look much better. “Mooom!”

Mom responded with a single raised eyebrow and a sip of her beer. “Yes?”

“We're not ... that’s not...” I groaned and buried my face in my hands, trying to get the blushing under control. “We’re doing homework!”

“What she said!” Rainbow chimed in.

“I believe you,” Mom assured us. “But I was also young once.” Her eyes narrowed, and her tone made it clear the discussion was over. “The door stays open.”

“Fine,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest. “Doesn’t matter, it’s not like we were doing anything anyway.”

“Thank you.” She probably would’ve left it at that, but then Rainbow grumbled something under her breath. What I caught of it was ... less than complimentary. Mom slowly turned to face her, fixing my girlfriend with a pointed look. “I beg your pardon?”

“Nothin’,” Rainbow mumbled, not quite able to meet Mom’s eyes.

I didn’t want trouble, so took Rainbow’s hand and gently tugged her away. “C'mon, Dash. We can get some more work in while the pizza’s in the oven.” I’d been planning to relax while our pizza was in the oven, but I didn’t think we could do any of that with Mom hovering around. Especially since on top of her usual disapproval of us having fun when she should be working,  she’d probably do stuff like insist we not sit too close together on the couch.

As the two of us headed back to my room, Mom called out after us, “I’ll bring your pizza once it’s done.” She paused, looking at the sheer amount of bacon we had on our pizza, then amended, “Most of it. There will be a one slice fee for cutting and delivering it.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Rainbow and I trudged back upstairs. If I hadn’t been distracted by dealing with Mom, I probably would’ve noticed that my bedroom door was wide open, even though I’d closed it behind us when we left. Instead, I had no warning until I ran into an invisible field blocking the doorway. “The hell?!”

Rainbow had been right behind me and didn’t manage to stop in time. The collision sent me right back through the doorway, ripping through the transparent plastic wrap some enterprising little prankster had decided to spread across the opening. As I picked myself up off the floor, I heard poorly stifled giggles coming from the next room.

I groaned and pulled off the plastic wrap. “This is what I get for having little sisters.”

Rainbow snickered as she helped me up. “Surprised she got it set up while we were down in the kitchen—kid must’ve planned this one out.” She smirked, then pitched her voice to make sure my bratty little sister could hear her. “Of course, now that she’s gotten us, we have to get her back. It’s the Prankster Code.”

The badly concealed laughter abruptly cut off, and a second later a gangly collection of yellow limbs topped with messy purple hair shot out of the bedroom next to mine. Clearly someone didn’t want to get what was coming to her.

I grinned at Rainbow. “Cut her off.”

Rainbow nodded, and a second later disappeared in a multicolored flash. She dropped out of superspeed in front of Alula, blocking her line of retreat. My little sis reversed course, but by that point I had cut her off from her bedroom. She was stuck in the hallway, with nowhere to run.

“Uh...” Alula’s eyes darted between the two of us as she realized she was busted. “Sparky made me do it!”

“Riiiight.” Rainbow frowned down at her, then turned to me. “Do we believe her, Cloud?”

“Hmm.” I closed in on the little brat, stroking my chin as I pretended to think it over. “I can believe Sparks was involved, but I doubt 'Lula's innocent. You heard her laughing.” I snagged the back of her shirt to make sure she wouldn’t try anything. “First lesson of being a prankster: you either cover up good enough that nobody knows it was you, or you take your lumps after you get caught.” I shifted my grip to wrap an arm around her, pinning her in place. “Oh, and don’t forget the sibling pecking order. Ever. This’ll help you remember that.” With my sister immobilized, I proceeded to noogie her as relentlessly as she deserved for her brattiness.

“Ack!” Alula whined and tried to squirm her way free, but I had her locked down. She wasn’t getting away until she’d learned her lesson. “Cloudyyy, nooo! Quit it!” When I made it clear I would do nothing of the sort, she resorted to the next weapon in her arsenal. “I’ll tell Mom!”

“Tell me what?” Mom stood at the bottom of the staircase, looking at all three of us with her arms folded across her chest. “That doesn’t sound like studying.”

“Alula pranked us, I’m just getting payback,” I explained. “Totally valid.”

“Mooom!” Alula whimpered as I continued extracting sibling justice on her scalp. “Help!”

Mom chuckled and shook her head. “What comes around goes around, Little Wing.” She let me carry on for a couple more seconds. “However, I think you’ve gotten enough payback, Cloud. You still have homework to do, as does your sister.”

“Fine.” I released the brat, who grumbled and rubbed at her abused scalp. “As long as you get Sparky for me, and we’ll be even.”

Alula scampered over to her room, then paused and smirked at me. “She didn’t have anything to do with it, I got ya on my own!” She shut and locked the door before I could chase her down.

Rainbow snickered. “Clever kid.”

“Don’t encourage her,” I warned Dash. “My little sisters are bad enough on their own. Storm and I really need to team up sometime to properly crush their spirits and firmly enforce the sibling pecking order.”

Rainbow shot a half-serious frown my way. “Hey, I like Sparkler and Alula.”

I sighed and shook my head. “I love ‘em to death, they’re my sisters. That just doesn’t change the fact that I must also utterly destroy them to enforce my supremacy.” Rainbow stared at me as if I’d grown a second head. “It’s a sibling thing.”

Mom pointedly cleared her throat, her eyes flicking to my bedroom, where our homework was waiting. We took the hint and headed back into my room, leaving the door open.

Rainbow shrugged. “You and your sisters are weird. Kinda makes me glad I’m an only child.”

There were times I envied her. Usually whenever Alula and Sparkler were being especially bratty. “Nice moves with the super-speed. Hope you didn't melt your shoes this time.”

“Nah, that only happens when I go real fast for a long time.” Despite that, she checked her shoes to make sure. “Socks might smell a bit, though.

I snickered and poked her in the ribs. “Oh come on, that was a problem before you got magic. I shared a locker room with you, I know this stuff.”

“Oh yeah?” Rainbow pulled off her shoe and sock, then brandished the latter. “Then this won’t bother you at all!”

“Gah!” I recoiled from the toxic waste she was threatening me with. In all seriousness, her sock wasn’t all that stinky, but why let a few inconvenient facts get in the way of messing around? “No using biological weapons, Rainbow! That’s a war crime!”

“I’ll war crime you!” Rainbow play-tackled me, shoving her dirty sock into my face. “Smell it! Smell it until it makes you sick!”

I put up a token struggle, but I saw no harm in letting her have her fun. However... “Rainbow, you do realize that you’re threatening me with your stinky feet to get back at me for saying you have stinky feet, right? Your method of attack implicitly admits that I’m right.”

“Yeah, well...” Rainbow reached down and slipped a hand past my waistline, then grabbed my underwear to apply a very enthusiastic wedgie. 

“Whoa!” Alright, no more Miss Nice Cloud. It was time to break out my ultimate weapon—that ticklish spot I’d found on Rainbow’s stomach. I ghosted my fingers across her belly, but all that got was a little giggle. Probably because her shirt was in the way. Fortunately for me, Rainbow has never once in her life tucked in her shirt, so getting underneath it to reach her vulnerable, unprotected tummy was child’s play.

“Kicker!” Rainbow whined as best she could through her giggles. “Cut it out. You’re gonna—”

Rainbow abruptly cut herself off, her eyes widening to the size of dinner plates. I was about to ask what was wrong when Mom pointedly cleared her throat. I slowly turned around to see her holding two plates of pizza and glowering down both of us.

It was at that point that I realized that Rainbow and I were both flushed, mussed, tangled up together, my hand was halfway up her shirt, and her hand was in my pants. Both of us withdrew as quickly and stealthily as I could, but I’m pretty sure Applejack would’ve said something about shutting the barn door after the horse had already left.

Mom slowly and calmly set our food down. “Explain.”

“It’s not what it looks like,” I squeaked out. A second later I wanted to smack myself for falling back on one of the lamest, most tired excuses in the book. “We were just messing around, and her stomach’s ticklish so...” 

Mom’s frown deepened, and she crossed her arms over her chest, unleashing the Disapproving Mom Look. I had a lot of experience being on the receiving end of that, and it’s never fun. She didn’t say anything—she didn’t need to. That look was more than enough.

Rainbow swooped in to support me. “Come on, we had the door open, and we knew you’d be up in a bit with pizza. Do you really think we’re dumb enough to start ... doing stuff when it’s obvious we’d get caught?”

