> Oncoming Storm: Love and Wargames
>  by Chengar Qordath
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> There's Always Room for Jello
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Getting called into the principal’s office is always an ominous thing, especially when it’s Vice Principal Luna doing the talking. It was no secret that she and her sister liked to unleash the classic good-cop bad-cop act, and Luna was the mean one. Well, not exactly mean, but you pretty much never got called into her office unless you were in trouble. With Celestia, it was even odds whether you were going to get a maternal lecture or a pat on the back for doing a good job. Luna was the one who handed out detention and other lovely things.

The one bit of nominally good news was that I had a pretty good idea why I’d gotten called in, and I wasn’t the one who was in trouble. Though that didn’t make me feel much better.

Sure enough, when I got to Luna’s office the first I spotted was Rainbow Dash sitting opposite her desk. She was shuffling in her seat, making a conscious effort to avoid eye contact with the vice principal as her feet tapped impatiently. I couldn’t blame her for not being able to meet the suspicious, disapproving glower Luna was hitting her with. Luna and Mom must’ve swapped notes at some point, because they both had the ‘I know you’re guilty, so don’t try to pretend you’re not’ glare down pat.

I knocked on the door, and the VP broke her staredown with Rainbow to open the door for me. “Miss Kicker. Thank you for joining us so promptly.”

I cleared my throat and did my best to look like a model student who had no idea why I was there. “Vice-Principal Luna. What’s going on?”

“It’s a total misunderstanding,” Rainbow blurted.

That at least distracted the VP from me for a bit as she shot Rainbow an arch glare. “I’m not sure how our entire swimming pool being turned into jello could be the result of a misunderstanding, Miss Dash.”

Oh for the love of—I told her not to do that! Sure, turning the entire swimming pool into jello was awesome and hilarious, and there’d be plenty of time for cleanup before the swim team needed it again, but it was just too big. Something that huge and public would have to draw a response from the powers that be.

Rainbow bit her lip, plainly struggling to contain her laughter. “Well, leaving aside the fact that even Principal Celestia thought it was really funny...” She caught herself a second later. “I mean, I wasn’t there when it happened or anything, but I heard about it. I heard people are already taking pictures and putting them all over the internet. Whoever pulled that prank is gonna be famous as an awesome prankster.”

I groaned inwardly. She was barely even making a token effort to pretend she was innocent. That had always been Rainbow’s biggest weakness when it came to pranking: she wanted the credit for it. She knew this prank would go down in CHS history, and she wanted her name attached to the legend. While I could completely understood that, wanting everyone to know it was her made it rather hard to avoid getting caught and slapped with a ton of detention.

I decided to feign ignorance a bit longer. “Okay ... so why am I here?”

Rainbow jumped in before Luna could say anything. “Because you were totally with me in study hall when it happened, remember?”

Luna regarded her with a skeptical frown, then shifted her attention to me. Her arms crossed over her chest as I got the full force of Luna’s dubious glare.

“Uh...” My first instinct was to back Rainbow up. She was my girlfriend and I should have her back, even if that meant being less than entirely honest with a principal. However ... well, lying to Luna was kind of a big deal. And she’d probably know if I did, even if she couldn’t prove it. There was no way Rainbow was the first student who’d ever thought of calling in their girlfriend to provide an alibi.

And really, Rainbow had picked study hall as her alibi? Sure, if it was Twilight nobody would have blinked at the excuse, but Rainbow?! The closest she got to doing any sort of voluntary studying was when she did it to avoid lectures from Twilight or badgering from me, not to mention there would be other kids there and there was no way Luna would just take my word for it. I was pretty much the epitome of an unreliable witness. If I backed Dash up, I’d just end up in detention with her.

But maybe I could tweak things around. There was no way Luna would buy the study hall story, but perhaps if I changed it to—

“Cloud!” Rainbow hissed desperately.

Luna stared down at me for a second longer, then nodded to herself. That’s when I figured out what I’d done wrong: I’d been thinking too much about it. Innocent people usually don’t need to take a minute to hammer out their alibi and make sure there’s no obvious ways to poke holes in it. I’d already given away that Rainbow was lying just by thinking about my answer.

“I thought as much. Thank you for your honesty, Miss Kicker.” She rounded on my girlfriend, unleashing a disapproving glare that would’ve made Mom proud. “That will be three weeks of detention. Two for making a mess of the pool, and one more for lying to me.”

Rainbow sputtered indignantly. “But that’s not—Cloud! Back me up here!”

Luna held up a hand in Rainbow’s direction. “One more outburst like that, Miss Dash, and you might be adding more to your sentence.” She shifted her attention to me, fixing me with a piercing stare. “Was there anything you wished to add, Miss Kicker?”

“That’s not ... she was...” I trailed off under the pressure of Luna’s glare, my half-formed story falling apart in my mind. “Never mind.”

Rainbow glared at me like I’d just planted a dagger in her back, but she kept her mouth shut. Luna looked back and forth between the two of us, a faint frown creasing her lips. “Ah. Well, I think you can both go now. I am going to be quite busy making arrangements for the pool. Your detention begins on Monday, Miss Dash. I expect I’ll have come up with something for you by that time.” She opened the door for both of us.

Rainbow went through the door first, bumping into me on the way out. I started to follow her, but Luna put a hand on my shoulder to hold me back for a moment. “You did the right thing, Miss Kicker.” Rainbow must’ve overheard that, because after Luna said that she picked up the pace and somehow managed to look even more pissed than she’d been before.

I was tempted to say something that would burn away whatever good will I’d earned by not going along with Rainbow’s lie, but I resisted the urge. Not like yelling at Luna now would make Rainbow less mad at me.

I trudged out of the principal’s office, moving at a snail’s pace compared to Rainbow’s furious exit. I hadn’t expected to see her for a while, so I was a bit surprised when I found her waiting for me not too far down the hall. She was leaning back against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her lips. The glare she was hitting me with wasn’t quite on par with Mom or Principal Luna’s, but it looked way more hurt and angry than either of them.

I took a deep breath and tried to explain. “Dash, I...”

“You what?” she snapped, cutting me off before I could get any further. “You couldn’t have backed me up? Was that was too much to ask for?!”

I flinched. “Rainbow, do you really think she would’ve bought it?”

“She might’ve if you’d supported me!” Rainbow stomped over to me. “I always stood up for you when your mom was getting on your case. ‘Cause I’m your friend, and I knew you’d do the same for me.” She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Shows what I know.”

“Or I’d just be doing detention with you,” I shot back.

“At least then I’d know you would back me up no matter what!” Rainbow snarled. “I thought you would want to be with me through thick and thin, but it turns out that being a team only counts when it’s convenient for you!”

Okay, I was done feeling guilty. She was acting like I’d sold her out and snitched! “Oh what the hell, Dash?! Excuse me for not being able to lie fast and convincingly enough to fool Luna without any advance notice! Especially when you had such a stupid cover story!”

Rainbow groaned. “Oh please. This is just typical of you! Whenever there’s some authority figure who frowns at you, you snap to and fire off a salute, then do whatever they say!”

Oh joy, she was getting into this nonsense again. Because the same thing we’d been butting heads over since middle school was definitely worth dredging back up again. “It’s called discipline and thinking more than five seconds into the future, Rainbow. I told you that prank was too big for you to get away with.” I groaned and massaged my temples. “You’re always doing this. You do stupid things that I tell you in advance are stupid, then get mad at me when it turns out that—what a shock—it was stupid and you shouldn’t’ve done it!”

Rainbow growled and poked me in the chest. “So now I’m stupid?! What’s next? Going to rub it in my face that I need help with my homework?!”

I threw my hands up in the air and let out a sound halfway between a groan and a scream. “Oh for the love of Shadow! You know that's not what I meant!”

“I don’t know what to think of you anymore,” Rainbow snapped. “After all, I thought that maybe my girlfriend would back me up no matter what, because that's what I’d have done for you! But I guess that’s not how our relationship works!”

“I did back you up!” I shouted. “I warned you exactly why turning the entire pool into jello was way too big to get away with, and that if you did it you’d get busted! Do you really think we would’ve fooled Luna?! She probably would’ve just tripped us up by asking what we were studying, or checked to see if anyone else could verify our story. I’m sure you’re not the first person who thought about having their girlfriend cover for them.”

“That's not the same!” Rainbow bit her lip, and I saw anger starting to fade away for a moment as pain took its place. That hurt a lot more than when she was yelling at me. “We’re not the same. We’re ... we’re special. We’re supposed to be on the same page and be out for each other no matter what but ... but you weren’t.”

For some reason, seeing her like that just made me even madder at her. Like I was some horrible person who made her cry just because... 

I growled and shook my head. “I am there for you, Dash. I did the best, most supportive thing I could and told you it was a bad idea. I’m just not gonna go along with every harebrained poorly thought-out plan you cook up. Especially not the ones I tell you that you shouldn’t do in the first place!” I groaned and tried to rub away my budding headache. “Maybe if you actually listened to me when I told you things instead of just treating me like my opinion doesn’t matter, then doing whatever it is you want and expecting me to be your sidekick with a ready alibi...”

“For the love of—” Rainbow stomped down on the floor, letting out an exasperated sigh. “I did that to cheer you up, you big stupid butthead! I know you were bummed ‘cause you had to miss out on that thing with your cousins.”

Ugh. That. Missing out on the chance to shoot my family with toy guns was a bit depressing, but I was dealing. All the test work Sunset had me going through to stabilize my weird magic powers was going well, but even if they were ninety-nine percent safe, that meant they were one percent unsafe. I wasn’t going to risk accidently blasting off someone’s arm with an airsoft pellet.

However, that wasn’t the point. “I didn’t ask you to turn the pool into jello, so don’t try to say it was for me. I told you not to do it!”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “So I should just do whatever you tell me to?”

I scoffed and not-quite-murmured, “You’d get in a lot less trouble if you did...”

“I heard that!” Rainbow snapped.

“You were supposed to!” I threw right back at her.

Rainbow scowled and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’d also get in lot less trouble with your mom if you hadn’t started dating me.” She clenched her teeth and glared at me. “That make us a bad thing too?”

“That’s not what I said!” I growled and paced around, trying to blow off a little steam. It wasn’t working, so instead I spoke my mind. “At this point you’re just making stuff up so you’ll have more things to yell at me about!”

“Oh, please!” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “You think I just sit around coming up with evil schemes to give me an excuse to start a fight with you?! I just wanted a little support for something I thought would be fun for us to do together!”

“And I told you it was—” I cut myself off with a frustrated growl before I said something I’d end up regretting later. “You know what, forget it. I’m sick of going in circles with you. I'll see you around, Dash.”

“Fine!” She snapped. “I’m sick you being such a ... stupid ... head ... jerk ... dumb ... butt ... face ... GRAH!” She turned her back on me, storming off.

“Yeah, well, same to you!” I stomped off in the opposite direction.






After the fight with my butthead girlfriend, I went driving for a while. I didn’t really have any destination in mind, I just wanted to blow off a little steam before I went home. I was way too mad to want to be around anyone I cared about after putting up with Rainbow being so ... Rainbow. It’s not like it was the first time we’d fought, but this was one of the nastiest ones we’d had, and the first big one since we’d become more than just friends.

Gyah! Why did she have to be such a stupid, stubborn, mule-headed...

By the time I got home, I was almost late for dinner. Or maybe I should upgrade that to actually late, judging by the smell coming from the kitchen. I shut the door behind me, and was a bit surprised by how loud it was. I hadn’t exactly been trying to sneak in, but I hadn’t meant to shut it quite so ... forcefully.

Mom being Mom, it took her all of five seconds after I came home to find something to get on my case about. She didn’t even wait to see me, just called out from the kitchen. “Don’t slam the door, Cloud.”

“I didn’t,” I grumbled under my breath. Sure, maybe the door had closed a little louder and harder than I’d planned, but that wasn’t my fault.

Dad was helping Mom out in the kitchen, but the others were already waiting for me at the dinner table. Alula seemed to be more interested in the food than me, but Sparks just couldn’t resist the chance to be her usual annoyingly bratty self. “Good morning. You’re just in time for breakfast.”

I grunted and flopped into my chair, doing my best to ignore her. Even at her most irritating, Sparks had nothing on a certain butthead with multi-colored hair. A minute later Mom and Dad brought in dinner. Meatloaf. Yay.

Once all the food was in place and my sisters started digging in, Mom turned her full attention to me. “And where have you been all evening?”

“Out.”

Shock of all shocks, that wasn’t enough for her. “Out where?”

I really wasn’t in the mood to put up with this. Not after the day I’d had. “Out. You know, as in not here.”

Mom’s eyes darkened, and I caught the hint of a warning growl that usually came before I got grounded or assigned extra chores. “Cloud...”

I ignored her, carving off a big chunk of meat before loading my plate down with mashed potatoes and vegetables. After putting up with Rainbow being a complete pain, the last thing I wanted was another lecture from Mom.

