The new prank turned out to be switching salad dressing with a bottle of hot sauce masquerading as a bottle of salad dressing with no one noticing. Knowing Twilight’s previous inability to handle hot sauce, the pranking duo applied the new prank to her as she sat down with a salad outside a restaurant for lunch. Pinkie distracted Twilight by suddenly appearing to her side and rambling on at her about anything and everything – effectively taking forever to say nothing – before disappearing as quickly as she appeared without letting Twilight utter a single syllable; during this time, Rainbow swiftly and quietly flew down from a cloud above and hovered next to Twilight on the side opposite to which she was facing, silently switched the bottles, gave a quick wink signal to Pinkie and retreated back up and landed on her cloud. She laid down with her head looking over the side of the fluffy surface as the pink pony disappeared from sight and materialised inside a bush beneath her. Both of them closely followed the actions of their unicorn friend as she slowly returned to her meal – no doubt confused by Pinkie’s actions before passing them off as ‘Pinkie just being Pinkie Pie’ - with steadily evolving smiles, eventually having to stifle their giggles with their hooves as Twilight applied the disguised hot sauce to her salad. Ultimately, they found themselves rolling on their backs laughing loudly as the Princess’ most faithful student ran for the nearest water source after her first bite, smoke billowing from her ears.
The rest of the day passed in a similar fashion, the duo playing tricks and pranks on different ponies around Ponyville until late into the afternoon, as the autumn sun was beginning to slip below the horizon. After another episode of fooling a pony into getting sneezing powder on their nose, they decided to call it a day.
“That was a super-duper fun day Dashie!” Pinkie said with a cheery voice and an even bigger grin than the one she had seemed to have been holding all day. “We should do this again soon – pranking is twice as fun with you to help me!”
“Heh, sure Pinkie, today was a lot of fun” replied Dash, doing her best to hide the strain in her voice.
Pinkie didn’t seem to notice. “I better get home and check on gummy. See you later Dash!” said Pinkie while waving, before bouncing off in the direction of Sugarcube Corner as energetically as she had been all day.
Dash on the other hand waited until the joyful pink earth pony disappeared from view before letting her shoulders slouch and releasing an exhausted breath; luckily the particular street she was on was devoid of any other ponies, so no one saw her do so. Phew. Another impromptu day with Pinkie Pie. Going pranking with Pinkie was definitely fun but bloody hay was it tiring; every joint in her body was aching and she felt not far off from the way she did after the Running of the Leaves. Not that she’d ever let anyone know that of course – she was the Iron Pony, she was too cool to be worn out by a bit of pranking, especially when Pinkie seemed to retain the same level of energy all day. Although, she was Pinkie Pie - she was known for her apparent boundless energy. Rainbow had no idea how the party pony achieved this limitless energy – probably from all the confectionery and such that she ate, though how she ate so many was another question itself – but she supposed it meant herself being worn out while the other pony remained effervescent wasn’t such a bad thing. Besides, her aches and pains included her jaw and stomach as a result from simply laughing too much, so it wasn’t all bad. In a bittersweet sort of way.
With a loud groan, she remembered she had yet to practise her stunts; as if she wasn’t tired enough already. No matter, she had tenacity (that new word Twilight had taught her that she used whenever she could), at least when it came to the Wonderbolts. She had told herself she would do them, and do them she would.
Giving herself a quick shake in an attempt to drive the exhaustion off her, she took flight in the direction of her cloud home, albeit at a slower pace than she would normally. Upon reaching it, she landed on a cloud outside in order to do a few stretches in order to work out any kinks and prepare herself, then once again took off into the air to begin her stunts.
She quickly found herself growing frustrated as even the most basic of stunts turned out to be a struggle. Loops were uneven and messy, looking like they were scribbled out by a foal using Rainbow Dash as a pencil and the steadily darkening red sky as parchment; any attempt at barrel rolls caused her to lose control and start flying off to one side until she crashed into something, be it a tree or the ground. Only once or twice had she managed to regain control before living up to her old ‘Rainbow Crash’ nickname.
“C’mon Dash, you can do this! They’re easy stunts! Concentrate – get it right!” she chastised herself. “If you can’t pull this off, your name isn’t Rainbow Dash!”
Several failed attempts later, she decided her name wasn’t Rainbow Dash - at least not tonight. She was just too tired. Seriously, how did Pinkie Pie do it? That inexhaustible energy she has was all used on throwing parties and practical jokes. With that energy, Rainbow Dash would be unstoppable; nothing would be able to stand in her way of performing sonic rainbooms, winning competitions, joining the Wonderbolts… and she wouldn’t get tired from pranking. Maybe she should ask Pinkie the secret to limitless energy?
Nah, assuming she got one the answer would likely be as incomprehensible as one of Twilight’s lectures about magic. Possibly more so.
Giving a final despondent sigh, with her head and legs dropping, she began to fly the short distance to the door of her home and sweet, comfortable sleep. As she did, she took a cursory glance along the horizon to see the effect the rays of the almost completely hidden sun had on the mountains and trees in the distance. The city of Canterlot looked beautiful; the sun shining off its side gave it a golden glow, as if to signify its magnificence. The mountain it rested on was also enhanced by the rays of light, appearing prominent, like it was a knight in shining armour protecting the city attached to it.
She looked over the Everfree Forest. The very treetops were caught by the remaining sunlight, giving the trees an odd look, as if the very tops of them were in the middle of autumn. The mountains too were illuminated by the light, giving a warm and comforting backdrop to the expanse of wild and dangerous forest before them. It was here that something caught her eye. In front of the mountains, hovering in the sky, appeared to be a black blob. It looked like it was bubbling too.
Considering the quantity of the mountain it concealed, she judged it to be quite large. What was it though?
It was over the Everfree Forest, a place where everything moves and acts on its own with no intervention from ponies, be it plants, animals or… clouds. A storm? It was in the sky, so that would make sense. A very large storm. Dangerously large in fact; if that storm moved towards Ponyville it would cause havoc on the town. Everfree storms are notoriously difficult and perilous to tackle, and this storm was huge – all the pegasi in town probably wouldn’t be able to make even a dent in it. The only course of action for the ponies of the town might be to board up the windows, barricade the doors, bundle up together and hope for the best. The destruction to the town could be even greater than the… incident with the parasprites; many ponies could find themselves injured and homeless. Her cloud home would be fine as it would be above the level of the storm clouds – she hoped – but the rest of town… what if all of Ponyville was decimated? What if something bad happened to one of her friends? To all of her friends?
Nah, she was completely over exaggerating; the storm wasn’t that big, and it was highly unlikely going to head towards Ponyville anyway. If it did, Rainbow Dash could surely find a way to change its direction or break it up into little pieces. Yep, there was no need to worry, everything was just fine. Or at least it would be, as soon as she had some much needed sleep; that was likely what was causing her overstatements in the first place.
Shooing away her outlandish worries, she flew through the door of her cloud home. Making her way into her bedroom, she flopped down onto her cushiony mattress, and without bothering she pull the duvet over her, she let her eyelids collapse and the resulting darkness take her into deep slumber filled only with loud snoring.
Author's notes: Meant to say, I hope the prank at the beginning is plausible; I can be a freak when it comes to food and as such, I have never eaten salad, let alone use salad dressing. Too boring a taste for me personally, but considering ponies are vegetarian (and I've never done pranking either), it was the only thing I could come up with.