“If you were thinking about it, no.” Mom’s eyes narrowed. “But when I was your age, I didn’t always think things through. I know for a fact Cloud is the same way, and I’m reasonably confident in saying the same about you, young lady.” 

“Jerk,” Rainbow grumbled, not-quite-as-quietly as she should have.

Mom grunted. “Do I need to call your parents to let them know they need to come pick you up, and explain exactly why they need to do so?”

Rainbow flinched, her eyes flicking down and to the side. Dash’s parents were generally pretty cool, but I didn’t think they were laid back enough to be okay with Mom calling them up and saying she’d caught us in flagrante. Especially since Rainbow wouldn’t have a chance to tell her side of the story.

Satisfied that she’d made her point, Mom moved on. “Living room. I think it’s time we had a discussion about what sort of behavior is and isn’t acceptable under my roof.”

I could already tell this was gonna be less of a discussion and more of Mom telling us how things were going to be. As she marched us downstairs, I leaned over and carefully whispered to Rainbow. “Get outta here. You have super-speed.”

Rainbow shook her head. “You really think I’m gonna run out on you?”

Should’ve known better than to suggest that. Rainbow’s loyal to a fault. “That’s sweet. Kinda stupid, but sweet.”

Despite our dire peril, Rainbow cracked a little half-smile. “Shuddup.”

We got to the living room, and I sat on the couch with Rainbow. Mom cleared her throat again, and we both scooted to opposite ends of the sofa. Once she was satisfied that we were at an appropriately puritanical distance from each other, she got started. “Now then, I think I’ve been very reasonable in allowing Rainbow to spend time here, because I trusted the two of you to behave in a responsible manner. If the two of you insist on abusing that trust—”

I couldn’t let that pass unchallenged. “We weren’t doing anything, Mom!”

“Yeah, we were just goofing around,” Rainbow chimed in.

“You’ve already disrespected me by breaking my rules and taking advantage of my trust,” Mom growled at us. “Don’t make things worse for yourselves by also thinking I’m stupid enough to fall for that story.”

“It’s not a story!” I snapped at her. “Maybe instead of getting mad and yelling at us, could you actually listen to what we’re saying? I’m telling you, nothing happened.”

My words went in one ear and out the other. “I know what I saw, Cloud. If you want me to listen to you, stop lying to me.”

“I’m not lying!” Why was she being like this? It wasn’t fair!

Mom didn’t say anything, she just met my gaze levelly and dared me to say one more word. I kept my mouth shut, not so much because I was scared as because I knew it wouldn’t do any good. Mom had already made up her mind about what Rainbow and I had been doing, and nothing I could say would change it.

When Rainbow and I had both stayed quiet for a long time, Mom sighed softly, getting out of her chair and going to the kitchen. She came back a bit later with a soda for each of us, and another beer for herself. Once she opened her mouth, I saw why she’d wanted another beer. “I suppose there's no time like the present to a talk about safe sex...”

I groaned and buried my face in the couch. “MOOOM!”

Rainbow shrank down in her seat. “We already talked about that at school. And it doesn’t matter anyway, ‘cause we weren’t having sex!”

Mom hit me with a question I’d never, ever wanted to hear from her. “So that means you’re still a virgin?”

The question caught me so off-guard that I hesitated before answering. Under the circumstances, hesitating was pretty much the same as confessing. I suppose one could argue that I still was by some technical definitions of the term, but...

Mom’s eyes narrowed, and then she laid down the law. “You’ll be doing your studying out in the living room from now on, and you won’t be spending any more time together outside adult supervision. Cloud, you’ll be coming home directly from school or soccer practice from now on. Rainbow, I’ll be calling your parents to discuss what we’ll do about this ... situation.”

Rainbow groaned and buried her face in her hands. “I’m dead.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Mom was totally ruining my life! She was all but forcing me to break things off with Rainbow, and all because of something I hadn’t even done! “Gee, thanks for believing and trusting me, Mom. It’s nice how you don’t just totally ignore what I say and boss me around.”

Mom’s eyes narrowed. “Thank you for volunteering to mow the lawn this Saturday, Cloud.”

“Hey, she’s got a point,” Rainbow cut in. “You can’t just punish her more for pointing out how dumb you’re being!”

I couldn’t believe her. Did she think that just ‘cause she was my Mom, she could treat me like a slave? “This is bullshit!”

Mom got up from her chair, looming over me. “I’m going to give you five seconds to apologize.”

Like hell I was going to apologize for calling her out on her crap. It was past time someone did it, and it felt good to finally let it all out. “Why are you being such a bitch?!”

Mom’s eyes widened and her teeth clenched. “Cloud, go to your room. You’re grounded until further notice.”

Did she really think throwing more bullshit rules my way was gonna do any good? I had my mouth halfway open to let her know exactly where could shove her rules when I felt Rainbow hand on my shoulder, gently restraining me. “Kicker,” she whispered. “Chill, or you’ll make things worse for both of us.”

I wanted to tear into Mom some more. I really wanted to ... but not if it got Rainbow in trouble. I closed my eyes and took a couple deep breaths. “Fine.” I got up from the couch, not because Mom told me to, but because I wanted to.

I headed for my room, but as I started up the stairs I couldn’t resist pausing for one last parting shot. “I wish you were dead.”






I didn’t say one word to Mom at breakfast the next day, and after suffering through school Rainbow and I headed out to Applejack’s farm so she could practice her magic. Mom would doubtless be pissed that I wasn’t coming straight home, but I as far as I was concerned that was just a bonus.

AJ’s farm was just about perfect for Rainbow to practice her magic. Plenty of wide open space for her to run around in, and isolated enough that we could contain the damage if anything went wrong. Applejack had set aside one of the farm’s fallow fields for all of her friends to practice with their new magical powers—Pinkie must have been by recently, because there were several dozen fresh craters. I admit, the idea of Pinkie having explosion powers was mildly terrifying.

Rainbow was out in the middle of the field, running around in circles. We’d spent our lunch break doing research on how her powers might work, which is a fancy way of saying we read a lot of comic books where the characters had super-speed. Sure, that method did cause some problems like when Rainbow fried her keyboard, but it had also given us a couple really good ideas. After going through an old Power Girls issue where Fillisecond had created a tornado with her superspeed, Rainbow had been inspired to see if she could do the same thing. Thus, her running around in circles. So far, all she’d managed to do was make herself dizzy.

My phone buzzed, and after a quick check confirmed that it was just another message from Mom, probably chewing me out for not being home yet, I shut it off. Watching Rainbow run around in circles was getting a little old, and without my phone to occupy my attention my eyes started wandering. That’s how I spotted Applejack heading our way on her family’s ATV. She drew the vehicle to a halt next to me, then pulled a cooler off the back. “Howdy, Cloud. Watchin’ Rainbow do her thing?”

“Nah, I was just fascinated by your empty field, but Dash keeps blocking my view.” My eyes flicked to the cooler. “Please tell me you have something that’s not apple or apple-based in there.”

AJ chuckled. “No such luck, sugarcube.”

“Figures.” I didn’t have anything against apples, but I had to wonder how Applejack’s family didn’t go insane from eating them all the time. I like a little more variety in my diet.

I flopped back in the grass, staring up at the sky. After a couple seconds AJ set down the cooler, then took a seat next to me. “You alright, Cloud? You’re awful quiet—you two’re usually thick as thieves when you’re out here helping Rainbow play with her powers. You two ain’t havin’ troubles, are ya?”

“What? Nah, Rainbow and I are tight as ever.” I glanced over, and spotted Applejack’s unconvinced frown. The last thing I wanted was her butting into our relationship, so I decided to spill the beans. “It’s family stuff. Got into a fight with my mom last night. I’m technically supposed to be grounded, but...” I shrugged, letting her know exactly how much I cared about what my Mom had to say.

Applejack grimaced and nodded sympathetically. “Sorry to hear that. Ain’t never fun getting into it with your family. Mind if Ah ask...?”

I didn’t see any point in hiding it, and Aunt Wind always said that talking about your problems helped. “Mom caught me and Rainbow goofing around, and thought we were ... doing something more than just wrestling.”

“Oh.” Applejack shifted uncomfortably, her eyes flicking between me and Rainbow. “Ah take it y’all weren’t, then?”