From the way she was frowning at me, I had a feeling I was going to get a talking-to whether I wanted it or not. However, Dad put a hand on her shoulder and whispered something to her, which was evidently enough to make her drop it. He then pointedly changed the subject. “So how was your day, Sparkler?”

Sparks shrugged. “Not too bad. Did the whole school thing. Got that history test back, and it was an A.” She gave that news just enough time to sink in before making her move. “Anyway, Star said she’s got an airsoft thing next month that she can take a Plus One to—if s’cool with you...” She shot a hopeful look Mom and Dad’s way.

Mom let out one of her noncommittal thinking grunts. “That should be alright, so long as you keep bringing home A’s on your tests and it doesn’t run up against anything on the schedule. But make sure to wear proper safety equipment while using those things.”

“We’ve had more than enough scares lately,” Dad agreed, his eyes flicking over to me. I flexed my right hand at the memory of the ... incident with the nerf gun. Thankfully, everything had healed up quick and easy, and about all the trouble I had now was a few exercises I was supposed to keep doing to make sure I kept full range of motion. Knowing I hadn’t permanently messed up my hand was definitely a relief.

Sparkler rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, Star’s been through all the safety stuff with me, and she’s got some spare gear I can borrow—facemask, goggles, even a tactical vest. S’a step up from that Nerf gun fight we had last month, and we should be fine as long as Cloud stays far away.”

While I rolled my eyes at Sparks, Alula wasted no time jumping in. “So if Cloud’s not allowed, can I come? That sounds cool.”

Sparkler shrugged. “I suppose Team Kicker is down a player for all things toy gun related until Cloud’s stuff gets worked out. I’d have to ask Star, but I bet she’d be cool with it.”

“Doesn’t matter if she is,” Mom grunted out. “Alula’s still a bit young for airsoft guns.”

“Awww!” Alula unleashed her best pouting frown. “But Mooom! I’ll be careful!”

“That’s what everyone said before the Nerf fight last month.” Mom’s eyes flicked over to me, leaving the rest unsaid. “You can have plenty of fun with that nice Nerf gun we got you a few weeks ago.”

Alula scowled and crossed her arms. “But I don’t wanna play with that stupid little kid toy, I wanna play with Sparky and Star!”

Mom and Dad traded a look, and he took over. “Maybe next time, ‘Lula. Most of the safety gear they have probably wouldn’t be the right size for you anyway. Tell you what, next time we have a free weekend we can go shopping and look around.”

That managed to make a tiny dent in Alula’s grumpiness, but only a little bit. Though speaking of weekends and my plans for them... “You’re still good to take me and Sparks to the wargaming tournament this weekend, right?”

Mom cut in before Dad could answer. “I thought part of why we bought you a car was so you wouldn’t have to keep asking us for rides to spend time with your friends? And not so you would stay out late at night?”

“S’a matter of storage space,” Sparks answered for me. “Cloud’s car is cool and all, but it’s a compact. Between Cloud’s army of World War I wannabes, my army of stripper elves, Rainbow’s Legion of Awesome, and all the padding to keep ‘em safe...” She grinned at Dad, then added, “Plus he likes watching.”

Dad shrugged. “It’s fun. And really, wargaming is good practice for the girls.” He grinned. “Not to mention I heard Lieutenant Armor was bringing an army to the tournament, and the prospect of seeing him lose to Cloud or Sparkler...”

While Dad was chuckling at the idea of me or Sparks beat an actual soldier at a wargame, I had something much bigger on my mind. Dad was giving Rainbow a ride along with me and Sparks. Back when we’d first set up the whole wargaming tournament thing, that hadn’t been a big deal at all. Now ... well, I guess me and Miss Stupid Butthead would have to figure that out. Not like I wanted to kick her out or anything just because we’d had a fight but ... ugh. Why did she have to be such a...

Mom stared at me with a raised eyebrow. “Something wrong with your meal, Cloud? Meatloaf usually doesn’t require that much stabbing.”

“It’s fine.” The tiny part of my brain that wasn’t preoccupied with Rainbow noticed that my angry grunt of an answer sounded far too much like Mom.

Sparkler smirked and nudged our mutual little sister. “Maybe we can work together to hunt Cloud down next time we’re allowed to play as a family.” With a particularly evil glint in her eye, she added, “”Course, that’ll be easy—we just have to figure out where Rainbow is. Cloud’ll probably be too busy staring at her to actually focus on the match, assuming they don’t just sneak off to find somewhere to suck face.”

“Eeeew!” Alula whined. “That’s gross.”

Sparkler snickered. “Speaking of sucking face with Rainbow, who wants to take bets that’s why she was late in the first place?”

Willingness to tolerate stupid bratty little sisters fading ... fading ... gone. My fist slammed down on the table hard enough to rattle the plates and make everyone jump. “Oh shut up!”

Painful silence descended over the table for several seconds, until Mom broke it. “Sparkler, stop teasing your sister. Cloud, we don't tell family to shut up.”

Sparkler shuffled in her seat, staring guiltily down at her food. “I was just kidding,” she mumbled. “Didn’t have to bite my head off...”

For a dark moment I was almost tempted to point out that Sparkler wasn’t really family, but Sparks already looked way too miserable for me to keep hitting her while she was down. And as soon as I calmed down enough to not go after Sparks again, I also realized I probably needed to go cool down before I said something horrible I’d regret later. “Forget it. I’ve got homework.” I got up and headed for my room, ignoring Dad when he called out after me.

Once I was all by myself, I flopped down on my bed and groaned. Contrary to what I’d just told everyone else, I didn’t have any homework to worry about. Well, nothing serious or urgent—what I had could wait until after I decided whether I wanted to call Rainbow to scream at her, or just apologize and try to fix everything. Maybe both at the same time.

Before I could figure it out, someone knocked on my door. Clearly they hadn’t gotten the message at dinner. “Go away.”

“No,” Mom’s voice answered. “We’re coming in.”

I thought about trying to lock them out, but knowing Mom she’d just kick the door down or pick the lock. Soon enough both my parents were in my room, frowning down at me. Dad broke the ice. “Mind telling us what that was all about?”

Ugh. Parents could be so clueless sometimes. “Nothing.” I rolled over in bed, turning my back to them. You’d think they would’ve realized that the whole reason I came up here because I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Mom pointedly closed the door behind her, locking it. “You just made a scene in the middle of dinner. That’s a lot more than nothing.”

Dad nodded along. “Exactly. Now what’s going on?” He frowned and rubbed his chin. “If I had to guess ... considering it was Sparkler teasing you about Rainbow that seemed to set you off, was she right about you two?” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “It’s ... I can’t say I’m wild about you sneaking off with her for a few hours of private time, but all things considered it’s one of the least worrying things you could be doing.”

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Mom shook her head, more to Dad than me. “I think I know what this is. You had a fight with her, didn’t you?”

“Oh.” Dad cleared his throat, trading a look with Mom. “Well ... I can’t say this is exactly the same, but your Mother and I have had a few disagreements in the past. If you’d just tell us what happened, I’m sure there’s something we could do to help.”

I groaned and buried my head in my pillow. “It’s not the same. I mean, you two are married and stuff. Not to mention, you know ... the whole gay thing.”

“Do you really think that makes a difference?” Dad asked. “Relationships still follow most of the same rules regardless of that. I’m sure that if Wind were here she’d tell you that gender doesn’t make any difference when it comes to the importance of communicating clearly and respecting each other. And if you’re really that worried about it ... well, your mother had her own girlfriend issues before we met.”

“Wait—what?!” I tried to wrap my head around what he’d just said. “Mom?!”

Mom coughed and did one the last things I’d ever expected: she seemed to be looking at something over my shoulder, and her feet shifted a bit. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she might actually be a little bit ... embarrassed. “Your dad wasn’t the first person I dated. We didn’t even meet until during college.”

I knew that much, the big thing was... “And you—um ... with other girls?”

“Yes.” She hastened to add, “Of course, that was a long time ago. I’ve been happily married to your father for twenty years now.”

“Huh.” That was ... huh. Out of all the things I ever could’ve learned about Mom, finding out that she was bi was pretty much the last thing I’d ever expected. It’s just ... well, by definition she and Dad had been a thing since before I was born. It was weird enough thinking about her being with someone else. Finding out that she wasn’t even straight was...

Dad cleared his throat. “The point being, there’s nothing you could say that we wouldn’t understand. We’ve had relationship issues, we’ve had girlfriends.” He grinned and added, “We were even teenagers, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth and everyone still used stone tools.”

Well ... between finding out about Mom and the fact that they clearly weren’t going to let this drop until I spilled the beans, I might as well see what they could do. “Uh. Right. Um. Well...” I tried to think of the best way to sum it all up. “Rainbow’s a butthead.”

Mom snorted something that almost sounded like a laugh. “So what did she do?”

I sighed and sat up to make this a proper conversation. “She pulled a prank today. I told her it was stupid, she’d be caught, and she shouldn’t do it. When she did it anyway and got caught, she asked me to lie to cover for her. I ... well, she’s got three weeks of detention now, and she’s blaming me for it.”

Mom frowned at me, then nodded to herself. “Ah, that would explain it. Blaming you is hardly fair, though. If she hadn’t done something she shouldn’t have been doing in the first place, then she wouldn’t be in detention.”

“Exactly,”  Dad agreed. “If you don’t want to get punished for breaking the rules, don’t break them. As it stands, I think we’ll have to have a word about asking you to lie for her. You certainly shouldn’t feel guilty for doing the right thing.”

“Yeah, but she's mad at me ‘cause I didn’t back her up.” I folded my arms over my stomach. “It’s ... you know, we’ve always had each other’s backs, even back when we were just best friends. And ... well, it’s not like I’ve never...” I bit my lip. “Am I a bad girlfriend?”

“Hardly,” Dad answered. “Supporting your partner is an important part of any relationship, but there are lines you shouldn’t cross. She should know better than to ask you to compromise your own principles.”

“I guess, but...” I tried to think of the right way to put it. “It’s just—I mean, Rainbow is kinda huge on the loyalty thing. If things were the other way around, she would’ve gone along with whatever I said without a moment’s hesitation.” My eyes flicked over to Mom. “You always said your special forces guys needed to know they’d be a team where they can count on each other in a pinch. And ... well, Rainbow and I used to be that way. But now...”

“I would never ask your father or anyone on my team to lie to a superior officer or the authorities for me,” Mom countered. “Loyalty isn’t just a matter of supporting her unconditionally. I think you were doing exactly what a loyal partner should: you were telling her she was making a mistake and trying to keep her from getting into trouble.” She held up a hand to forestall any response from me. “That said, she was counting on your support, and you didn’t offer it. Just because you think she was being foolish doesn’t invalidate her feelings of betrayal.”

“But...” I groaned and buried my face in my hands. “So we agree that I shouldn’t have been obligated to back her up, but it’s also still totally fair for her to act like I stabbed her in the back by not supporting her?”

“Welcome to the world of relationships,” Dad murmured. “Sometimes there’s no way to win, just varying levels of bad options. What did she even do?”

“She turned the swimming pool into jello.”

Dad tried to keep a straight face, he really did. However, he wasn’t made of stone. A weak, strangled chuckle escaped, earning him one of Mom’s patented disapproving glowers. He shrugged helplessly. “Oh come on, Nim. You have to admit that’s funny.”

Mom thought about it for a second, then grunted. I couldn’t tell for sure if she was agreeing with Dad or just not arguing the point. She has a lot of different grunts.

“I never said it wasn’t cool, just that she couldn’t get away with it.” I made a noise that was something halfway between a groan and a chuckle. “I think she wanted everyone to know she did it. She barely even bothered with a cover story—I mean, she said we were in study hall together.”

Dad snorted softly, and even Mom smiled just a tiny bit. 

“Yeah. It’s like she tried to come up with the most goody-two-shoes thing she could think of, without bothering to think about whether anyone would believe it.” I sighed and shook my head.  “Even if I’d been fully on board with protecting her, there was no way I could make that sound good. This is why you’re supposed to work out the alibi before you get called in: if she’d asked me to set something up, I would’ve come up with something way more plausible.”

“You sound far too experienced at this for my liking,” Dad said with a frown.

“Purely hypothetical,” I assured him, even though that wasn’t strictly one hundred percent true.  “Just saying, there were much better ways I could’ve covered for her. Like saying that we snuck off to make out somewhere. Way more believable. Maybe even try Rainbow’s story at first, then ‘confess’ to what we were really doing when Luna turned up the pressure.”

Mom and Dad traded a look, then fixed me with a joint stare. Both of them going full parental mode on me made it hard not to start sweating. “I said it was purely hypothetical. You know, a thought exercise. As in, I’ve never actually done that. Promise.”

Dad sighed and started massaging his forehead. “I think you’ve put far too much thought into how to get away with doing things you shouldn’t.”

“She is a teenager,” Mom murmured just loud enough for me to catch.

Dad slowly nodded along. “In any case, I can’t say I’m wild about the idea that you’re mad at Rainbow because she won’t go along with your ideas about how to more efficiently break the school rules while maintaining plausible deniability.”

