//------------------------------// // Chapter 54 // Story: To Serve Bronies // by Fuzzy Necromancer //------------------------------// Somepony has to do something about this, Rainbow Dash thought. She wanted to add “and that pony is me!” but her legs had turned to jelly and her spine had turned to ice. She shook her wings, hovering, her limp legs dragging through the cloud. He hadn’t looked back, but the weird biped must have sensed her approach and known she was going to try to stop him, despite everything she’d said earlier. His next step was longer and faster. Rainbow Dash didn’t need this mess in her life. She’d saved Equestria two or three times and her daily life gave plenty of causes for drama and stress. She didn’t need to get tangled up in this clusterbuck. Alien monsters from another world that ate birds and fellow mammals like they were fried fish and hayburgers shouldn’t matter to her, but, well… Jamal had his own little filly, another weird monster…who heard all about these magical wonderful ponies from far away. How long would she wait for her daddy to show up at chorus or a spelling bee or whatever those weird things did? Her father had always been there for her. He was an embarrassing dumbass, but he’d been there, and- He couldn’t be series, she thought, flying hard at him with her mouth open and hooves outstretched. He was making some kind of big statement or trying to guilt-trip them out of eating him. Except if he made it off her house, it wouldn’t matter whether the unicorns ate him or not. At this height, he’d end up in bite-sized pieces without any work on their part. The crossbreezes where dangerous. He only had two spindly little legs to balance on. She was the fasted pony in Equestria, but she had to build up a head of steam. Everything turned really slow. She shot ahead like an arrow, ready to catch him, drag him back, say anything it took to calm him down. In the next step he took, as she came towards him, she could smell the sweat of the massed ponies beneath her, taste the bitter ozone and herb as spells and stink-bombs shot through the air, feel the cold air rippling across her flank and hear the outraged shriek of resisting winds. Jamal was too slow to duck. She wrapped her legs around his chest and arms, as if catching a bottled thunderstorm. It would have worked, if he hadn’t smeared his body with sesame oil. He slipped from her grasp and she shot onward, into a conjured fireball. Fortunately, the onion bomb and snowstorm put the fire out. # Deep down, Scootaloo knew that Rainbow Dash would save the day, but she wanted to try something herself. The idea might impress her, or earn her a saving-humans cutie mark, or just be fun. She’d noticed the odd scars on Reiko’s forelegs, well, forearms, and the burn marks in very odd places, like the inner thigh. More than that, there was something about the way the human held herself that spoke to Scootaloo. The way she flinched at loud noises, how she grabbed a tissue for Rainbow Dash before she even started to sneeze, that too-bright look in the eyes, the too-stiff stance, they all reminded her of, well, she knew what those things meant. Reiko had a cold determination in her eyes. She’d been muttering to herself, ever since Jamal took the thin metal and curled it into a cone. “He’s about to try something really stupid, I just know it,” Reiko said. Scootaloo had only met two humans in her entire lifetime, but that sounded pretty likely to her. “You can walk on clouds, right? You’re a pegasis,” Reiko said. “Duh,” Scootaloo said. “Can you walk on the underside of them?” “I uh…I never tried.” Scootaloo said. Reiko grabbed her by the sides. Scootaloo screamed. “What the-what are you doing?” “Testing fanon,” Reiko said. She pressed Scootaloo up against the ceiling, feet-first. “Try it.” Scootaloo put one hoof in front of the other, trying not to lose her cool. This was…strange. The human let go of her. She stayed there. “I’ve got a plan.” Scootaloo couldn’t shake the conviction that this particular human was about to do something even stupider. # Rarity caught the falling Rainbow Dash with Narcysiphus’s Naughty Net spell, impulsively, and then realized that she had used some very…esoteric, magic, right in front of everypony. That didn’t matter right now, though. What mattered was not letting the spell break, using the magic to hold Rainbow’s broken wing still and slow her decent enough that she wouldn’t fracture her forelegs on impact with the ground. Applejack leapt over the crowd to catch Rainbow Dash. She got tangled up in the net, but she didn’t complain when she hit the earth with a thud. They looked at each other. Applejack’s eyes were wary, but hopeful, probably reflecting the same guarded sense of relief hammering through her own heart. The steel returned to her friend’s face. She gently released the net spell and rushed to Rainbow’s side, only a few seconds after Applejack reached her. “Holy Celestia, are you okay?” Applejack shouted. “She’s obviously not!” Rarity shouted. She pulled out her feinting couch and gently lifted Rainbow Dash onto it. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous to move somepony when they might have broken limbs, you sodbusting sapsucker?” Applejack asked. “Wait,” Rainbow Dash croaked. Her feathers were smoldering and edged with ice. Her eyes were unfocused. “How’d you guys get up here?” she asked. Rarity and Applejack exchanged another look. It said “after this, I am fully prepared to provide you with an all-expenses-paid vacation in painland, and possibly a colonic provided through the medium of my hoof thrust far enough up your anus to give you chest pains, but right now we’re two enlightened mares with a mission.” “I got bandages and quick-setting cast materials. You got a pain spell and disinfectant?” Applejack said. “Eeyup,” Rarity said, holding back a smile. “Hey, hey Rarity,” Rainbow Dash said. “Yes, dear?” Rarity asked. “I’m a flying horse!” Rainbow Dash gasped. “Isn’t that cool? And you’re a pointy horse!” “I know dear,” Rarity said, pumping magical painkillers through her close friend’s bloodstream. It had been a cold and bitter day, but suddenly, Rarity felt a lot warmer.