“No.” I could hear a bit of a growl in my voice—just thinking about what had happened last night was making me mad again. “I tried to tell her that, but she didn't listen to me. Then she started going on about how I was grounded and she was gonna call Rainbow’s parents and make sure I didn’t ever get to be alone with her, and I ... well you can guess the rest.”

Applejack frowned. “So she figured you did something, wouldn’t listen when you said you didn’t, then came down on you like a ton of bricks? Can’t say Ah blame ya for gettin’ mad.” She shrugged, then cracked open the cooler. “Want a cider?”

“Sure.” I hesitated a moment, then asked. “Non-alcoholic, right?”

“Yep.” Applejack snorted and shook her head. “Granny would tan mah hide if Ah tried to sneak any of the hard stuff.”

“I bet.” I took the offered bottle and popped the top, taking a long sip. “Reminds me, Mom gave us a hard time about that too.” I pitched my voice to a mockery of hers, wagging a finger lecturingly. “‘There are seven beers left in the fridge, and I expect there to still be seven at the end of the evening.’” It’s not like I’d ever stolen one of her beers. Granted, I hadn’t snitched on Sparkler the one time she did, but that was a onetime thing because I’d owed the brat one for helping with the whole mess with Blossom.

Applejack chuckled. “Yeah, Mac said somethin’ similar last time all the gals came by for a sleepover.” She paused a moment, then amended, “Hope ya don’t mind that we haven’t invited ya to one of those, but...”

I waved her off. “Yeah, it’d make things a bit weird with me and Dash being a couple.” Besides, while I liked Rainbow’s other magical buddies just fine, we were more friendly with each other than actual friends.

Applejack chuckled and shook her head. “No offense, but it kinda would. If nothin’ else, sleeping arrangements would be a whole can of worms Ah don’t wanna open. Not to mention Ah can’t see your parents or hers bein’ too wild about ya’ll havin’ sleepovers, especially not after...” She trailed off awkwardly, then shook her head. “They just don't want to see us doin' something stupid, you know? S’why your ma jumped on ya like that.”

“I guess, yeah.” I groaned and flopped back down on the grass, spilling some of my cider in the process. “But if she'd just listened to me...”

Applejack frowned and caught my bottle to prevent any more apple product from going to waste.  “Have ya tried just sitting down an’ talkin’ with her?”

“What’s the point?” I stared listlessly up at the clouds. “I can’t talk to her when she never listens to anything I say. Once I was done talking she’d just ignore whatever I said, then order me around like I was one of her little tin soldiers.”

“Think you oughta try anyway,” Applejack insisted. “Maybe once you’ve simmered down a little. Reckon you’re both a little too sore with each other right now. She’s still your ma, an’ you’re still her little girl. That has to mean something to both of y’all, and Ah can’t imagine her ignorin’ you completely.”

“Easy to say when you don't know my mom,” I grumbled. 

Applejack sighed patiently. “Yeah, she didn’t listen to you before because she saw everything wrong an’ jumped to a conclusion. Ain’t like she’s the only one to ever do that.” She chuckled softly, shaking her head. “Reminds me of that time we had trouble with the tractor, an’ Granny kept goin’ on about how the problem was that Mac didn’t replace the hydraulic fluid when he should’ve. Even after the mechanic fixed and told her it weren’t nothing to do with the hydraulics, about all she budged was to say that even if that weren’t what broke it this time, he still needed to change the fluid.”

I snickered. “Okay, that actually is kinda funny.” My good humor didn’t last as my mind went back to my problems. “It’s just ... it’s not fair.”

Applejack pulled her legs up against her chest, then wrapped her arms around them. Her voice seemed a lot less ... cheerful energetic country girl. “Life rarely is.”

I frowned at her. “What's wrong?”

Applejack waved my concerns away. “Nothin’.” She paused, then amended. “Nothin’ your fault, anyways. Just thinking, at least you still got parents to talk to.”

I flinched as I remembered exactly who I was talking to. “Oh dammit, I didn’t even think about...” I groaned and buried my face in my hands. “Wow, I must sound so self-centered and petty to you.” I couldn’t help but remember the last thing I’d said to Mom—I’m pretty sure Applejack would’ve smacked me upside the head if she knew about that. “Sorry, didn't mean to reopen old wounds.”

Applejack shook her head. “Weren’t like you meant to. It’s an old sore spot, but it ain’t like Ah’m gonna break down sobbin’ every time someone else mentions they got parents that ain’t dead.” She grimaced and shook her head. “Anyway, wanna do something instead of sittin’ around mopin’? Dunno about you, but whenever Ah’ve got too much on my mind, Ah like to find some work to do until Ah ain’t thinkin’ about what’s botherin’ me anymore.”

“Sounds like you’re just trying to talk me into giving you some free farmwork.” Despite my obligatory cynicism, the idea of actually doing something sounded better than just sitting around brooding. “What did you have in mind?”

Applejack grinned at me. “Got somethin’ right up your alley, actually. We got some critters messing with our crops, and Dad’s old varmint rifle hasn’t been used since he was around to use it. Reckon you could clean it up and sight it in?”

“Sure thing.” Thanks to all the army brat training, I could do that kinda thing in my sleep.  “Certainly beats most of the farmwork you could throw my way.”

Applejack smirked at me. “Not a fan of hard work? Shoulda known, what with you bein’ tight with Rainbow.”

I rolled my eyes and briefly considered using one of Rainbow’s teasing nicknames for her. “I don’t mind working, it’s just that I’ve been doing gun maintenance since I was old enough to be trusted with one, and it doesn’t involve manure. Two big points in favor of that.”

Applejack snorted. “Can't argue with that. Muckin’ out the stalls is usually saved for whoever’s on Granny’s shit list.” She snickered at her own joke, then led me back to the house.

I followed along. “We’ll wanna set up somewhere a long way away from where Rainbow’s practicing. Especially since I just know she’s going to want to try something stupid with bullets someday. Way too many movies and comics with superspeed people dodging them, snatching them out of midair, that kinda stuff.”

Applejack groaned and shook her head. “Can’t say you’re wrong about that. Don’t worry, she ain’t doin’ some thick-skulled thing like that on mah farm.”

“Damn right she’s not.” I may love her to bits, but if she ever tried something like that I’d kick her cute little butt.  I put the matter from my mind as Applejack brought out an old but well-maintained rifle. Looked like a .22LR with plain iron sight—like she’d said, a varmint rifle.

I made sure the magazine and chamber were empty, then got to work on cleaning it. The job went pretty quick; from the slightly musty smell, the gun had probably been stored in a proper case instead of just propped up in a corner somewhere. Despite that, I didn’t cut any corners.

Once that was taken care of, it was time to handle the sights. “You got anywhere that’d be good for doing some shooting?”

Applejack nodded. “Got a nice little spot in the valley that oughta do the job. Did a quick look online, and it said havin’ a hill behind your target range is a good idea. Was fixin’ to try the thing out for myself, but Ah ain’t gonna complain about lettin’ an expert get things set up for me.”

“I wouldn’t call myself an expert, just proficient.” Though I suppose several years of practical experience did put me a bit above Applejack and whatever she could find on the internet. Even if the information was solid, there’s a big difference between reading about something and actually doing it.

I hopped onto Applejack’s ATV, and she took us out into the woods. Just like she’d promised, there was a nice big hill behind the shooting range she’d set up, with several trees that had cheap paper targets tacked to them. As far as rustic shooting ranges went, it was a pretty good setup.

“Nice place.” I eyeballed the distances, then picked a good spot. “What distance you want it sighted at?”

Applejack quickly checked her phone. “About fifty meters, Ah’d say.”

“Got it.” I made a few quick adjustments to the sights. “Once you get used to it you could maybe walk the sight out to seventy five, but past that things get iffy as long as you’re using standard ammo. And in any case, most of the critters you’d use a gun like this on would be pretty hard to spot from that far away.”

“Exactly,” Applejack agreed. “Oh, and don’t say nothin’ about this to Fluttershy. I asked her about helping out with this, but she wasn’t exactly ... well, her stance is that I shouldn’t get so upset about our crops getting chewed up ‘cause the animals are hungry, even if it means they’re gonna eat my family outta house and home.”

“Our secret,” I promised her. “I guess she couldn’t use her magic to make them move?”