Ugh, I’d said it was hypothetical. Why were they still bugging me about this? I groaned and started rubbing my forehead. “It’s not that, it’s just ... it’s like she doesn’t even listen to me sometimes. She just goes off and does whatever she wants, then expects me to have her back when it goes wrong. If I tell her something she doesn’t want to hear, like that her prank idea is too risky and she’s gonna get caught, she just ignores me.”

“So it’s a matter of communication?” Dad asked. “Okay, that makes sense. I know Wind always says that’s one of the number one problems she sees with couples. If you don’t feel like Rainbow values your opinion, that’s definitely a problem the two of you need to discuss.”

Mom nodded along. “There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to talk to someone and not being listened to. I have quite a bit of experience with that.”

Dad shot a look her way. “Just to be clear, when you say that you’re talking about the new soldiers in your unit, right? That’s not some sort of subtle warning sign that I need to listen to you more?”

Mom snorted. “Tor, when I want to warn you that you’re messing up it won’t be subtle.”

“Oh.” Dad chuckled nervously. “Well ... at least I’ll know.”

Mom put her attention back on me. “Speaking of subtlety, unless I miss my guess it would be wasted on Rainbow. If you want to get through to her, you have to put your foot down and tell her how things are. I’m not saying you should do that every time you two have a difference of opinion, but when it really matters you need to stand your ground and make her hear you. It’s the only way to address the problem.”

Dad nodded along. “It’s what’s worked for me and Nim.”

“Okay then.” I still wasn’t sure what worked for them would work for me and Dash, but it was worth a shot. “So I just need to sit her down and make sure she knows how I feel?”

“Essentially,” Dad agreed. “Though perhaps you should give things some time to cool off first. Rainbow’s a very passionate young lady, and you...” He chuckled softly. “Well, you and your mother have a lot in common.”

Mom turned to him with a raised eyebrow. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean, dear?”

“Yeah, Dad.” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. “What does that mean?”

Dad swallowed, his eyes darting between the two of us, then he quickly pulled us into a hug. “It means that you’re both very beautiful women whom I love very, very much.”

“Good answer,” Mom murmured.

“Nice save,” I agreed.

Dad cleared his throat. “Moving on, I’m sure you and Rainbow can work things out. This isn’t the first time you two have butted heads and it probably won’t be the last, but you’ve always made up once you were done being mad at each other.”

“I guess, yeah.” I sighed and scowled down at the pillow. “Probably needs to wait until we can manage a better apology than ‘I’m sorry you’re such a stupid butthead jerk.’”

“I don’t think they make a card for that,” Dad agreed. “In the meantime, you can get some practice by apologizing to your sisters.”

“Right.” I grimaced at the reminder of exactly what had sparked the whole conversation. In hindsight, I’d kind of blown up at Sparkler when she hadn’t really done anything to deserve it. “Sorry about messing up dinner.”

“It’s not the end of the world.” Dad gave me a quick hug. “You made a mistake, and now you’re going to fix it. Happens to all of us.”

“Just don’t do it again.” Mom grumbled. “If you’ve got a problem, talk with us about it. Don’t shut us out, and definitely don’t take it out on your family.”

“Yes ma'am,” I replied, almost automatically.

Mom reached over to pat my shoulder. “Feeling a bit better now?”

“Yeah. thanks for the talk. It helped.” If nothing else, just getting it all off my chest was a relief. I’d kind of just ... bottled it all up inside, until I’d exploded. I’m sure Aunt Wind would have a lot to say about how unhealthy that was. And speaking of not talking to loved ones... “Never knew you were bi, Mom. That’s ... well, makes me feel slightly less weird about being gay.”

Mom sighed and shot a look Dad’s way. “It’s ... not something that’s been particularly relevant for many years, but if it helps you to know that, I’m glad. Your father and I don’t care who it is you like, as long as you’re happy and whoever you’re dating treats you well and is respectable.”

“‘Respectable’?” I couldn’t help grinning at them. “I’ve heard Dash called a lot of things, but I never figured I’d hear that.”

Dad shrugged. “Perhaps that’s not the best word for her, but on the grand scale of high school romantic partners, she doesn’t encourage you to drink, smoke, do drugs, or neglect your schoolwork. The worst she’s done as far as getting you into trouble at school is try to drag you into a few mostly harmless and legitimately funny pranks.” He grimaced a bit as he added, “And ... well, I would prefer if you two weren’t quite as eager to move things along physically, but at least we don’t need to worry about diseases or pregnancy.”

“The secret perks to raising a lesbian,” I agreed with a grin.

“Quite,” Mom murmured dryly. “More importantly, despite a few minor imperfections Rainbow is a very devoted young lady who clearly adores you.” With a hint of a grin, she added, “And whenever I clean my guns in front of her, she strikes a nice balance between respect and barely concealed terror.”

I groaned and buried my face in my hands “Moooom! Are you seriously doing that?!”

“Well, it is tradition.”
> Uneasy Interludes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next few days at school were ... weird. Rainbow and I still had classes together and stuff, but it was hard to pretend everything was going normally when it was all so ... abnormal.

I stole another glance at her out of the corner of my eye, but this time I caught her doing the exact same thing. She hastily looked away, trying to pretend she’d been staring out the window instead of looking at me. I promptly returned my attention to English class, or at least pretended to do so while privately stewing about my girlfriend.

Ugh. This stupid awkward avoiding each other thing had been going on for too long. We needed to talk things out, and the only thing stopping us was our own nervousness over making the first move. Which was just silly, because one thing me and Rainbow definitely had in common was that neither of us were cowards.

Once class was over I tracked her down in the hallway. She was in the middle of talking with Twilight and Fluttershy, but when they spotted me heading their way they both carefully slipped away, leaving us alone for our private chat. I cleared my throat, my feet shuffling as I stood in front of her. Deciding that it was past time to finally go up and talk to her was a lot easier than actually making it happen. For lack of any better ideas I opened with, “Hey.”

Rainbow opened her mouth a few times and had one or two false starts before finally just following my lead. “Hey.”

Well. I guess this was technically progress. At least we were actually talking to each other now, even if it was just monosyllables. However, I wasn’t going to give up that easily. “Um ... so ... we got lunch now. Did you wanna ... um ... you hanging with the rest of your pals, or have you got a bit?”

Rainbow grimaced. “I, uh .... kinda wanted to trade desserts with Pinkie Pie today. And maybe ask Twilight for some help with my homework.”

Oh. Guess I should’ve seen that coming. That was the kind of stuff she might’ve asked me about if things were better, but they weren’t. “Okay, I’ll just...”

I started to turn away, but she grabbed my arm before I could leave. “I wasn’t ... um, I’ve got plenty of time to do that after we ... you know.” She sighed and rubbed the back of her head. “So ... look, I...” She stood there, one hand gesturing vaguely as she tried to find the right words.

“Yeah?” I asked, secretly hoping she’d make the first move and spare me from having to seize the initiative. 

“Yeah.” She stood there for several seconds, then coughed. “So I was ... that is ... you, uh...” She grimaced, her head dropping as she couldn’t quite bring herself to look me in the eye. “So, uh, the tournament’s tomorrow, right? That should be awesome. Gonna have to touch up the paint jobs on everyone tonight, make sure they all look cool enough to show them off to the rest of the world. You know how it is.”

“Yeah, gonna be doing the same.” Just because my army was all about digging trenches in the mud didn’t mean my miniatures should look ugly. Well, it actually kind of did, but it needed to be an artistic kind of ugly. Sort of like a movie actor who had a few carefully placed bits of dirt on his face to show him looking appropriately roughed up without actually damaging his perfect photogenic looks.

I cleared my throat. “Um ... you’re still riding with us, right?”

Rainbow bit her lip, then shrugged. “Sure, I guess. I mean, I didn’t ask anyone else for a ride. And ... you know, it’s ... even if things’re...”

I knew exactly what she was trying to get to, even if the words weren’t quite coming out. Since I hadn’t been doing great with talking either, I decided to try something a bit more direct. Instead of talking I went up and wrapped her in the biggest, tightest hug I could. She jumped a little bit, probably just from surprise at the sudden hug, because a moment later she returned with enough force to make Pinkie Pie proud.

We held each other for a long time, letting that say everything we hadn’t managed to put into words. And really, the words probably wouldn’t have done as good a job of saying it anyway. I probably would’ve kept it up for a while if not for the fact that we were still in school. Once we broke the hug, I finally managed to get the other half of what I needed to say. “M’still mad at you, butthead.”

“Who’re you calling a butthead?” Rainbow shot back, poking my belly. “Pony-Twilight might be the Princess of Friendship, but you’re clearly the Queen of Buttheads.”

“If I’m your queen, then I expect you to obey my commands from now on,” I shot back. “And ... well, still love you. Even if you are a butthead.”

“Sap.” She leaned in a bit closer and murmured. “And I still ... you know, you too. Even if you are a flake.”

“Bah.” I gave her a half-hearted punch in the shoulder for that. For a moment I was tempted to push a bit more on the big relationship stuff, but ... nah. There’d be time to do that later. Besides, we’d already made pretty big progress just by getting to the point of talking to each other again. I didn’t want to jump straight into what could be another heated discussion.

I stuck to a much safer topic. “So what’s your plan for the tournament anyway? Still gonna run your weird hodgepodge army of elves, dwarves, trolls, and pirates?”

“Their name is the Legion of Awesome.” Rainbow grinned, her chest puffing up with pride. “And duh I’m gonna use them. I mean, they’re only the best army ever. My army is led by a dwarf whose special power is to make explosions bigger and more devastating.” She grinned like a kid in a candy store. “Better. Explosions. How could I not use him?”

I could think of several reasons, mostly the fact that my army had huge defense bonuses against explosions whenever they were dug into their trenches and foxholes. But Rainbow cared far more about making her army awesome than about making sure it was mechanically viable within the game’s current meta. Especially considering... “So where do the Elves and Pirates fit in?”

“The pirates are bringing all the guns off their ships, including the big huge one that it takes a dozen guys to move,” Rainbow explained as though it was obvious. “So lots of explosions. And you forgot the most important part about the Elves. They’re not just Elves, they’re ninja Elves from the frozen northlands. That makes them substantially cooler.”

“Well of course they’re cool,” I shot back with a smirk. “You just said they were from arctic glacier territory. I just hope they don’t give the rest of your army the cold shoulder. I’m sure once you get past the frosty exterior, they’re very ice.”

Rainbow groaned and rolled her eyes. “Lucky I don’t have anything to throw at you... I mean, seriously, Cloud. Puns? I thought you had better taste than that. I blame Sparkler, she’s a bad influence. You never did this before your parents adopted her.”

While I was normally all for blaming my little sister for ... well, everything, this time it wasn’t her fault. “How can I resist when you make it that easy?”

Rainbow snorted and slugged me in the shoulder. “I’ll show you easy.” I started to open my mouth, but she figured out what was coming in time to slam a finger over it. “Don’t say it. Just ... don’t.”

I rolled my eyes and gently removed her finger. “If you don’t want to be teased, don’t hand me golden opportunities on a silver platter”

“Or you could just not,” Rainbow grumbled good-naturedly. “I thought you learned all about discipline and self-control and stuff with all your army brat training.” She smirked and poked me again. “I mean, look at your mom. She’s got tons of it, but it doesn’t look like any of it passed on to you.” I shot an unamused glower at her, and she flinched. “You definitely inherited her pissed-off glare though. It’s like the Stare, except it’s slightly less painful since it’s not coming from someone as nice as Fluttershy, but scarier since it’s coming from a special forces badass.”

“That so?” I tried to keep the glare going, but I couldn’t come close to matching Mom in that field. Nobody else come close to matching her at making you feel like a completely disappointing failure with just a single look.

“Yeah.” Rainbow shivered melodramatically enough to earn Rarity’s approval. “I swear, if you turn into some scarily badass but eternally disapproving mom whenever we get around to the whole kids thing...” She trailed off, her cheeks lighting up. “Um ... uh—anyway! You forgot about about the trolls in my army. Who are awesome. I mean, one guy screams at his troops so loud they get superpowers, and the other goes into battle with a bunch of bears.” She sighed and shook her head. “Wish I could’ve fit in the guy with a giant monster alligator too, but I needed the heavy infantry. And ... um, whatever the military term is for trained battle bears. I’m sure the army has an acronym for them, right? You guys have one for everything.”

“Only things that actually exist,” I countered. “I don’t think any real armies have actually used squads of trained bears as a major unit.”

“See, this is why your ‘realistic’ army is so boring compared to mine.” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “It’s all boring and normal and doesn’t do anything cool or interesting. I mean, the only special ability your guys have is that they can dig holes in the ground to hide in.”

“It’s called using terrain to your advantage and taking cover,” I groused. “The whole point of the army is to seize objectives, then fortify them and dare the enemy to come at me. That and having officers and a commander who provide them with nice buff bubbles.”

Rainbow snorted and rolled her eyes. “Still playing it safe. You’re so busy fortifying and worrying about defense that you don’t actually get anything done.”

“The best offense is a good defense,” I countered. “The longer I keep my guys alive and in the game, the more damage they’ll do.”

“No, the best offense is a good offense,” Rainbow insisted. “Doesn’t matter how safe your guys are if they just sit around in their holes not doing anything cool. The whole point of having an army is to go beat up the other guy and be awesome doing it.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “No, the point of having an army is to win. I mean, don’t get me wrong, your army looks cool and has a ton of crazy yet awesome stuff in it, but it’s all over the place. There’s no plan or tactical cohesion to it. It’s just ... it’s like you looked through the unit list and picked stuff purely on the basis of how awesome it sounded without ever thinking about whether it would actually work together.”

Actually, considering I was the one who’d initially gotten her into the hobby in the first place, I knew for a fact that was exactly how she’d started out. When I’d first showed her the rulebook she’d gone straight for the crazy over-the-top stuff that was just so ... Rainbow.

Of course, she didn’t see it that way. “Sheesh, Kicker, not everything is a super-complex plan. Sometimes you’re almost as bad as Twilight when it comes to all this planning ahead and coming up with checklists and stuff. You gotta be bold, seize the initiative, and improvise. It’s like that one book you loaned me says, no plan survives contact with the enemy.”

“Why am I not surprised you remember that one but not ‘If you fail to plan, then you’re planning to fail’?” I groused.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Because there’s more than one valid opinion.” She poked me again, a little bit harder than last time. “You’re always so ... I dunno if it’s stubbornness, or if you’re just so sure that you’re right that you automatically assume anyone who disagrees with you is just too dumb to get it. Sure, I get it, you like your guys who sit in their safe little bubble and dig holes to protect themselves. But c’mon, you include stuff like that guy who dual wields lightning spears, or the guy in custom-made steam-powered armor. That sounds way cooler than another set of guys who just around being safe all day.”

“You make it sound like I don’t do anything but sit around playing it safe all day,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest. “It’s not like I don’t have any fun or do anything a bit risky, but there's a difference between being bold and being reckless.”

“The point is to have fun!” she snapped. “Sometimes you’re just ... it’s like you think I shouldn’t do anything that’s not part of your plan for what I should do, even if I think your plan’s boring and I just wanna do something silly and awesome. Of course bear infantry or turning the pool into jello is crazy! That’s the entire point of it!”

“And it doesn’t matter if I think it’s a bad idea and you shouldn’t do it?!” I shot back. “When I tell you that your army has poor synergy, it’s not part of some dastardly scheme to steal all the fun out of your life! I’m just trying to help you!”

The two of us glared at each other for several seconds, neither of us willing to back down. Rainbow finally broke the stand-off, sighing and shaking her head. “You are such a stubborn dope sometimes.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Rainbow smirked at me. “You know you just admitted you’re a dope, right?”

“Shut up.” A second after I said it I regretted it, wondering if I’d come out sounding too harsh. Sure, I was annoyed at Rainbow for being so ... herself, but I didn’t ... ugh. 

Stupid Rainbow. I tried to steer the conversation back into safer-ish territory. “Though ... um, speaking of the whole wargame tournament thing, stopped by the shop on the way here, took a look at the brackets. If we both win all our early matches, we go up against each other in the quarter finals.”

Rainbow grinned, a competitive gleam in her eye. “Oh yeah? Don’t expect me to go easy on you. After all, gotta show you why your whole boring playing it safe thing is gonna blow up in your face when you go up against the Legion of Awesome.”

I smirked, starting to get into the spirit of things. “I think I can handle your legion of mismatch. You wanna talk about boring plans and thinking too much? My army will shoot yours to bits before they get within a mile of them. You’ll be wiped out before you can even figure out what the most awesome final words would be.”

“I don’t need a plan, being awesome comes naturally!” Dash shot back.

“So does losing.”

“Not to me.” Rainbow grinned and nodded towards the CHS trophy case, which had gained quite a few new items thanks to her. “Besides, I bet you’ll be so nervous about ruffling some feathers you’ll get rolled over before you even reach me.”

Oh, it was on now. “I think I’m gonna enjoy kicking your butt far more than a proper girlfriend should.”

“Only way that’s happening is in your dreams,” Dash shot back. “If you want to focus on  something a bit more realistic, feel free to kiss it.”

“Bah.” I playfully swatted at her, which Rainbow easily dodged. “One of these days, Dash...”

Her teasing, competitive grin widened. “Yeah, one of these days you might start to get fast enough to almost keep up with me. But only when I’m not using my magic. Or really even trying all that hard.”

“Oh no, none of that,” I bumped my hip against hers. “It’s no fun to beat you if you’re not actually trying. Takes all the achievement out of it. I’d rather get my butt kicked a dozen times than have you hand me a pity win. Not that I’d need more than once chance to beat you.”

Rainbow snorted and punched my shoulder. “You’re a nutcase. Thinking you could beat me, that’s textbook delusions of grandeur.”

No way I was going to let her get away with that. “We’ll see how that works out this weekend. And then, once you lie in the ashes of defeat, seeing that I have brought all that you built to ruin ... then you can admit that I’m right.” I smirked and tapped her nose.

Rainbow scoffed and swatted away my hand. “Never happen in a million years. By the time we’re done, you’re gonna be apologizing to me after my awesomeness makes mincemeat out of your wussy, playing it safe plan.”

“You’re crazy if you think that’ll happen.” I caught her eye, and our competitive grins shifted a bit. I started to lean in towards her, and her lips pursed in response.

Then someone loudly cleared their throat behind us. We both quickly jumped apart, shuffling awkwardly as Vice-Principal Luna glowered at us. “No PDAs in the hallway, you two. Move along.”

Damn. Luna-blocked.






After school, it was off to the Apple farm for a bit more training. There was still a part of me that wondered just how crazy my life had become when magical pistol training was now a normal part of my daily routine.

Still, considering the fact that getting mad while holding a nerf gun left me with a burned hand and Applejack with bruised ribs she was still sore at me over, it was only prudent to get my magic under control. We were pretty sure I’d gotten things under control enough to avoid any more accidental outbursts, but pretty sure wasn’t good enough.

Besides, it gave me an excuse to play around and see exactly what else I could do. Even if we’d kind of shifted gears from just trying random things to testing whether I could produce consistent results. Much like with the marksman training Mom and Dad had pushed me through years ago and still kept up semi-often, it wasn’t good enough to hit the target once. I had to do it every single time. 

Sunset was watching me this time, leaning back against the fence at a safe distance. We’d also attracted an audience in the form of Derpy. I was a bit nervous about having the world’s most accident-prone girl anywhere near guns, but I hadn’t had the heart to tell her she couldn’t come. Especially since I hadn’t really spent much time with her lately. Between all the Special Rainbow Time, family, and hanging out with the rest of the Rainbooms for help with my magic, I just hadn’t had much time with the Derpster.

I made sure my ear and eye protection were firmly in place, then looked back to them. “You two safe?” Derpy grinned and shot me a thumbs up that quickly transformed into a sheepish grin when Sunset had to adjust her earplugs.

Once that was done, Sunset shot me a second thumbs up. “The high speed camera is ready. Remind me to thank Twilight for letting us borrow it.”

“Will do.” Sunset’s collection of magical analysis equipment was certainly getting more and more elaborate with each passing day. Twilight’s parents seemed to be fine indulging her scientific whims as long as she didn’t completely break the bank, and apparently the other pony version of Twilight was fine with providing Sunset any magical tools that could make it through the portal in working order. Hopefully between the high-speed camera and that weird orb Sunset said was something called an aetherscope we’d get some useful data.

I took a deep breath, then focused on the target we’d attached to one of the many tree stumps in Applejack’s orchard. Once I was ready, I called out. “Thunderbolt shot, test twenty two. Firing in three. Two. One.”

I pulled the trigger. There wasn’t anything crazy about the shot itself, and it hit the little paper target without doing anything crazy. The impact on the tree trunk was another matter entirely, as the impact sent splinters flying out, and once the dust cleared a fist-sized chunk of wood was missing from the old tree stump

Sunset picked up the camera and quickly checked the playback. “We got everything.”

Derpy winced as she pulled out her earplugs. “It’s such a nice change of pace for explosions to happen without me being involved with them.”

I snickered and rolled my eyes. “Oh come on, you’re not that bad, Derpy. Well, aside from that one incident with the popcorn. And the oatmeal thing. Or when...” I trailed off as I realized I was kind of defeating my own point. “Okay, fine. And it’s a good thing you’re straight, ‘cause if you and Pinkie ever slept together and you got powers from her...”

Derpy’s cheeks lit up even as she snorted in laughter. “C-Cloud!”

Sunset rolled her eyes and grinned. “She’s got a point. I don’t think the local insurance rates could take it. Or they’d just rewrite their policies to say that they don’t protect against Acts of Derpy.” She paused, her grin fading a bit as she cleared her throat. “Of course, my current working theory is that you gaining powers was a unique one-off circumstance due to Rainbow’s powers being in flux since she just got them. For the moment, actually confirming it would one way or the other is tricky.”

Derpy nodded along, grateful for the shift in topic. “Yeah, a sample size of one isn’t really much to go off of. And expanding the pool would be...”

“I’m not asking the girls to go out and hook up with a bunch of random people just to get me more data,” Sunset deadpanned. “Especially since that wouldn’t replicate the same circumstances anyway.” Her eyes flicked over to me. “You and Rainbow are a lot ... closer.”

“You would know.” Sunset had read my mind back when the powers first showed up, just to make sure I wasn’t in the middle of turning into another crazed magic-fueled psycho. Big surprise, that had given her a bit more insight into the big relationship I was in. Of course, the reminder of Rainbow was enough to get me distracted thinking about her instead of the magical tests I was supposed to be focusing on.

Derpy took over the conversation, oblivious to what was on my mind. “So ... um, moving on from the weird and awkward turn this entire conversation has taken...” She cleared her throat. “Did the camera catch what we needed?”

“Yep!” She held the camera up for us, letting us see the playback. “It’s all here. Of course, it’ll have to wait until we get it on Twilight’s computer to run some serious analysis. Right now all we have is a small screen and an app on my phone.”

“They really do have an app for everything,” I idly murmured. “So, what does the gun magic analysis phone app tell us?”

Sunset tapped a few buttons, then nodded to herself. “Well, going off what we can tell about the angle of the shot and impact and my quick and dirty estimate of your muzzle velocity, then comparing that against the control group tests we did earlier...” 

I tried to follow along, but all the complicated physics had never been my favorite topic. Though I suppose it could’ve been a lot worse. If Rainbow was here, she probably would’ve gone unconscious about thirty seconds into the lesson, and now we’d all be struggling to follow Sunset over the sound of Dash’s snoring. Well okay, maybe not that bad—she cared about anything with my magic. Usually the only thing that made her completely check out was boring school lectures that honestly made me struggle to stay engaged too, and I was one of the good students.

Sunset cleared her throat, and I realized she’d stopped talking. “So, you get all that?”

I quickly tried to cover. “Huh? Yeah, sure.”

Judging by her wry grin, Sunset didn’t buy it for a second. “It’s alright, I did get a little technical. So where did I lose you?”

“It’s not...” I sighed and massaged my forehead. “Sorry, I’m just a little...” I waved my free hand around in a vague sort of gesture.

Derpy frowned, then walked over and put a hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just...” I bit the bullet and came out with the truth. “You heard about me and Dash having that blow-up, right?”

“More or less.” With a hint of a smile, Derpy explained, “I got the news in Rainbowese.”

I could guess what that meant. “So, ‘Cloud's a butthead.’”

Derpy snorted softly. “In about a dozen different variations, yes.”

“We heard about it at lunch the next day,” Sunset chimed. “Well, not exactly heard about it, but she got really moody when Rarity asked about that tournament you two are doing this weekend.”

Derpy’s wall-eyes rose a bit at that. “Since when was Rarity into wargaming tournaments?”

“She’s not.” Sunset shrugged. “But she did give Rainbow a bit of artistic advice when it came to painting up her models. Apparently a good working knowledge of fashion and color balance can be applied to telling Rainbow what colors would look awesome on Pirate Elves.”

“Arctic Ninja Elves,” I corrected idly. “Anyway, sorry if I’m off my game. Just ... y’know, got some stuff on my mind.”

“Hey, we all have bad days.” Derpy walked over to the fence and tried to take a seat on it. The wooden fence promptly collapsed beneath her, sending her tumbling to the ground with a startled yelp. She groaned, but held up a hand to keep us from rushing over to check her. “I’m okay. Nothing hurt but my pride. And my back. And my butt. And Applejack’s fence.” She sighed, surveying the damage. “I’ll help her fix that later. Assuming she’ll let me after what happened with her barn, even though I had no idea the chickens would react that badly.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sunset assured her, helping her up. “Stuff breaks all the time on the farm, they’re used to fixing it.”