Applejack frowned and shook her head. “Nah, she can’t force them to do something they don’t wanna. Or she just doesn’t believe in forcin’ instead of askin’. Same thing, really. Not all the critters wanted to leave when they’ve got all my food for the eatin’, and all the predators steer clear of mah farm.”

I nodded along, though I wasn’t too eager to take sides in the dispute. I sympathized with Applejack, but I’d gone to middle school with Fluttershy. Her heart was in the right place, even if she took it a little far sometimes. I don’t think my stomach had ever fully forgiven her for the time she took me to that one vegan restaurant—that soybean ruben had sat in my stomach like a brick for over a week.

I finished adjusting the sights, and once I was sure they were good I finally loaded the gun. As I checked the area surrounding my target and lined everything up, I took a couple deep breaths to calm down and get into the right mood for shooting. Concentrate. Don’t concern yourself with anything but the gun, the target, and everything in a line connecting the two.

Right as my finger slowly tightened on the trigger, Applejack’s voice cut through my concentration. “Um, Cloud? You might oughta—”

Whatever she was about to say next vanished thank to the sharp crack of the rifle firing. A .22 isn’t especially loud, but it was still enough to make whatever she was about to say next vanish. Plus, it was a moot point after I took the shot.

I stared at the target, my jaw slack. I couldn’t tell how accurate my shot had been, because the paper target Applejack had attached to the tree was in tatters. The tree itself had a pretty big chunk missing from it, too.

Applejack stared at the huge hole I’d left behind. “Cloud, what did you do?! Ah tried to tell ya, the gun was glowin’ right before ya pulled the trigger!”

“What?” I stared down at the rifle, noticing quite a bit of smoke coming off of it for having only fired a single shot. “I don’t know what happened! I just ... it’s a normal rifle. Unless you got bullets made out of depleted uranium or something.”

“Ah don’t think they sell those at the Wal-Mart,” she deadpanned. “What just happened? That’s nothing but a peashooter an’ you did ... that! Don’t make no sense, unless Pinkie’s pulling some crazy kinda prank on us.”

I hesitantly picked up the rifle again, aiming at one of the intact targets. When I started concentrating on my target, I quickly shifted my attention back to the gun itself. Just like Applejack had said, it was glowing with a deep purple aura.

“I don’t think it’s Pinkie doing it,” I stared down at the gun, trying to wrap my head around the only insanity unfolding around us. “I think it’s me.”
> The Ugly Consequences
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow grumbled and shut off her phone. “Fluttershy and Rarity can’t make it. Guess we’ll have to get started without them.” She took a seat next to me, then looked around the barn, waiting for someone to provide some answers. I know I wanted some.

Applejack was busy field-stripping the rifle I’d used, half-searching for answers as she went over every single piece of it to make sure I hadn’t done any damage. Twilight and Sunset were having a hushed conversation in the corner, probably trying to come up with a working theory for what was going on. That left Pinkie Pie, who started slowly circling around me, occasionally poking, prodding, and breaking out a measuring tape.

Rainbow lost patience with her before I did. “Pinkie, what're you doing?”

Pinkie stopped her examination, coming to a halt in front of us. “Soooo ... did you find some weird magic gems in a cave in the forest, and now you're using their magical powers to try and save your summer camp from a land developer who’s randomly evil now despite always having been a pretty nice guy before?”

Well, I couldn’t fault her for ruling out what happened the last time they ran into something like this, though she was probably being a bit too specific. “No, nothing like that.”

“Huh.” She leaned in closer, then tugged aside my hair so she could stare into one of my ears. “You didn’t build some sort of weird machine to take away everyone’s magic, and now you’re unleashing it to give yourself powers? Possibly because of an evil principal singing a pretty cool musical number?”

Twilight flinched when she heard that. Guess it was still a bit of a sore spot for her. I shook my head. “No, I didn’t do that either. And before you ask, I’m also not a siren or a unicorn from Equestria, and I didn’t come here through a magic portal.”

Pinkie frowned, then pulled a clipboard out of her hair and crossed several things out. “Hmm ... there go most of my theories. Oh! Were you bitten by a spider? Or maybe you accidently touched some radioactive waste?”

Rainbow groaned and slammed her head down on the table, a sentiment I privately agreed with. However, past experience and advice from Rainbow said that the best way to deal with Pinkie was to just roll with her randomness. Fighting it was like trying to hold back an avalanche. “Do you have any radioactive waste on the farm, Applejack?”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Not unless you're countin’ laundry day.”

“Huh.” Pinkie frowned and crossed that out. “I guess you didn’t fall into a big open vat of weird chemicals either.” I shook my head. “Oh! Oh! Maybe you're an alien who was abandoned here as a baby and your parents are actually your adoptive parents and now your super freaky alien powers are awakening for the first time!”

“It might explain a few things,” I joked, “but I'm pretty sure that's not it. After all, I can’t fly or shoot lasers out of my eyes.”

Rainbow got up from her seat and shot an annoyed glower Pinkie’s way. “Pinkie, can we stop dealing with your randomness and come up with an actual answer? You know, something realistic, like maybe she soaked up some Equestrian Magic from somewhere?”

Applejack snorted. “Says something about our lives when magic’s a realistic explanation.” She leaned back in her chair, frowning. “It’d figure she’s getting her magic from there, but how would it happen? The cave at Camp Everfree didn’t exactly have any spare gemstones.”

Sunset shrugged helplessly. “I can only really guess at this point.” She shifted her attention to me. “Did you pick up anything from the camp, Cloud? Anything new or unusual?”

I thought it over, then shook my head. “Not that I can think of.”

Applejack smirked. “Not even an inherent hatred for impromptu fashion shows? Ah know Ah got a bad case of that from Camp Everfree.”

“Pretty sure we all caught that,” Rainbow deadpanned. “So unless everyone starts popping up weird anti-fashion powers, we can rule that out.”

Pinkie smirked and nudged Rainbow Dash. “I know one thing she picked up...”

Sunset sighed, and with utmost reluctance asked, “What are you talking about, Pinkie?”

Pinkie looked between myself and Rainbow grinning smugly. “Oh I proooobably shouldn't say but, they know what I’m talking about...”

It wasn’t hard to guess what she meant. Pinkie had been hanging out in Rainbow’s tent one of the times I’d come by to visit, and it had taken quite a while for Rainbow to not-so-subtly clue her in that we wanted some alone time.

Rainbow must have come to the same conclusion, because she was glaring daggers at Pinkie even as her cheeks lit up. “Shut up, Pinkie...”

Sunset crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at all three of us. “What are you talking about? If there’s even the slightest chance it has anything to do with how Cloud got these new powers, I need to know.”

“Pretty sure it’s unrelated,” I assured her.

“Yeah!” Rainbow agreed, her eyes nervously darting from side to side. “It’s really not important. Pinkie’s just being weird and random like she always is.”

“Maybe you oughta let Sunset and Twilight decide what is an’ ain’t important,” Applejack shot back. “They’re the ones who actually study all this magic stuff. Ah don’t reckon y’all would both be gettin’ so twitchy unless Pinkie was onto somethin’.”

Sunset’s frown deepened. “Need I remind you how bad things got every other time we’ve had someone suddenly get magical powers? Me, Twilight, Gloriosa ... it’s looking like a pretty consistent trend at this point.” She shot a quick apologetic smile Twilight’s way. “If there’s another problem brewing, I’d rather nip it in the bud.”

“I’m fine with not getting blasted by a huge magical rainbow,” I agreed wholeheartedly. I let that sink in for a moment, then shrugged. “For what it’s worth, I don't feel an irresistible urge to take over the world while laughing maniacally.”

“Neither did any of the others, until they did,” Applejack countered. “And considering ya blew a big chunk outta a tree with a little plinker rifle, Ah’d rather not find out what happens if ya go crazy and start using your magic to boost up some serious hardware.”

“Shut up, Applejack!” Rainbow snapped, protectively wrapping her arms around me. “Cloud’s not gonna do something like that! I knew you were pretty stupid, but that takes the prize!”

Sunset sighed and massaged her forehead. “Calm down, Rainbow. Nobody thinks Cloud is going to turn evil. It’s just ... well considering the track record we’ve had so far with other people getting magic, can you blame us for wanting a little reassurance that nothing bad’s going to happen this time?”

Rainbow’s eyes narrowed. “You want reassurance? Fine. Cloud’s not gonna go crazy and hurt anyone, because she wouldn’t do that.”