“Right,” Derpy shifted her attention back to me. “And in the meantime, one thing I can help fix is Cloud and Rainbow.” She smiled hopefully at me. “So ... um, if there’s anything you want to talk about, just to get it off your chest...”

“Yeah.” I took a deep breath and ordered my thoughts. “It’s just ... you know, we talked some, but stuff is still up in the air. It’s ... I guess we wanna make up, but we’re also both still kinda mad at each other too. It’s like one of those sitcoms where both of us would be happy to settle things and forgive each other just as soon as the other one apologizes for everything.” I groaned and slumped down a bit. “It’s just ... you know, we’re almost certainly gonna work through it eventually, but we haven’t done it yet so...”

“It’s just one of those things where you both need some time to figure it out,” Sunset assured me. “Happens all the time with arguments and relationships.”

“Especially when you both want to work it out,” Derpy chimed in with a smile. “I mean, when she was talking to me Rainbow went on about how you were a stubborn stupid jerkface, but I never once heard her say anything close to wanting to break things off. It’s ... she might be frustrated, hurt, and upset, but she’s still firmly behind making things work with you.”

“I know that feeling,” I grumbled. I thought back to the last talk we’d had. “I just ... we’ve known each other for years, and I think I get her pretty well, but then she comes out with something and I just don’t know what to make of it.” I hesitated a moment, then asked them. “Am I boring? I mean, that was one of the things Rainbow said. So...” I groaned and slumped back. “Okay, maybe not exactly like that, but ... you know. Kinda-ish?”

“I think I get it,” Derpy agreed. “I mean, you’re usually the one who tries to be the...” She bit her lip, frowning and searching for the right words. “Well, when it comes to Rainbow’s pranks I’m usually fine with going along with them, and Fluttershy only objects if she thinks they might be a bit mean. You’re the one who always brings up the ... practical stuff.”

“Well someone has to,” I groused. “It’s .. if Rainbow’s doing something she’s going to get busted for and earn three weeks of detention, someone ought to point that out. You know how Rainbow can get: so excited she doesn’t think things through.”

Sunset frowned at me. “Cloud, no offense, but I think you might not be giving Rainbow enough credit. It’s ... I don’t think you were telling her anything she didn’t already know about the jello pool prank. Getting away with it was never the point. I think Rainbow would much rather deal with some detention than pull off a huge prank and not get any credit for it.”

“Good point,” Derpy agreed. “Really, the closest she usually comes to subterfuge is wanting everyone to know she did it without leaving any solid evidence for the principals to punish her with. Like if she had someone help her with a solid alibi...” She shot a pointed look my way.

“Her alibi was terrible,” I grumbled. “Nobody would believe Rainbow Dash was in study hall. It took me all of five minutes to come up with something better.”

“So why didn’t you?” Derpy probed. “I remember back in middle school you were always helping Rainbow get away with her crazy schemes. What changed?”

“I was helping her,” I grumbled. “I told her it was a bad idea and she wouldn’t do it.”

“Because it was too big, she couldn’t get away with it, and everyone would know it was her.” Derpy smiled at me. “Now, I’m just a silly old me who’s not an expert in all things Rainbow, but I don’t think ‘This prank is so huge and awesome that everyone will know only you could’ve pulled it off, and nobody would be able to ignore it’ is going to be a very convincing argument.”

“Well not when you put it like that,” I grumbled. “But...”

Sunset held up a hand to cut me off. “Okay, I know the sum total of my romantic experience is manipulating a guy so I could be more popular, but I think maybe you need to try looking at things from Rainbow’s perspective.” With a wry grin, she admitted, “One thing I can say for my magical mind-reading powers, I’ve gotten way better at seeing the world through other people’s eyes. It might be worth considering that what you see as just providing basic common-sense advice might not come across that way to Rainbow.”

Derpy nodded along. “When it comes to an argument, everyone thinks they’re the one who’s being completely reasonable and the other person isn’t.”

“Well yeah, but...” I trailed off, spending several seconds trying to come up with a good response before finally admitting, “I’m trying to think of a way to say that the difference is that I’m right and she’s wrong, except in a way that doesn’t sound quite so much like I’m falling into the problem you just pointed out.”

Derpy gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Cloud. We all make those mistakes. It’s what makes us human.”

Sunset grinned and added, “Or what makes us trans-dimensional magical unicorn ponies who happen to currently have the body of a human.”

“Accommodating that is going to add a new layer of complication to our pronouns,” I chimed in. The good humor didn’t last for long before my mind got back to Dash. “So, uh ... you think I might have messed up with her?”

Derpy shrugged. “I’ll give her the same advice next time I see her. I don’t think it’s a matter of either of you being wrong just needing to see the other’s point of view.”

“Right.” I let out a long sigh. “I guess we’ll figure that out eventually. In the meantime, I think we’ve got enough testing with my magic. You want to try some of yours, Sunset?”

“Sure.” She froze a second later, her friendly smile fading away. “Wait, you don’t mean...”

“Yup.” I pulled out a couple sabers I’d borrowed from fencing club. “It’s a good way to see if we can develop your mind reading past touch range and apply it to other things.”

“Or it’s just an excuse for you to smack me with a fencing sword while I’m wearing a blindfold,” Sunset grumbled.

“Your eyes can deceive you, don’t trust them,” I answered in my best impression of a wise old man. “You must learn to stretch out with your other senses. Trust your feelings. Clear your mind of distractions. Let go of your conscious self and act on instinct.”

Sunset snorted and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever you say Obi-Wan. If you’re the expert, how about you try it first and show me how it’s done?”

I wasn’t going to fall for the bait. “You’re the one who can tap into the Force.” I frowned and shifted topics as something occurred to me. “Though actually, that whole idea of putting away conscious thought to run on instinct is a lot older than Star Wars. Dad tried to explain all the philosophy behind it once while he was teaching me a couple Krav moves, and Aunt Wind tried to go into the psychology of it when I asked her, but...” I shrugged. I wasn’t stupid, but advanced psychology and philosophy were a bit past my field of expertise. 

“Anyway, you ready?” I gave my blade a dramatic flourish.

Sunset slowly weighed the blindfold. “As I’ll ever be. Worst case, I get a few bumps and bruises. Best case, I get way better at using magic.”

Derpy grinned. “Plus Cloud has some frustrations to work out, and could use a target to smack around with a sword for a bit.”

I rolled my eyes. “No really, this all for Sunset’s benefit. Mostly. At least fifty-one percent.”

Sunset sighed and put the blindfold on. “The things I do for friendship. Though be aware, if you strike me down, I’m going to come back really pissed with you.”

“So noted.”
> The Ultimate Showdown of Awesomeness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The tournament was off to a good start, at least. The first couple rounds had been fun, even if I’d mostly been going up against opponents who just didn’t have the skills or a good enough list to put up a real challenge. After all, this wasn’t an official gaming tournament or anything; just all the local players getting together to blast at each other.

The shop hosting the place had a pretty nice setup with a dozen tables for gaming, along with a couple of display cases to show off the store’s models. Naturally, all of them looked way better than anything I could do. Not that I was horrible at painting my minifigures, but I just didn’t have the time to spend hours making every single one of my guys look absolutely perfect.

More importantly, some genius had realized that the perfect place for a game shop was right next to a place that made chicken wings. Or maybe it was that the chicken wings guys realized that a game shop made for a great neighbor. Either way, everyone had plenty of snack food available, and I’d narrowly avoided having one of my cannons stained with buffalo sauce.

And, not to toot my own horn too much, but I was pretty good at the game. It was hard for anyone to break my trench warfare specialists once they were properly dug in and sitting on top of the objectives, especially with all the other support I had for them. Artillery, chain guns, and grenade launchers had done a great job of tearing apart my enemies long before they actually got into range to hit back. Especially since my army was just about immune to enemy shooting once you added up the bonuses from being entranced, the smoke bombs my frontline used for cover, and a defense spell from my leader.

Soon enough we were up to the quarter finals. I’d just finished watching Sparkler get eliminated by Shining Armor; considering I would be facing off against him in the semi-finals, it seemed like a good idea to scout out his army. His lightning knights had made short work of Sparkler’s army of half-naked elves, but with any luck I would fare a bit better. After all, I had a little sister’s honor to avenge. I was the only one allowed to crush and humiliate her.

Sparkler sighed as she put up the last of her squads. “That bouncing lightning crap needs to get nerfed. Good luck avenging me.”

Rainbow snorted as she joined us, starting to set her own army up on my table. “Jumping a little far ahead, Sparky. Cloud has to beat me first before she can do any avenging.” She smirked at me as she started setting up her battle bears. “And trust me, you’re gonna go down faster than the Dwarven Navy.”

I sighed and shook my head. “Did you even read the setting lore? The dwarves are actually a major trade power with one of the strongest navies around.” I sighed and shook my head. I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked, a lot of players didn’t bother with all the setting fluff, and Rainbow wasn’t a huge reader aside from the Daring Do stuff. Still... “You have a dwarf leading your army. You should know stuff like that.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “The army book was a hundred pages long. Excuse me for not remembering every single little detail, especially when my army’s got so many different groups in it. The important part is that my army is gonna kick your butt.” She smirked and set her ninja elves in place. “And they’re gonna look way cooler than your lame guys who dig in the mud more than they fight.”

“That is a pretty good paint job,” Sparkler conceded.

“Just one of the many things I’m awesome at,” Rainbow answered with her typical level of modesty: none.

“Rarity helped her.” Twilight stepped over to join us, looking over our armies. “Sorry if I’m butting in, but Shiny’s been trying to talk me into building an army so he’ll have someone else to play against. The least I could do was watch a tournament and find out a bit more about it.”

“No problem.” I smiled and pulled up a chair for her. “Seen anything you like so far?” I thought it over for a bit, comparing what I knew about Twilight’s preferences against the factions within the setting. “I could make a few suggestions for armies, but I imagine right now you’re still kind of picking things up.”

Twilight nodded along. “There’s a lot to absorb. I’m still figuring out all the different themes you can go with, like Shining’s thunder knights or Cloud’s trench-diggers or Rainbow’s...” She trailed off as she stared at the strange hodgepodge of units Dash was fielding. “Sorry, I’m still figuring everything out. What theme are you going for?”

“The Legion of Awesome,” Rainbow supplied with a proud smile. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“I’m not sure it’s a solid theme so much as Rainbow just grabbing whatever she thinks is awesome.” I looked over her list and sighed. “For Shadow’s sake, instead of infantry she just has a bunch of tamed bears.”

Sparkler smirked and nudged me. “Hey, don’t knock her right to arm bears.”

Twilight groaned and facepalmed, while Rainbow scoffed and rolled her eyes. I agreed with both of them, but decided not to give Sparkler anything. After all, the only reason she’d make a pun that lame was to get a reaction out of us, and I refused to give her the satisfaction.

Rainbow scoffed and poked me in the ribs. “Don’t bash the battle bears. They already hit really hard, and my guy has a spell that makes them even stronger. Plus it makes them explode.”

I sighed and shook my head. “Of course your army features exploding battle bears. They make a perfect compliment to the arctic ninja elves ... who you’ll probably also make explode using that spell.”

Rainbow smirked and nodded along. “Well duh. It’s pretty much my go-to spell for anyone who’s gonna be in melee. Why wouldn’t I want them hitting harder and then exploding when they die? That’s radical.”

Shining Armor finished talking shop with Dad and walked over to have a look at our armies. He’d evidently caught part of Rainbow’s last remark, judging by the puzzled frown on his face. “I thought the meta was to use that spell on cheap disposable infantry? The guys you’re using it on are elite units.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Who cares about that? Sure, it can make a cheap guy hit like an elite, but that just means it’ll make elites hit like super-elites!”

Shining frowned, then shrugged and nodded along. “That’s true. With lucky rolls your guys could do some serious damage to heavies under that spell.” 

Twilight quickly looked over the rules, then tapped her fingers against each other, evidently doing the math in her head. “You would need very lucky rolls. Statistically speaking, it would be much more optimal to—”

Rainbow snorted and gave Twilight a pat on the back. “Twilight, this is a wargame, not a spreadsheet. The statistics and averages don’t matter.”

Twilight scowled at her. “Yes they do. You might get a few lucky or unlucky rolls, but over the course of an entire game everything averages out.”

Shining quickly held up a hand to cut her off. “Twiley, never doubt the power of the Random Number God. That’s a sure way to end up botching every single roll you absolutely have to make to win the battle while your opponent’s dice are on fire.”

“Sacrifice the unbeliever to the almighty dice gods,” I droned. “Heresy begets retribution.”

Twilight snorted and adjusted her glasses as she rolled her eyes at both of us. “I swear, some of your gaming superstitions are just ridiculous. The mathematics behind dice roll averages are quite simple and incredibly well understood. Even you do get a few anomalous rolls, it only makes sense to pursue the course of action with the highest mathematical chance of success.”

“Of course, Twiley.” Shining grinned and gave his sister a reassuring pat. “Just saying, bad and good rolls happen, and usually at the worst possible time if you foolishly anger the dice gods.”