Twilight bit her lip, then murmured, “Pretty sure nobody thought I would start ripping holes in reality as soon as I got magical powers, but...”

Rainbow flinched, then shook her head and tightened her hold on me. “Guys, I’m telling you, Cloud wouldn’t do something like that. I just ... she just wouldn’t.”

Twilight shook her head. “Rainbow, that’s begging the question.”

“I’ll beg your question!” Rainbow snapped.

“That doesn’t even make sense!”

I took a deep breath, then very gently removed Rainbow’s arms. “It’s okay, Dash.” I faced Sunset and nodded. “Go ahead and do your magic thing, if that’s what it’ll take to get some answers and let everyone know I’m not about to go crazy.”

Sunset started to reach out towards me, then hesitated. “You sure about that? I can’t exactly control what I see, so...”

“Anything in my head is potentially up for grabs,” I finished for her. “Trust me, I’m not wild about it, but if it’ll clear all this up and get us some answers I can live with it. It’s not like I have any deep, dark secrets I’m desperate to hide.”

“Your call.” She took a deep breath, then put a hand on my shoulder. 

And ... nothing happened. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but it was a bit more than that. Most of the movies and comics I’d seen with Rainbow said you could feel someone rooting around in your head and try to fight back against them. Not that I wanted to fight her, but I’d still expected a bit more awareness of what she was doing. A feeling of her poking around in my head, maybe getting flashes of whatever memories she was digging through...

Everyone else just silently watched us, Applejack and Twilight with mild interest, while Rainbow was tapping her foot with enough super speed to kick up a small dust cloud. She really was a total sweetheart underneath the cool tough girl exterior. Loving, caring, giving ... and she had the cutest little butt.

A moment later it occurred to me that I probably shouldn’t be thinking about my girlfriend’s butt while someone was poking around in my head. I immediately tried not to think about her, which backfired about as spectacularly as one would expect. Everyone knows that trying not to think of something just guarantees that you’ll think about it.

About a second later Sunset pulled her hand away as if she’d been burned, her cheeks lighting up. Her eyes flicked between me and Rainbow, and the blush got even worse. It wasn’t hard to guess what she must have seen, and pretty soon I was blushing even more than she was.

As soon as it was clear Sunset was done mind-reading, Rainbow barged in. “Alright, so what’d you find out?”

Sunset groaned and rubbed her face. “Too much. Way too much.”

Rainbow was thankfully oblivious to what that meant, though I wasn’t optimistic about that remaining the case for long. “What’s that supposed to mean? Did you find out how Cloud got her magic or not? Hurry up and tell Applebutt that Cloud’s not gonna go crazy or evil!”

Applejack shot a brief frown Rainbow’s way, but let the insult slide. “Ah’d sure like some answers too.”

“Yeah, spill the beans!” Pinkie demanded. “Except don’t spill literal beans, because that’s wasting perfectly good food.”

Sunset sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Well, I do have a bit of a working theory, at least. Cloud and Rainbow were ... involved with one another at Camp Everfree. Rainbow’s magic field was almost certainly unstable due to recently getting new powers, so some of that might have leaked to Cloud.”

Rainbow finally got it, and her jaw dropped. I groaned and buried my face in my hands.

Thankfully, the others hadn’t quite caught on yet. Applejack took off her hat to scratch her head. “So havin’ feelin’s for someone else spreads the magic? That's it? Seems awful thin.”

“If that was all it took, you’d think there would be more people than just Cloud with magic,” Twilight chimed in. Her cheeks lit up a bit as she added, “I had a bit of a crush on Gloriosa’s brother, so why hasn’t he gotten powers? Or my brother? Or—”

Whatever she was about to say next got swallowed up by Pinkie’s massive gasp. “What?! I thought that night in the tent you were just sneaking and eating marshmallows together. Omigosh omigosh OMIGOSH! You guys were actually eating—”

“Pinkie!” Rainbow yelped.

“Whaaat?!” Pinkie demanded. “I was just gonna say you guys were actually eating donuts. Sheesh, Dashie, you’re acting like you and Cloud were having sex or something.”

Rainbow groaned and slapped her head on her forehead, flopping spread-eagled onto her back. I opted for something slightly less melodramatic, but still getting the point across. “Someone just kill me now.”

Pinkie’s next gasp somehow managed to be even louder and more dramatic than the last one. “Omigosh, you two were doing it?! Wow, congrats! I’m gonna have to hold a big party for this one! With lots of cupcakes with cherries on top, and cherry punch, and cherry juice, and a big pinata cherry that one lucky person is gonna pop, and tons of cherry candies will fly out! It’s gonna be a total blast!”

Rainbow moaned and covered her face with her hands. “Cloud, would you kindly do me a favor and shoot me now?”

“So…” Pinkie leaned in conspiratorially, grinning and waggling her eyebrows. “How was it?”

“PINKIE!”

Sunset gently tugged Pinkie back before things could get even more out of hand. “Trust me, none of us need a play-by-play.” Any end to my embarrassment she might have offered was cut short when I heard her grumble under her breath, “I already got that myself.”

Rainbow glowered at her. “Dammit Sunset—did you have to blab about me and Cloud?!”

Sunset sighed patiently. “Magic has always been strongly influenced by emotions, and love’s one of the strongest emotions out there. That’s actually part of my theory for why so many people are badly influenced by Equestrian magic. Twilight, Gloriosa and I were all in a bad place emotionally when we got infused with Equestrian magic, and that’s why things went wrong. It’d also explain why there aren’t any problems with our new powers.” She hesitated, straightening out her hair. “As for the ... physical side of things, um ... well, at least back in Equestria that act can forge a sort of thaumaturgical bond between two individuals, just like friendship does. So if the two of you did—er, that right as Rainbow’s own powers were manifesting, the power would flow down the pathway the two of you were opening up.” She shrugged. “Or at least, that’s one possibility. Magic here has never worked like Equestrian magic, so there’s no guarantee that any of the rules that I’m used to apply. Though since friendship still seems to work that way...”

I frowned, trying to follow along with what she was saying. CHS might not offer any classes in magical theory, but I had enough familiarity with fantasy fiction to know at least some of the terms and ideas she was using. “So wait, does this mean magic is like an STD?”

Applejack and Pinkie snorted, while Twilight blushed and Sunset answered me with a flat look. Rainbow opted for a more direct approach to showing her displeasure by slugging me in the arm. “Why would you even say that, Kicker?”

Sunset sighed and shook her head. “For the record, I don’t think it’ll work that way unless our magical fields get destabilized again. Our powers seem to have settled down, so that sort of leakage shouldn’t be a problem in the future.”

Well, I’m sure they’d all be glad to know that getting magic hadn’t doomed them to a life of celibacy. Now that we’d sorted out where my magic came from it was time to move on to the next step. “So ... how do we fix this?”

Pinkie stared at me as though ... well, as if I was someone else dealing with the kind of things she did on a regular basis. “Wait, are you saying you don’t want super cool powers?!”

I thought it over, trying to figure out how I felt. “I dunno. Like you guys said, anyone other than you having magic has a bad track record. You have to admit my power looks pretty dangerous, and if I mess up and hurt someone with it...”

Sunset frowned and shook her head. “I don't think there is a way to ‘fix’ this. As far as I can tell, once someone gets magic powers they’ve got them for keeps. Even that machine Twilight built couldn’t do anything more than suppress our magic for a bit, and I don’t think anyone wants to try messing with something like that again.” She took a seat next to me. “Don’t worry though, having magic is a good thing.”

“At least you’ll have a pretty easy time not usin’ your magic if you don’t want to,” Applejack chimed in. “Weren’t so easy for the rest of us—kinda hard to go through daily life never using our muscles or pickin’ anything up. Long as you ain’t using a gun, you’re fine.”

“Yeah, but she’s gonna have a hard time avoiding that when she’s training for the military,” Rainbow countered. “She practices with her family once a week, so covering this up is gonna be pretty hard.” Her eyes widened, and she pulled me a bit closer. “Oh crap, her mom is gonna kill her when she finds out about this.”

Rainbow wasn’t wrong. Maybe if I managed to get this magic thing under control I could at least contain the damage. Then again, I’m pretty sure that even if I could pull off some incredible magical shooting thing, Mom would still find a way to disapprove.