“He gave me a pretty good lesson in that just a bit ago.” Sparkler sighed and extended her hand to him. “Good game, by the way.”

“You too.” Shining shook her hand and smiled. “You almost had it; you did a good job bringing the pressure, but you wound up leaving your elves just a little too exposed.”

A particularly mischievous grin popped onto my little sister’s lips, and I braced for some incoming brattiness. “Well, it’s your fault for staring at them.”

Shining’s cheeks lit up. “Th-that’s not remotely what I—” He sighed and shook his head. “Okay, I guess the stories Tor and Twiley tell about you are true.”

Sparkler’s grin widened. “What sort of stories are these?”

I swooped in to the rescue before Sparks could build up too much brat-ly momentum. “So Shining, heard I get to take you on in the semis after I beat Dash.”

As I’d known it would, that provoked Rainbow. “You said that wrong. You mean, I get to dent Shiny’s Armor after I crush your army of boring, Cloud.”

Shining looked at both of us, then snickered. “Looks like you’re both fired up for this match. I’m looking forward to it either way, even if it’ll be a total one-eighty of what sort of army I’ll have to prepare for.”

“If you can prepare at all,” Rainbow shot back with a confident grin. “And really, what can you do against all the crazy stuff my army has to play with? Remember, being crazy gets you halfway to crazy awesome.”

“But all the way to being nuts,” I countered. I picked up the dice and gave them a couple shakes. “So, we done with the obligatory pre-game trash-talk? Ready to roll off for first turn?”

“Go for it.” Rainbow smirked. “You might as well seize the initiative sometime.” She paused a moment, then amended. “Also, you’re a butthead. Just figured I’d get that out there before we finished the trash-talk.”

“Yeah, sure.” I threw the dice, and grinned when I got a ten.

Rainbow got a five. She scowled in that cute way she always did when something annoyed her, but she was trying not to let it show. “Alright, you get to go first. Hurry up and do nothing, Cloud.”

I refused to rise to the bait. “I’m not doing nothing. For the record, what I am going to do is have my guys advance forward and start digging trenches. The front rank will toss out smoke bombs to give the rest of my army cover. That puts me in control of objectives two, three, and six. That’s half of them, so ... come at me.”

Rainbow snorted. “Doing what you do best: blowing smoke and a whole lot of nothing. Let me show you a real army does things.” She started moving her models up the board. “My ninja elves will go up the flank, while my battle bears take the center and move forward. And now ... I move up my artillery a bit so they can open up on your front line. The big gun won’t be able to shoot until next turn, but my lighter stuff can go right now.”

I chuckled. “Really, Rainbow? Artillery? You know my guys are dug in, and they have a smokescreen on top of that. You’d need double sixes to even hit.”

Dash smirked. “Hey, if your guys want to dig their own graves, that just saves me the trouble of cleaning up once the battle’s done. My pirate cannons shoot explosive shells, they don’t need to score a direct hit to kill your guys.” Her grin widened as she added, “And maybe you forgot, but my army leader buffs explosions.”

“Didn’t forget any of that,” I shot back. “But maybe you forgot that my guys take reduced damage from explosions while they’re dug in. So actually ... yeah, anything less than a direct hit will do nothing.” 

Rainbow made her rolls, and things played out exactly like I’d predicted. She scowled down at the board. “Bah, I’ll get you next turn.”

“Sure you will.” I started making my moves. “Though as long as we’re talking artillery, let me show you what my big guns can do. Time to teach you a couple things about what us army-types call counter-battery fire.” My own artillery went to town on hers, which didn’t have any of the protection of defensive buffs that mine did. Her pirate guns might have been cheap and fairly hard-hitting against anyone who wasn’t as tough as my army, but ordinary pirates with no more armor than the shirt on their backs were horribly fragile. After that my chain guns and grenadiers put some shots into her battle bears. The bears were tough enough to not go down easily, but I at least softened them up.

Shining Armor nodded along once my turn was done. “Nice gunline. Think I might regret bringing a mostly melee list.”

“Yeah, but your bouncing lightning attacks auto-hit,” Sparkler grumbled. “S’why I lost. Have I mentioned how completely overpowered that is?”

Shining chuckled. “It might have come up. However the first attack has to hit before they start bouncing. Sure, I can target my own lightning-immune guys for the first hit—”

“Which is bullshit,” Sparks grumbled.

“—but I still need to get them in range,” Shining concluded, ignoring her interjection. “I would bet Cloud doesn’t intend to let me get that close.”

“Was my rough plan,” I conceded. Of course, it was a safe bet that Shining would have a couple tricks up his sleeve to close the distance, and if that worked I would be in trouble. My army wasn’t completely hopeless in melee, but my guys armed with trench knives and rifle bayonets would have a hard time winning a close quarters brawl against elite knights with lightning swords and full plate armor.

Rainbow grumbled as she marked off the last of the damage on her badly mauled bears. “Don’t talk about the next round just yet, Cloud-cakes. You gotta beat me first.” She grinned and moved up her flanking force. “My ninja elves ignore cover and concealment, because they’re both ninjas and elves.” She made several rolls, and suddenly my trench fighters had a bunch of longbow arrows sticking out of them. “And now, we charge in.” More dice rolled, and more of my guys got cut down by their katanas. “As one of our friends would say, how do you like them apples?”

“AJ’s are better.” I frowned down at my front line, trying to work out the best way out of my situation. Rainbow’s ninja elves were hard enough to hit that I didn’t like my front line’s odds against them, especially after the damage from their arrow volley and charge. And having any of my guys shoot into the melee wouldn’t work with all the penalties I took to firing into melee.

Maybe I could try pulling my front line back to leave the ninja elves exposed, but they’d get a couple free shots at my men’s backs as they withdrew. Not to mention it would leave my entire front line in shambles.

Rainbow’s triumphant grin widened as she saw me puzzling over my next move. “Might as well just concede now, Kicker. Unless you wanna try shelling your own troops there’s no way you’re getting rid of my guys.”

I had a crazy idea. I checked one or two things, and the idea started sounding a lot less crazy. “Thanks for the suggestion.” I had my grenade launchers and artillery start shooting at the front line brawl. With the penalty for firing into a melee I didn’t score any direct hits, but all the explosions going off I didn’t need to. My own guys were still in their foxholes and had plenty of protection against the blasts. The ninja elves with nothing more than leather armor were far more vulnerable.

Rainbow’s jaw dropped as her elves got wiped off the board. “You’re bombing your own guys? That’s pretty hardcore. Of course, my elves explode when they die thanks to that spell, so...” More dice flew, and despite the protection of their foxholes my front line was starting to look a little ragged.

Rainbow grinned as she saw her opening. “Your front lines now have more holes than swiss cheese now. It’s time to finish you off with the most fearsome weapon in my arsenal. My bears are charging in, and my commander uses his spell to make them hit harder and explode when they die, since you killed off all my elves.”

I grimaced as her bears tore my front line to pieces. It wasn’t even close to a fair fight. The buffed up bears hit so hard it was impossible for them not to kill every one of my guys they hit with a single blow, and they were accurate enough to almost never miss in melee. The only survivor of my front line was one guy the bears couldn’t quite manage to reach.

Losing my entire front line was ... not great, but that was actually a bit of a blessing in disguise. I moved the one survivor over to provide cover for my commander, leaving the bears wide open and completely exposed with no cover and all my heavy guns pointing right at them. Almost as if I’d planned for the possibility that my front line might get overrun by a bunch of crazy magically enhanced exploding bears.

Rainbow’s battle bears were very tough. Not quite tough enough to resist an entire army’s worth of machine gun, artillery, and grenade fire. Especially when I’d already softened them up a bit earlier in the fight.

Rainbow groaned as the last of her bears went down. “Dangit. Fine. I didn’t need them anyway. I’ve still got my huge mega-cannon and my commander.” She scowled down at the table, trying to find a way to turn this around. Then she smirked when she spotted an opening. “I’ve got a shot at your commander. Tournament rules say that if I kill her I win, right?”

“Yeah,” I answered, undaunted. “If you kill her. With my cover and smoke bonuses along with her buff spell, the odds of you landing a hit would be...” I did the math in my head. “Actually, nevermind. You would need a sixteen, so it’s flat-out impossible for you to hit my leader, even if you roll double sixes.”

Rainbow frowned, tapping her chin. “Wait, my commander has a once-a-game ability to make any explosive weapon roll three dice instead of two! I’ll use that!”

I’d been wondering if she’d forgotten about that rule. “Okay, if you do that you might be able to hit. It’s still insanely unlikely, though.”

“She would need a sixteen or better on three dice.” Twilight confirmed. “Which makes her odds ... a little under four point two percent.”

“With how awesome my rolls are, that’s the same as a hundred percent.” Rainbow cocked the dice and threw.

Deathly silence settled over the table until the dice settled. Six, Five, and Six. Seventeen. One over what she needed.

Well. Crap. “Okay. So you actually managed to roll high enough to hit. But my commander has fifteen hit points, and her armor is equal to the base damage of your cannon, so you’d need a fifteen on three dice for damage. That’s slightly more likely than your last roll, but still...”

“Just an eight point eight percent chance,” Twilight confirmed.

“No way she can make two rolls like that in a row.” I concluded.

“Technically she can,” Twilight countered. “Probability is merely mathematical average. The odds of her making a second high roll are no better or worse on account of her previous rolls.” She paused, then amended, “Unless there was something about her dice that made them more likely to roll high.”

“Good point.” I swiped Rainbow’s dice, replacing them with mine. “Roll those.”

Rainbow shot a faintly annoyed glower my way for the dice swap, but used mine anyway. I let out a sigh of relief when the first one came up as a three, only to shift to groaning when the next two were both sixes. Fifteen. “Well ... crap.”

“No way,” Sparkler gasped.

“Yes!” Rainbow pumped her fist triumphantly. “That’s what I think of your math about the odds! Numbers can never trump awesome!”

I stared at the table mute shock for several seconds, then slowly started clearing away my army. “What were the odds of those two rolls, Twilight?”

Twilight answered promptly. “Approximately point three six percent.”

Sparkler let out a low whistle. “So about a one in three hundred shot. Nice.”

“That shouldn’t have worked,” I grumbled.

“But it did,” Shining pointed out. “Sometimes longshots pay off.”

“Darn right it did,” Rainbow crowed. “Once again, awesomeness triumphs over the forces of boring!”

“Yeah, yeah...” I sighed and offered her my hand. “Good game.”

Rainbow grinned and grabbed my hand, shaking it vigorously. “Yeah, awesome game.” She hesitated a moment. “Um ... wanna get outta here for a sec? Just, y’know, stuff. Don’t want the peanut gallery here.” She looked over the Shining. “You don’t mind waiting for a bit before I kick your butt, do you?”

Shining waved her away. “Nah, take your time. I’ll want a bit to set up anyway.”

I stepped outside with Rainbow, and we headed over to my car mostly just so we’d have somewhere to sit down while we talked. Besides, the two of us talking in my car was a bit more private than doing it right in front of the store. Once we were settled in I made the first move. “Guess I was wrong about your Legion of Awesome.”

“They did do pretty good, but...” Her bravado deflated a little as she sighed and confessed. “That was a Hail Mary pass to end all Hail Marys. You heard Twilight, there was less than a one percent chance of me making that work. And if the shot missed or didn’t do enough damage you would’ve wiped me out next turn.”

“Yeah, but you still won. And those ninja elves and battle bears didn’t do too badly. Maybe with a bit more support and leader more suited to them...” I took a deep breath. “Yeah, your crazy army isn’t looking so crazy anymore.”

“And your boring army was a bit cooler than I gave it credit for,” Rainbow admitted. “I mean, you can drop artillery on top of your own guys and hurt me a lot more than them. That’s pretty radical. Give it one or two bits of pizzazz and I could work with it.” She took a deep breath. “So ... um, I guess what I’m saying is that together, we’re unstoppable. I mean ... I get it. You’re not trying to be boring or anything, you’re just trying to be sensible and think things through. Just ... I like my awesome as well, y’know?”

“Yeah, I get it.” I ran a hand through my hair. “And I’m not trying to take that away. You wouldn’t be you without that. It’s ... when I’m being a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, it’s ‘cause I’m trying to help you. Keep you grounded, before you go flying off into your cool, awesome, and radical dreamland that doesn’t always match reality.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “You make it sound like I’m Pinkie.” She hesitated a moment, then confessed. “Though ... yeah, I get what you mean. The boring stuff matters, and sometimes I don’t think about it as much as I should.”

“And maybe sometimes I worry about it so much I forget to have fun,” I admitted.

“S’why we make such a good team,” Rainbow concluded. “Because we’re different, and that makes both of us better than we would be on our own. And together we’re unstoppable.”

“Darn right we are.” I slowly extended my hand to her. “So ... we cool?”

Rainbow looked down at my hand and snorted. “Girlfriends don’t shake hands, butthead.” She leaned over and kissed me to make her point.

We probably would’ve gone for some quality makeout time if not for the fact that Dash had a game to get to. Not to mention Sparks was probably going to make jokes about us doing exactly that, and I didn’t want to give her more ammunition. “Yeah, love you too. So ... want me to go get some snacks while you set up to take on Shining?”

Rainbow grinned. “See, this is why you’re awesome.”







It took about twenty minutes to get wings for everyone, and by the time I made it back Rainbow and Shining had already started. “Okay, so that’s cherry-habanero wings for Dash, my plain ones with bleu cheese, buffalo wings for Dad and Sparks, honey-barbeque for Twilight, and garlic parmesan for Shining, right?” 

Rainbow grinned and took her wings off me, only to pause with one halfway to her mouth. “Is it weird that I eat wings when I have wings whenever I pony up?” She thought about that for a second longer, then shrugged and chowed down. “Whatever. Anyway, you’re just in time for the main event. You get to watch me totally beat Shining with a combination of awesomeness and combat pragmatism!”

“Can’t wait to see it.” I dipped one of my wings into the bleu cheese and joined her in chowing down. Rainbow stared at my cheese-dipped wing with vague horror, and I rolled my eyes. “What? It’s good.”

“Nothing with stinky cheese on it can ever be good,” Rainbow opined. “Don’t know how you can stand that stuff.”

“Says the lady who wants cherry habanero sauce on her wings,” I shot back with a grin. 

“S’far as I’m concerned you’re both equally nuts.” Sparkler cut in. “I’ll just stick with my buffalo wings with ranch sauce, the way they’re supposed to be eaten.”

As often happened whenever she opened her mouth, Rainbow and I dropped our argument to team up on the brat. “I was wrong, Cloud. You’re not the most boring Kicker. Your bleu cheese might be weird, but at least it’s unique. Everyone does buffalo wings.”

Sparkler snorted. “How very hipster of you. It’s popular, so that means it’s boring. Next you’ll be saying you liked chicken wings before they were mainstream.”

“Bah.” Rainbow threw a piece of celery that bounced off her nose. “Anyway, sit back and watch as I show you how to beat the guy who kicked your butt in the tournament. Which means I’ll also be beating you by proxy.”

While Sparkler chewed her wings while struggling to come up with a suitable bratty counter, I took advantage of her silence to survey the battlefield. What I saw was just a bit concerning. “You really did go all-in on the lightning knights, didn’t you?”

Shining shrugged. “The game does reward you for picking a theme for your army, whether its guys with lightning swords and spears or a gunline that digs foxholes.”

“True,” I conceded. “Of course, there’s something to be said for an army with exploding attack bears too.”

Shining chuckled and nodded. “I admit, I spent a lot more time thinking about how to beat an entrenched wall of guns than I did worrying about my army being overrun by exploding bears. My knights have plenty of armor, but not enough to shrug that off.”

“Darn right they can’t.” Rainbow grinned as her bears charged forward, supported by her ninja elves. “Look at your poor little squad of guys, all isolated and alone. It would be such a shame if they all got eaten by bears and stabbed in the back by ninjas, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would,” Shining answered dryly. “I would advise leaving them alone.”

Rainbow’s grin turned into a full-blown smirk. “Sorry, I wanna win.” 

I looked over Shining’s deployment and did a quick mental rundown of what I remembered of his units and what they could do. Then I realized exactly why he didn’t care about losing one squad of infantry. They were the bait for a trap that would wipe out all of Rainbow’s infantry, leaving her with nothing but her artillery and commander against his nearly intact army.

“Dash, are you sure you want to—”

Shining loudly cleared his throat and shot a pointed look my way. I grimaced and kept my mouth shut. There wasn’t a hard-and-fast rule about commentary from the people watching the game, but it was usually seen as rude to go from commenting to offering advice. After all, Shining was playing against Rainbow, not me.

So I said nothing as Rainbow charged her entire front line into the trap. The single isolated and horribly outnumbered squad suffered a quick and bloody and at the hands and paws of her army, but now Dash’s units were in a horrible position. They were so clumped up that Shining wouldn’t have any trouble bouncing chain lightning between different models until there was nothing left but a few dregs his cavalry charge could easily finish off.

I sighed and shook my head. “Well, you had a really good run, Dash. And maybe he’ll flub his rolls.” I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Luck.”

“Bleck,” Rainbow rubbed her cheek. “Cheese-lips.”

I scoffed. “Like you’ve got any room to talk with your crazy cherry hot sauce.”

Rainbow snorted and kissed my cheek in turn. “Way less gross. See?”

I tried to ignore the fiery trail her lips left and turned my attention back to the game. The first thing I noticed was that he’d moved his artillery back a bit for safety. Actually, just a bit too far back. He was currently doing some measuring and grumbling as he realized he’d pulled his lightning towers so far back that they weren’t actually in range of Rainbow’s infantry blob.

Weird. There weren’t any rules against pre-measuring, and he was clearly a veteran of the game. That was the sort of mistake most beginners wouldn’t even make. I leaned over and whispered to Rainbow, “Why’s he doing that with his artillery?”

Rainbow shrugged. “Probably just scared of my ninja elves getting his guns next turn.”

“Must be up to something.” Maybe he was going to use that same trick he’d pulled against Sparkler, and shoot his own lightning-immune units in the back to arc the shots into Rainbow’s army? Seemed like a bit of a waste since Rainbow’s bears were large and easy to hit targets compared to Sparkler’s speedy and scantily armored elves, but he could just be playing it safe.

Rainbow smirked as she watched me looking things over, then bumped her hip against mine. “No armchair general-ing, Cloud. S’my army, I’m the one who’s gonna kick his butt.”

“Thank yulp,” Shining cleared his throat. “Um, you. Thank you.” He moved some of his infantry forward ... so that they blocked the charge lane his cavalry were going to use.

Okay, this wasn’t normal at all. He was smarter than this.

Rainbow seemed every bit as perplexed as I was, staring down at the board and trying to puzzle out what he could be up to. She groaned and rubbed her forehead, mumbling under her breath. “Come on ... think like Cloud, think like Cloud...” She wrapped an arm over my shoulders, as if hoping the proximity would help my tactical skills transfer over by osmosis.

Shining coughed and finished laying out his battle line. I’d never seen a worse setup; just about none of his units could do anything with how jammed up they were. He’d somehow squandered a perfect ambush.

Rainbow looked back and forth between me, Shining, and the table. Then she had her artillery blow a few holes in Shining’s knight clump before her bears went charging in, and her ninja elves went chasing after his lightning towers.

Shining started his next turn, glowering down at the board. “Okay, that could’ve gone better, but I can still win this. I just need to—”

I missed whatever he was going to say or do next on account of Rainbow suddenly grabbing me and dipping me for a deep kiss. Not that I was complaining about it, and after the initial surprise I didn’t hesitate to give as good as I got.

Once we’d wrapped up I realized we’d pretty much killed all conversation and activity in the room. Twilight and Shining were both blushing and awkwardly avoiding looking at us, while Dad had gone from casually observing the game to burying his nose in the book he’d brought. Guess watching me and Dash smooch was a bit too much for his Dad-ly instincts.

Sparks was the first to recover. “Get a room, you two. Or at least save it until after the game.”

“Yeah, yeah...” Rainbow waved her off, shifting her attention to Shining. “Anyway, you done with your turn?”

“I’m durp.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m done. Your turn.”

“Shiney!” Twilight groaned, burying her face in her hands. “You haven’t even moved half your units yet!”

“I haven’t?” He blinked, then stared down at the board. “Oh. Well, I don’t suppose I could...”

“Tournament rules,” Sparkler cut in with a teasing grin. “No take-backs.”

Shining sighed and nodded along. “Right, right. My fault for not focusing.”

Rainbow grinned as her army rampaged through Shining’s helpless units. Her exploding battle bears tore the rest of his knights to pieces, while her ninja elves made short work of his artillery. Shining still had a couple models left on the board, but he knew it was over. He sighed and extended his hand to her. “Good game.”

Rainbow grinned and shook. “Thanks. Even if I did kinda play dirty to win.”

Shining chuckled and grinned sheepishly. “Well, messing with your opponent’s head is a valid strategy. Granted, that’s a new take on it.”

Twilight shot a flat look at him. “You mean taking advantage of the fact that girls can turn you into a complete doofus?”

Sparkler snorted and covered her mouth in a vain struggle to contain her brattly laughter. “Yeah, pretty much. If I ever have a rematch with you, I’m showing up in costume. Maybe dress up like one of my elves—I bet I’d table you in two turns if I did that.”

Dad sighed and massaged his forehead. “No going around half-naked just to mess with the heads of hapless young officers, Sparkler. Especially when I have to work with them.”

“Thank you, sir,” Shining murmured. He cleared his throat and turned back to Rainbow. “But yeah, wouldn’t mind a rematch someday. It was a nice trick, but it won’t work twice.”

“Yes it will,” Twilight mumbled just loud enough for us to hear.

Rainbow shrugged. “I wouldn’t do it anyway. Messing with him to win was funny and all, but next time I kick his butt I’m gonna do it without any tricks.”

Shining grinned. “Guess that means I need to start adapting my tactics to handle exploding bears and ninja elves.”

“You can try,” Rainbow shot back with a smirk. “’Course, the Legion of Awesome is an ever-evolving force. Who knows what they’ll look like a year from now?”

“Aside from even more awesome than they already are,” I deadpanned. “Anyway, Rainbow made it to the finals, so she gets to take on the champ, right?”

“Yup,” Shining confirmed. “Good luck—she’s got the nastiest army I’ve ever gone up against. I took her on last year, and she wiped the floor with me.” He grimaced at the memory. “Those debuffs were just nasty. I think she’s undefeated.”

“Undefeated so far.” Rainbow grinned. “But she’s never played against me. So what’s she like?”

Shining shrugged. “No idea what she’s really like. She wears a costume and stays in character whenever she’s here. And the character is...” He trailed off, struggling to find the right words.

Twilight spoke up before he found them. “Am I going crazy, or did someone just turn on a fog machine?”

I looked down, and sure enough the entire floor had been coated in a misty sort of fog. A second later a deep, malevolent chuckle echoed through the room. The laughter slowly built up until it became a full blown evil cackle as what could only be the store champion stepped into the room. She had a black hooded cloak that covered most of her body and face, and what I could see was covered in elaborate purple armor. “Tremble and despair, for Nightmare Moon has arisen to blot out the sun! The Night! Shall Last! FOREVER!!!”

Rainbow was the first to recover, grinning fiercely. “Nice entrance. Bring it on!”
> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow fought valiantly, but the match was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Not that Dash wasn’t good, but she’d gotten to the finals with luck, trickery, and her usual flavor of confidence that sometimes bordered on being arrogant or almost out-of-touch with reality. When it came to Nightmare Moon, Rainbow didn’t manage any lucky shots and she didn’t even try making out with me to throw the other woman off her game.

I’d asked Dad to take Sparks and our armies home while I stuck around. It was a pretty safe bet that Rainbow would need a bit of cheering up after getting second place. It probably bugged her more than if she’d just gone down earlier in the tournament, since she could’ve just laughed it off as not being that serious and that she’d just been in the game for fun. Making it to the finals was enough to get her fired up and competitive, and then it got snatched away.

I rubbed her shoulders as we stepped out into the parking lot. “Hey, don’t be so down. You still made it all the way to the finals.”

Rainbow sighed. “Yeah, I guess.”

I frowned and shifted a bit, wrapping an arm around her shoulders in a half-hug. “You okay?”

“M’fine.” She took a deep breath, then put her usual confident grin back in place. “C’mon, I’m not about to crack up just because I lost. I still got all the way to the finals, kicked butt and looked good doing it. I’d say we should go get pizza or something to celebrate, but I’m still kinda full from those wings.”

“I’m sure we’ll come up with something.” I grinned and bumped her hip. “Something we can do alone. Together. When our parents aren’t expecting us back for a while.”

Rainbow snorted and rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t keep a smile off her face. “Sounds like a plan to me.” She wrapped an arm around me in turn. “So I was thinking ... maybe I should come up with a persona and outfit like Nightmare Moon.”

“Oh yeah?” I smirked and poked her. “But you’re already awesome just as your normal self.”

“Awesomeness isn’t just an on or off switch, Kicker,” Rainbow explained. “There’s levels to it and variations and stuff. A good costume could help change things up, add a bit more gravitas to my setup. That’d be a great way to psych the other players out.”

“I guess that does make sense,” I conceded. “At least I can count on you not pulling a Sparkler and using it as an excuse to prance around half-naked.”

Rainbow groaned and rolled her eyes. “What is her deal anyway? I swear, she is such a teenager sometimes.” I was about to comment on that when she carried on. “And yes, I know it’s kinda weird to say that when we’re teenagers too, but come on. She stole one of your moms beers out of the fridge, she tries to get away with wearing skimpy clothes, and I’d bet she’s up to a bunch of other stuff we don’t know about.”