Sunset shook her head. “We can’t assume that Cloud’s power is limited to guns just because that’s how it first showed up. Figuring out exactly what she can and can’t do is just part of the process though. We’ve all been experimenting with our magic and seeing what it can do, there’s no reason Cloud shouldn’t do the same thing. Understanding her powers is the first step to gaining control of them.”

“As long as they don’t gain control of her,” Twilight’s eyes fell as she hugged herself. “I think we’ve all had enough of that.”

Sunset frowned and shook her head. “Honestly, I really don’t think magic works that way. Magic just is. It can’t control you, it just gives you another way of being yourself. When I used the Element of Magic it didn’t ... look, everyone knows I was pretty awful back then. Magic just meant that instead of lying and manipulating people into doing what I wanted, I could outright mind control them. Gloriosa was already desperate and a little crazy about losing her camp, magic just gave her another way to try and make that happen. Without magic, she probably would’ve just tried something else.”

Twilight shrank down. “So what does that say about me?”

Applejack put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “That you ain’t perfect, just like the rest of us.”

Sunset nodded. “Celestia—my Celestia—always said that power doesn’t change who you are, it just makes you more of what you already were. It can bring out the worst in you, or the best, but how we use it is still our choice. There wasn’t some evil demon that took over my body and made me do terrible things; there was just me.” She sighed and shook her head. “Everyone makes mistakes, but I like to think I learned from mine.”

“The fact that you went from trying to enslave the school to repeatedly saving it is a pretty good sign,” I agreed. “So ... as long as I don’t go crazy and start using my magic for the wrong reasons, it won’t turn me into some sort of monster?”

“Sounds like what she was saying,” Rainbow agreed. She turned to me, then declared in an admirably perfect deadpan, “Don't turn into a demon, Cloud. I like to think I’m pretty cool and tolerant as far as girlfriends go, but if you ever do that I’d have to dump you. At least until you went back to being a human.”

“I think that’s fair.” If nothing else, there was the fact that turning into a demon would ruin my looks. Sunset, Twilight, and Gloriosa had all looked way too freaky when they transformed. I turned back to Sunset. “So, I need to start practicing and experimenting? I guess we can just stick with where you’ve been doing all the other magic experiments, right?”

Applejack nodded. “Eeyup, ain’t like having one more gal practicin’ is any extra trouble, especially when you were already here half the time Rainbow did her stuff. Jes’ make sure ya don’t make too much noise; ‘tween Cloud’s shootin’ and Pinkie’s explosions, Ah don’t want mah farm soudin’ like a warzone.”

Pinkie rolled her eyes and started digging around in her backpack. “Oh come on, Applejack. It can’t be that bad. I’ve totally got my powers totally under—” Something exploded inside her bag, sending everyone diving for cover. After several seconds Pinkie pulled a frosting-covered hand out. “Aw poopie, I blew up my cupcake.” For a second she looked like she was on the verge of tears, then she shrugged and started licking the frosting off her fingers.

Applejack cleared her throat and tried to steer the conversation back to sane territory. “Granny’s pretty easygoin’ most of the time, but she’s got her limits—not to mention what the neighbors might start thinkin’ if they hear us constantly shootin’ and blowin’ stuff up.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I’d been planning to stick with low-caliber ammunition anyway, since it was cheaper and less destructive. If my magic made guns do more damage, then a bigger gun would presumably do even more damage. Keeping noise levels down was just an added bonus.

“See? Told you everything would be fine.” Rainbow grinned and messed up my hair. “I mean, you got me and I got the gang with me. No way this isn’t gonna work out fine, I’m too awesome to let anything happen to you.”

“Thanks, Dash.” I chuckled and leaned against her, smiling softly. “Dunno what I’d do without you keeping an eye on me.”

“You’d be fine,” Rainbow assured me. “Not quite as cool without me propping you up, but you’d manage. Don’t worry about the whole magic thing, Sunset’s an expert. Comes from being born a unicorn in magical pony land.”

Sunset chuckled and shook her head. “That did give me an advantage, but Twilight and the rest of you have been catching up pretty fast.” She grinned at Rainbow. “You’re actually doing really well with your powers, even if Twilight grumbles about your methods.”

Twilight stubbornly crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not grumbling, it’s perfectly reasonable to point out that trying to perform scientific experiments inspired by comic books and movies is a terrible idea.”

“If it’s so terrible, why does it work?” Rainbow shot back.

Sunset cut them off before things could get any further. “There isn’t any scientific analysis of magic or superpowers in this world aside from what we’re coming up with ourselves, unless you start looking at speculative fiction. It’s a decent place to look for inspiration, and then we can apply science to the ideas to see if they hold up.”

Rainbow smirked at her seeming victory over Twilight, then turned her attention back to me. “So ... what now?”

Pinkie pulled a frosting-caked headband out of her bag. “Now ... we train.” Her eyes lit up. “Ooh, that means we need a good training montage song! I’ll hurry up and write one while the rest of you figure out how you wanna do the montage!” She zipped out of the barn without another word, and a couple seconds later I heard her messing around on the drums.

Rainbow sighed and shook her head. “So random...” She got up, then helped me to my feet. “But she’s not wrong—we’ve gotta get this magic thing figured out. Your folks’ll freak out a lot less if you’ve got your powers under control and can tell them how they work.”

“I hope you’re right.”






I got home after dark, so I knew I was going to be in trouble. Granted, I knew I’d be in trouble when I went out to Applejack’s farm instead of coming straight home from school. Once you hit a certain point of breaking the rules, there’s really no point in trying to do damage control. It’s not like Mom and Dad would be less pissed that I only broke most of their rules instead of all of them.

Despite that, I made a token effort to try and sneak into the house after Applejack dropped me off. I was probably doomed from the start considering how loud her farm’s old diesel pickup was, but I’m an eternal optimist.

That lasted until I got through the front door. Mom and Dad were parked on the couch, with a perfect view of the entrance. I should’ve asked Applejack to bring a ladder that could reach my bedroom window. And had the foresight to leave that window unlocked. And had a window that I could actually comfortably climb through.

Dad cleared his throat, just to make sure I knew I was utterly busted. “Cloud. Could you come to the living room please?”

I was briefly tempted to make a run for my bedroom, but at that point I would just be delaying the inevitable. Plus that would mean I’d have nowhere left to retreat to if this went as badly as I was expecting it to. I reluctantly trudged into the room, bracing myself for the oncoming storm.

Mom levelled a finger at the chair opposite the couch, which they’d apparently put in front of the TV specifically for this conversation. Always a bad sign when your parents rearrange the furniture specifically for the conversation about how pissed they are. “Sit, Cloud.”

I was halfway to the chair before I even stopped to think about it. Once my brain caught up to my body, I froze on the spot. ‘Sit.’ Like I was a dog who had to obey her commands. What, did she think that she could treat me like a slave just because she was my mother? I stayed standing exactly where I was, then pointedly folded my arms over my chest, meeting her eyes and daring her to say something about it.

Mom met my gaze, and her eyes hardened. “Did I stutter, Cloud? Was I mumbling? Did you not hear what I said? Sit. Down.”

“Nim...” Dad put a hand on her shoulder, his voice gentle and calming. However, when he shifted his attention back to me it was all parental authority. “It’s almost eleven. Sparkler and Alula have already gone to bed. Where've you been?”

I didn’t see any point in lying to them. “Over at Applejack’s farm with Rainbow.” I decided to jump straight to the magic business—maybe it would distract them enough that they’d forget about everything else. “Some ... some stuff happened that we need to talk about.”

“We have quite a bit to talk about already, young lady,” Mom announced ominously.

I decided to dive into the magic thing before Mom had a chance to build up any momentum. I’d be lucky to get a word in edgewise once she got going. “There's ... you know all the weird stuff that’s been going on around Rainbow and her friends?”

“I remember you, Rainbow, Blossom, and the incident in the sewers, yes,” Dad answered levelly. “Are you saying there was another incident of some sort?”

“Kinda.” I wasn’t sure how much my parents knew about all the weird magic around school. Mom had seen Rainbow use her super-speed once or twice, but I’d never exactly sat them down to talk about how my girlfriend had magic powers. Well, no time like the present to get into that. “Well, Rainbow and her friends got magical powers back at summer camp, and today we found out I have them too. That’s why I was over there for so long—trying to figure out what mine were and how they worked.”

My parents met that declaration with the exact level of skepticism you’d expect. Dad finally broke the silence after a long pause. “I’ll give you points for originality and audacity. I don’t think I’ve ever heard ‘I was out late because I gained magical powers’ as an excuse.”

I suppose I should’ve known this would be a hard sell, even after the whole thing in the sewers. Apparently the police reports had called the whole thing some sort of wild animal attack. Thankfully, I had proof. “Well, I managed to make a .22 plinking rifle tear a huge chunk off a tree. Sunset didn’t get that, but she recorded some test shots that were still a bit nuts.”

Dad frowned and nodded. “Alright then,, let’s see this video.”

I shot Sunset a quick text. She’d recorded everything so she could analyze the footage once she got home—presumably going over it all frame-by-frame to see if there was anything useful. At least, I assume that was what she and Twilight were doing with it. I wasn’t an expert in trying to apply science to magic.

A couple minutes later I got the video back and promptly played it for my parents. The quality was about what you’d expect from a video recorded on someone’s smartphone, but I was pretty clearly shooting a tiny little .22 and doing the sort of damage you’d expect from a fifty cal anti-materiel rifle.

Mom and Dad silently watched it all play out. Neither of them said anything for a while, then Dad played the video a couple more times. After the fourth viewing he frowned, tapping at my phone. “If this is edited, it’s good. You can even see the shell casing.” He scowled at me. “ Or were you just setting up a bunch of trick shots? You know people have gotten hurt playing around with explosives and bullets just to try and make a cool video.”

I groaned and fell into the unoccupied chair. I should’ve known they wouldn’t buy it. Not just because they never listen to me, but because the same thing happened anytime someone got some of the weird magic going around CHS on tape. When someone put the entire fight between the Rainbooms and the Sirens upon the ‘net, the comments sections was instantly flooded with people talking about how obviously fake the whole thing was, until it got buried under all the other ‘totally real magic superpowers OMG!!1!’ videos posted online.

Thankfully, I had better options than relying on grainy cell phone video. “Fine, then let’s just go out shooting and I’ll show you. We can do it right now.”

Dad frowned. “If you think we’re going out this late at night just to try and confirm some crazy story you’ve come up with...” He sighed and shook his head. “Did Rainbow come up with this idea? It sounds like the sort of plan she’d make: lie so massively and outrageously that we’ll be completely distracted and focus more on the claims of magic than what you actually did. If you think we’ll have forgotten all about how late you were out by the time we get to the range and let you fire off a few rounds...”

“Tor,” Mom cut in. “After what happened in the sewers, maybe we shouldn’t dismiss this out of hand. I know what the police report said, but what attacked Cloud was no wild animal.”

“Nim...” Dad sighed patiently. “You were in the middle of a dark tunnel, probably scared half to death worrying about Cloud, and only saw whatever it was for a couple seconds. We’ve both seen enough action to know how crazy things can get in the heat of battle. Remember when Rain Cloud got jumped by that scared civvie, and swore the guy was a hundred pounds heavier and a foot taller than he really was?”

“I know what I saw, Tor,” Mom countered. “It wasn’t a wild dog, a bear that wandered into the sewers, or whatever wound up in the official report. If Cloud says something like that is happening again, I’ll give her a chance to prove it.” Just when I was about to thank her for such unusually nice and understanding behavior, she added, “Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that she shouldn’t have been out there in the first place. If something that serious was going on you should have called us right away, not turned off your phone and left us worrying about you for hours before trying to sneak back after dark.”

“Well excuse me for not doing everything exactly the way you wanted me to while I was still in shock from finding out I could do magic.” I probably should’ve left it at that, but I couldn’t resist continuing. “Besides, do you think I wanted to talk to you after the way you treated Rainbow yesterday?”

Mom scowled at me. “What you wanted to do is beside the point. This is about what you should have done.”

I scoffed. “Story of my life. What I want doesn’t matter, I should just do what you tell me to.”

Mom gripped the armrest hard enough to leave marks. “Cloud, we have rules in this family, just because you don’t think those rules apply to you doesn’t mean—”

Dad cut her off by pointedly clearing his throat. “Cloud, Nim, let’s not get into this again. I don’t want Alula and Sparkler waking up to a shouting match between you two.”

I swallowed what I’d been planning to say and took a deep breath. Dad was right—however much I was pissed at Mom, I could at least keep the volume down. I didn’t want them getting dragged into this mess.

Mom didn’t do anything quite so dramatic, but when resumed speaking her tone was a lot quieter. “Cloud, we have these rules to keep you safe. We’re not coming up with arbitrary laws about being home at a certain hour just because our goal in life is to aggravate you—it’s because being out late at night can be dangerous for a girl your age.”

I sighed and shook my head. “I get that. It’s not like I hate having rules and think I should just be allowed to do whatever I want. It’s just ... c’mon, you have to admit you go completely overboard on them sometimes. You brought the hammer down on me and Rainbow for stuff we weren't even doing.”

“I’ll grant that I might have misread the situation.” She barely gave me a moment to process that small victory before barreling onwards. “But judging by the way the rest of our conversation went, the problem wasn’t so much that you and Rainbow have never done that sort of thing so much as I never caught you at it.”

Despite his best efforts to keep his parental poker face up, Dad groaned. “Nim...”

I didn’t see any point in trying to deny it, so I stood my ground. “Yeah, we have.” I crossed my arms and defiantly met her eyes. “Maybe you haven’t heard, but it’s what people who’re in love with each other do.”

Mom took a deep breath and slowly rubbed the sides of her head. “Cloud... That is not something you do lightly. Once you cross that line, you can’t ever go back. It’s not a decision you should make lightly.”

“Lightly?!” My teeth clenched as I bolted up out of my chair. Dad shot a sharp look my way, and I dropped the volume back down. “You think what Rainbow and I have is light? She’s been one of my best friends for years, since middle school. She threw herself at a freaky bug monster to save me. Pretty sure Dad never did that for you.”

Mom and Dad traded a look. “Not exactly that,” she conceded. “However, that isn’t what we’re discussing. I know you and Rainbow are very close, but sex isn’t ... having sex can very easily have major ramifications for your life. Even if pregnancy isn’t an issue for the two of you, I hope you had a serious discussion of the consequences before you ... indulged.”

Considering our first time had happened without a lick of planning or forethought, and before we’d even realized we were into each other ... it was probably best not to directly answer that. “We took sex ed, Mom. We know how it all works.”

“There’s a big difference between knowing how to do it and having the judgment to know whether you should,” Mom countered. “I’m sure you two are very much in love now, but you’re still children.”

Dad reluctantly jumped back into the conversation. “Your mother and I both had our high school sweethearts when we were your age, but ... well you can see how well that ultimately worked out. You’ve got a lot of life ahead of you.”

I flinched a bit. I knew Rainbow wasn’t going to end up in a fancy military academy. Even if she wanted to go to one, she didn’t have the grades for it. We weren’t really worrying about stuff like college yet, but I’d heard enough to know that long-distance relationships were iffy. That was still a long way off, though. I wasn’t gonna let worrying about the future keep me from being happy now.

That’s when something occurred to me. “So you guys dated other people in high school?” Mom and Dad nodded, and despite the way the question made my skin crawl, I went for the kill. “Did you bang them?”

“Cloud!” Dad coughed on air, his cheeks lighting up. “That’s not—you can’t—”

“What we did or didn’t do is none of your business and has no relevance to your situation, young lady,” Mom answered stiffly.

I looked between the two of them, a smirk slowly growing on my lips. It was kinda fun seeing them both so flustered and uncomfortable. Just like when Mom had put me on the spot earlier, I knew what their failure to answer meant. “You guys are so busted.”

Mom and Dad glowered at me, but didn’t seem quite sure how to get the conversation back on track after I’d knocked them onto their heels. I wasn’t about to cede the initiative now that I’d taken it. “Let’s say your right. Maybe things don’t work out with me and Rainbow. Maybe we drift apart when we go to different colleges. That’d suck, but I wouldn't regret what we had. Rainbow’s ... she’s just awesome. It’s not like this is some random fling, we’ve known each other for years. And if you’re scared she’d hurt me...” I scoffed and shook my head. “Please. She’s so loyal that she literally got magical powers because of how loyal she is. 

Mom and Dad sat there for a bit, from the gobsmacked looks on their faces trying to catch up with me. Dad managed to recover first, shaking his head. “I don't care, Cloud. However much you’re sure about Rainbow isn’t relevant right now. What is relevant is what you do and don’t do with whom under this roof.”