“Yeah, I get it.” I sighed and shrugged. “Aunt Wind thinks it’s a combination of a teenager thing, a middle child thing, and an adopted thing. Like, she’s kinda subconsciously testing Mom and Dad to see if they really love her, or if they’ll drop her back at the orphanage the first time she gets on their nerves.”

“Oh.” Rainbow went quiet, frowning to herself. “That’s ... actually kinda sad. I mean, wow. Think we can do anything to help?”

“Aunt Wind said it’s just something she’ll have to work through,” I answered. “Long as she doesn’t go too crazy, I figure the best thing to do is just kinda show that even if she’s a total brat who gets on our nerves, she’s still family.”

“Makes sense.” Dash and I were halfway back to my car when we heard the shop door opening up behind her. Rainbow spun around and grinned when she saw Nightmare Moon leaving, carrying her army in a fancy rolling case. “Hold up, Kicker. If I’m gonna do the whole costume thing I wanna ask a pro how she came up with that whole shtick.” I followed behind as Rainbow scampered over to the mysterious costumed woman. “Hey, hold up a sec!”

Nightmare Moon turned towards us, her barely visible lips curling up in a grin. “What is it you seek, mortal? Do you desire the infinite wisdom of Nightmare Moon?”

“Yeah, sure.” Rainbow grinned, looking over the elaborate costume. The whole cloak, robe, and armor combo were pretty impressive, even if it lost a bit of its dramatic glamour when Nightmare Moon was loading up the trunk of her car rather than making a dramatic entrance. All that black had to be nasty in hot weather, too. Dash took a moment to suppress her fangirl glee before continuing. “Just wanted to say that was a really good game. I’m really digging the whole get up and drama routine. How’d you come up with it?

“Ah, this.” Nightmare Moon took a deep breath and her posture shifted a bit, and when she spoke her voice wasn’t quite so dramatic. Guess that meant she was breaking character. “I got the idea from some old stories and comics, and some metal art covers. Mix it all together and add a bit of inspiration, and...”

“Cool.” Rainbow’s grin got bigger as she doubtless started throwing together ideas for her new outfit. “Loved the entrance, by the way. The laughter was a nice touch.”

“Thank you.” Nightmare Moon smiled back. “I decided if I was going to play up a character I might as well go all in. I didn’t spend hours making my costume just to be subtle with my performance. Besides, it’s far too much fun to go full ham and start chewing the scenery.”

“Yeah, you don’t do awesome by going halfway.” Rainbow frowned and rubbed her chin. “So now I gotta figure out what to do for myself. Sure, Rarity could probably make any outfit I came up with, but I don’t wanna bug her about that until I’ve got it all locked down. I’d do it myself, but ... well, last time I tried to do my own costume she freaked out and insisted on redoing everything at the last minute.”

“I saw that costume,” I shot back. “You needed the help. I mean, cyborg werewolf pirate is cool in concept, but it takes a lot of work to make it happen.” I grinned and pitched my voice to a fair imitation of our resident fashionista. “And worst of all, darling, the fake blood on your clothes was more of a scarlet when something like vermillion or crimson would have complimented things much better, darling.”

“Those are all just different names for red,” Rainbow grumbled under her breath. She shook her head and turned back to Nightmare Moon. “Anyway, I’ll come up with something in time for when I take you on next year. I’m gonna have to up my game though. And re-do the paint job on my army—I thought mine looked good, but yours was awesome. And some of those minis you had were sculpts from first edition!”

Nightmare Moon grinned. “I have been playing the game for long enough to have picked up quite a few of the older pieces. I actually have a lot more old ones I keep at home because they’re pewter. The sculpts and detailing are impressive, but molded plastic is far easier to carry around and doesn’t need quite as much repair-work.”

“No kidding,” I grumbled. I’d gotten used to including a spare superglue in my army’s traveling case for emergency repairs just in case anything got knocked loose in transit.

“So what’s the secret to getting as good as you?” Rainbow asked.

Nightmare Moon chuckled. “Practice. There’s no secret that will make you instantly beat everyone you play against. And really, you’re doing fine for someone who’s still fairly new to the game.” She grinned. “And you’ve certainly put together a very unique list. The current edition was a step up in most regards, but the meta’s heavy focus on theme lists has made it rare to see someone throw half a dozen disparate elements together, and even rarer for someone to do that and actually make it work.” 

“Thanks! I, uh...” Rainbow frowned and started digging through her pockets. “Darn, I wish I had something to give you. You know, for being so cool and beating me and everything.  All I got is this.” She pulled out a couple crumpled up coupons for jello she had left over from her rather considerable bulk purchase earlier this week. “Um, here. Better than nothing, right?”

Nightmare Moon frowned down at the coupon as if it had done something to offend her, then waved her off. “It’s quite alright, I don’t need anything. To be quite honest, I am almost tempted to share the gift certificate they were offering as a prize considering how often I’ve won the tournament.” She smirked, then repeated, “Almost. They did just release several new units for my army...”

Rainbow grinned and offered her hand. “Just remember, next time I’ll be ready for you.”

Nightmare Moon shook it. “I look forward to it.”

“Gotta get to the finals first, Dash,” I cut in. “And I don’t plan on losing to your exploding bears and ninja elves twice. I’ll be the one taking on Nightmare Moon.”

Rainbow grinned. “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have someone to help me warm up before we get to the main event. Besides, if we’re both gonna be changing things up and experimenting with new lists, it only makes sense to have a practice partner.”

“Trying out new stuff is where a lot of the fun comes in,” I agreed. “Whether it’s Dash finding a way to make all-out crazy work or me being a bit more grounded. I mean, even with my more focused list-building there’s plenty of room to try new things.”

“Yeah.” Rainbow smirked and bumped her hip against mine. “As long as we’re having fun, there’s no wrong way to do it.”

“Well, if it’s in a tournament we do kind of have to follow all the rules,” I pointed out. “I think your first half-dozen ideas for the Legion of Awesome involved lists that didn’t follow the force organization rules.” I was fine with ignoring one or two of those rules for a fun game between just the two of us, but when it was playing for keeps at an official event...

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “I meant more generally, butthead.” She smirked and tapped my nose. “And speaking of fun, maybe next time I pull a prank you’ll be smart and join up. If you’re gonna whine about my cover story, help me come up with a better one.”

I shrugged. “Maybe, depends on what you’re doing. If you want me to be your prank tactician, you gotta run those plans by me first.”

“Yeah, yeah...” Rainbow glanced down at Nightmare Moon’s army case. “You need any help getting that loaded up?”

“I've got it.” She took the case up to a car that looked vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t quite place it. She shut the army case in her trunk, then turned back to us. “Though if you’re going to do any more pranks, perhaps you shouldn’t do them at school.”

Rainbow scoffed. “But that’s the best place to...” She trailed off, frowning. “Wait, I didn’t say anything about the two of us doing any pranks at school.”

Nightmare Moon cleared her throat. “The two of you are obviously still school-aged. Where else would you be doing pranks?”

“At home?” I pointed out. “We’ve got time after school and on the weekends, and I’ve got two little sisters who deserve to be ruthlessly crushed for crimes of existing and being younger than me. And also bratty and stuff.”

“Plus it’s always fun to mess with your friends,” Rainbow pointed out. “Really, they’re the best ones to prank, since you know they’ll get that it’s all in good fun.” She frowned and shook her head. “And really, why would you even care if we’re doing pranks at school?”

I frowned and shook my head. “Okay, maybe I’m going crazy, but I could swear I’ve seen that car before.” I tried to think about it, but I couldn’t quite place it. There was definitely something familiar...

Nightmare Moon coughed and shuffled back. “Well, I better get going. There are some things I need to do around the house before the work week...”

Rainbow narrowed her eyes, studying her exposed jawline carefully. “So Kicker ... you think maybe you recognize her car from that time you parked in the faculty lot?” Nightmare Moon’s jaw twitched like she was struggling to restrain herself, and Rainbow’s eyes widened. “No way. It can’t be ... Vice-Principal Luna?!”

I stared at her for a bit. “Holy crap, you’re right!”

Nightmare Moon sighed and pulled her hood back, revealing her face. There was enough heavy makeup to obscure her features, but now that I knew she was Luna it was impossible to un-see it. “I suppose it was inevitable someone would recognise me, despite my best efforts.”

Rainbow stared up at her, struggling to come up with any words. I managed to recover a bit faster. “So ... wow. Okay, I have so many questions. Let’s start with something simple. What’s the deal with the costume?”

Vice-Principal Luna sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “It makes things far less complicated for everyone. Most of the other players here are either current students or recent enough ones that it would still be awkward for them if I walked into the store as ... myself. I would hardly want to ruin everyone’s afternoon just because I wanted a game.”

“Okay, I get that.” I certainly would’ve felt weird about trying to play the game against Luna, or even doing it while she was watching us. Shining Armor was probably the only player there who wouldn’t have been weirded out by the whole thing, and that was just because he went to Crystal Prep instead of CHS.

“Plus it’s one of those chain of command things Cloud’s always going on about,” Rainbow piped up. “You know, the whole ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ thing you always hear army guys talking about in movies.” I resisted the urge to point out that those two principles had nothing to do with each other. “Kinda hard to take the Vice-Principal seriously if you see her pitting her squad of mutant zombie ogres against a bunch of ninja elves.”

“Quite,” Vice-Principal Luna agreed. “That’s one of the reasons it’s always been something of an unwritten rule that students and school staff shouldn’t mingle outside school environs.”

“And breaking that rule would make the PTA a PITA,” I concluded.

“Language, Miss Kicker,” Vice-Principal Luna chided.

“I knew half the acronyms you used involved dirty words,” Rainbow mumbled, nudging me.

“But yes,” Luna continued. “Doubtless someone would make a fuss. And regardless, it’s not exactly fun if my students worry about playing their best because they don’t want me to hold a grudge, or letting me win in the hope of currying favor. Not that I would, but...” She shrugged helplessly. “The circumstances would make the entire situation very uncomfortable for all involved. Which is why I would prefer it if you two didn’t go all around school telling everyone about this.”

“Yeah. I guess it would suck if people overreacted and got you into a bunch of trouble over a little harmless fun.” Rainbow pointedly crossed her arms over her chest.

Luna turned to her with a raised eyebrow. “I think the school’s janitorial staff would disagree with your definition of ‘harmless’.”

“Still, maybe you could go a little easy on her?” I suggested. “I mean, it was just Rainbow being her usual awesome and kinda silly self. Maybe just do something like make her help clean up the pool instead? I’m sure she’s learned her lesson.”

“Yeah!” Rainbow nodded along. “I totally learned my lesson, and I promise I won’t do it ever again. Like Pinkie’d say, cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Luna fixed the full weight of her skeptical gaze on Rainbow. “You were just discussing your plans for your next school prank with Cloud before you found out who I was.” Rainbow flinched and shuffled, prompting Luna to carry on. “I presume that what you are actually promising with that intentionally vague pronoun is that you’ll never turn the school pool into jello again, not that you won’t perform any more pranks at all.”

“Damn, she’s good,” Rainbow mumbled under her breath.

Luna sighed and leaned against her car. “That said ... plainly getting three weeks of detention has done nothing to deter you from pranking if you’re already planning your next stunt. In light of that, perhaps we should consider something a bit less conventional.”

Rainbow perked up, a cautiously optimistic smile working its way onto her lips. “Oh yeah?”

I saw an opening and took it. “She is a pretty good painter, and you did mention you were about to get a bunch of new models.”

Luna thought about it for a moment, then chuckled and nodded. “Well, I suppose there’s no harm in seeing what she can do. At the very least, she can take care of priming, assembling, glueing, and base-coating everything. It’s a better use for her time than what Ms Harshwhinny tells me she usually gets up to in detention.”

“Homework?” Rainbow suggested.

“Napping while trying to make it look like you’re doing homework,” Luna corrected. “Or trying to find ways of staving off boredom that aren’t quite noticeable enough to get caught. If you’re in detention, we might as well have you do something useful.”

“Works for me,” Rainbow agreed. “Maybe we can even fit in a couple practice games once all that’s done? I mean, what’s the point of new models if you can’t try ‘em out?”

“Perhaps,” Luna agreed with a faint grin. “Now if there’s nothing else, I do actually have other things I would like to take care of before the weekend is over.”

As Luna started to climb into her car Rainbow stopped her. “Hey, wait! Might wanna ditch the outfit, just in case anyone else recognizes you. I mean, if they see Nightmare Moon driving Luna’s car it’s not that hard to add two and two together.” She grinned as a new idea popped into her head. “Oooh! I just an awesome idea! You should get, like, a new super-secret Nightmare Moon Car with a custom paint job and stuff!”

Luna stared at her for several seconds, then sighed and shook her head. “You must think school administrators make far more than we actually do. I will see you two at school.” She grinned. “And at the gaming table, of course.”

I nodded along. “Looking forward to it.”

Rainbow smirked. “Next time I’ll be sure to kick your butt ... ma’am.”