Well, now we were getting somewhere. “If you want us keeping our clothes on while she's visiting, we were already sticking to that.”

Dad glowered at me, and wondered if I’d pushed my flippancy a bit too far. “Yes, clothes on and your hands well away from—” He grimaced and cut himself off, evidently not willing to finish the sentence. “Your hands to yourselves,” he concluded. “Even if you’re just roughhousing. If you don’t want us drawing the wrong conclusion, don’t put yourselves in situations where you need to say ‘It’s not what it looks like.’”

“Or you could not jump to conclusions,” I grumbled under my breath. “There was nothing wrong with me and Rainbow goofing around before.”

“You weren’t dating each other before,” Mom answered levelly. “As I’m sure you’re well aware, that changes a lot of things. A year ago I wouldn’t have had the slightest objection to her coming by for a sleepover and you two sharing the bed.”

“Point.” A year ago I just would’ve told Rainbow not to snore or fart. Now ... I wouldn’t be comfortable sharing a bed with her. Camp Everfree was the only time we’d even gone all the way since officially hooking up, and things had still been kinda awesome-yet-awkward once we were done. I think if I actually tried sleeping with Rainbow, we’d spend all night awkwardly shuffling around and trying to figure out if we were doing it wrong instead of actually sleeping.

That matter aside, there was plenty of stuff that still fit inside my comfort zone. “So how much hands-to-ourselves do you mean? We’ve always messed around like that. Keeping our hands in safe zones is one thing, but it sounds like you don’t want me touching her at all. You gotta admit that’s pretty ridiculous. What next, put me in a chastity belt? Carry around a measuring tape to make sure I never get within a meter of her?”

“Don’t tempt me,” Dad muttered.

I felt my cheeks warming up, though I’m not sure if it was because I was embarrassed, or angry. Maybe a bit of both. “It’s not like Rainbow and I were planning on messing around where everyone else could hear us.”

“I should hope not,” Mom deadpanned. “The problem is that when I was your age, just because I didn’t plan on doing it didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen. Teenage hormones are a powerful thing. I really don’t want details, but I’m sure you and Rainbow have had a wrestling matches that ended ... amorously.”

Considering that was pretty much exactly how my first time with Rainbow had gone down, I was in no position to argue with her. Didn’t mean I was going to concede. “Fine. How about if Rainbow and I promise to keep things reasonable, and you promise not jump on us every time we’re within five feet of each other?” Mom met my proposal with a skeptical frown, and I rolled my eyes. “I know the stereotypes, teenagers can’t think five minutes into the future and are ruled by our raging hormones. Believe it or not, Rainbow and I can actually think ahead far enough to not want to get busted by you guys. Or worse, Sparks or Alula.” Mom would just ground me. My sisters would tease me relentlessly for the rest of my natural life.

Mom’s frown didn’t exactly fade, but after a couple seconds she eased off it a bit. “I imagine we can find an acceptable middle ground.” She shot a half-serious scowl my way. “It’s clear that if I try to impose too many rules, you’ll just sneak off and do things behind my back.” I wisely kept my mouth shut about the fact that she was almost certainly right. After a couple seconds she sighed and shook her head. “In any event, we're probably going to need to talk with Rainbow and her parents about this.”

Dad nodded, rubbing his temple. “I’ll call them first thing tomorrow. Probably should have done it sooner, but...”

“Yaaaay,” I groaned. The only thing worse than talking with my parents about Rainbow would be talking to her parents. At least Mom and Dad were semi-obligated to love me.

Mom shot a flat look my way. “Trust us, we’re not having any more fun than you are. Substantially less, in fact. Is there anything else about the two of you we should know?”

There’s a question I would’ve been just fine not answering. I’d almost forgotten about the working theory for how I’d gotten my magical powers, but if I didn’t bring it up now and Mom found out some other way, there would be hell to pay. “Alright, as long as we’re putting all our cards on the table, I might as well let you guys know that Sunset thinks I got magical powers because of Rainbow.”

Mom met that announcement with a raised eyebrow. “How so?”

“It has to do with destabilized magical fields and emotional connections combined with physical affection and...” I tried to remember exactly how she’d explained it, but I was having a hard time getting everything exactly right. With nothing better to go with, I went back to my original metaphor. “Basically, magic’s kinda like an STD, except awesome and terrifying instead of horrible and embarrassing.”

Mom and Dad groaned, and I decided to try and lighten the mood a bit. “You did warn me that sex can have unexpected consequences. I’m pretty sure nobody was expecting this.” That didn’t seem to help the mood, so I tried for something a bit desperate. “Hey, at least I’m not pregnant.”

“Cloud, stop.” Dad clutched his head in his hands. “Every time you try to cheer us up you just make it sound even worse.”

“Right, no more bad jokes.” I looked at my miserable parents, then sighed in exasperation. “Oh come on, you’ve known Rainbow for as long as I have. She’s fine. You guys always liked her before I hooked up with her. Stop freaking out over it.”

“You'll understand when you're older,” Mom answered, seemingly unaware of how that was the sort of thing parents only said when they wanted to utterly frustrate their children.

Dad nodded. “We’ll deal with that as it comes. Not like we can force you two to stop having feelings for each other.” He frowned down at the table for a bit, then grunted. “As for your abilities, I'd like to evaluate them for myself.”

“Likewise,” Mom instantly agreed.

I wasn’t surprised they wanted to see that in action. Plus it was worth having them around anyway, since they did know a lot about guns. Kinda goes along with being in the army. “That shouldn’t be a problem, Sunset wanted to run some more tests tomorrow anyway. Trying out some more guns would probably give her better results, if you don’t mind breaking out the armory for me.”

“I’m sure we could do that.” Mom paused, then amended, “Low powered weapons only. Tempting as it would be to requisition some heavy ordnance to see what you can do, you’re not touching anything like that until you have total control.”

“No arguments from me.” If there was one subject Mom and I could always agree on, it was gun safety. One of the basic rules of gun safety was to always know what was in the path of your bullets. Considering the power I’d gotten out of .22, shooting something like a .308 would probably require checking for planes.

“Glad that’s settled, then.” Dad paused, looking between Mom and me. “I think there’s only one thing left to do now. Your mother told me quite a bit about how your last conversation went. Is there anything you’d like to say, Cloud?”

Ooof. I knew what he was expecting, but I always hated doing this. I would’ve preferred to just pretend the whole thing never happened. A lot easier than dredging it all back up against just so I could apologize. Still ... after talking with Applejack, I did regret what I’d said. It’s not like I’d really meant it or anything, I’d just been pissed off. I couldn’t quite meet Mom’s eyes as I mumbled, “I ... um ... sorry for the stuff I said last time.”

For a long time Mom didn’t say anything. Finally, Dad gently nudged her, and she spoke up. “I did perhaps jump to a conclusion and react somewhat more harshly than the situation warranted. While that does not excuse your behavior, it may somewhat mitigate it.”

“So does that mean I’m not grounded forever?” I asked hopefully.

“Your father and I discussed it, and don’t believe that would be helpful or instructive under the circumstances,” Mom answered stiffly. “We both made mistakes, and while yours were more extreme I have fewer excuses for mine.” Her eyes narrowed. “Though you will be doing some extra chores to make up for some of the vocabulary you employed. Since you’re going to using the guns tomorrow, you can start by cleaning them in the morning.”

Not a full pardon then, just a reduced sentence. Still better than I’d expected, and something I could live with. Extra chores were a pain, but at least once I was done I could still go hang out with Rainbow and everyone else.

Mom was just sitting on the couch silently, and after a bit dad nudged her again. She took a deep breath, then slowly got up and came over to me. “I hope we can put this argument behind us.” She hesitated a moment longer, then hugged me.

After a moment of shock I slowly wrapped my arms around her. Mom had never been much of a hugger, so Dad must have put her up to this. Still, it was ... nice. “Love you, Mom.”

“You too, Cloud.” She held on for a bit longer, then ended the slightly awkward hug. “So ... I've seen what you can do with a .22. How do you think a .45 would work?”

I smirked. “What do you say we find out tomorrow?”

She thought if over for a moment, then nodded. I could swear I actually saw a ghost of a smile on her lips. “I’d like that.”

I grinned back. “Me too.”