Sun Ray and her two younger siblings arrived at school for their second day. Sun Ray was very excited to see her brand new friends again.
“Hey, Sun Ray!” Waterfall, Sun Ray’s cousin, exclaimed. Sun Ray looked over and saw her cousins, Waterfall and Icy Breeze waving to her. Sun Ray excitedly galloped over to them.
“Waterfall! Icy Breeze! Yesterday I had the most amazing day. Me, Fluffball, and Jany all became the third generation of the Cutie Mark Crusaders!” Sun Ray beamed.
“The cutie mark what?” Waterfall asked, confused.
“My mom and her friends were the second generation of Cutie Mark Crusaders. It’s a group where we try to get our cutie marks! Great-aunt Scootaloo and Great-Aunt Apple Bloom were two of the original members! Along with Fluffball and Jany’s Great-Aunt Sweetie Belle.” Waterfall gaped in astonishment and Sun Ray smiled.
“That is so cool!” Waterfall said.
“Yeah,” Icy Breeze agreed.
Sun Ray was looking for her two new friends but didn’t see them anywhere. Although she knew that her family was always early for things. Suddenly, she saw two ponies flying.
“Are those them?” Sun Ray asked. She pointed to the two figures flying towards them. When they came clearer into view, she realized that they were two pegasi, not an earth pony and a part-changeling.
“Hey, PhoenixTDM” Icy Breeze waved to one of them. She had teal fur and blue wings, and her mane was turquoise and pink. There was a younger colt flying next to her, and Sun Ray recognized him from her new class.
The female pony, who Icy Breeze had called PhoenixTDM, landed next to Icy Breeze.
“Hi, Icy! You look nice today,” She complimented. Icy Breeze blushed and responded, “Thanks. You look really pretty.”
“Awww,” Waterfall said, “PhoenixTDM, Icy Breeze has a huge crush on you. He talks about you all the time at home!”
Icy Breeze’s expression turned embarrassed as he quickly responded, “NO I DON’T!”.
“I know that my sister has a crush on Icy Breeze!” The blue colt said. PhoenixTDM looked at her brother and whispered, “Shut up!”
“Well, Icy didn’t even hear me, anyways,” He responded. Sun Ray looked to Icy Breeze, and sure enough, he wasn’t paying attention. He was staring at a tree, which Sun Ray knew meant he was daydreaming. Icy Breeze always stared at something really intently when daydreaming.
“Icy Breeze, let’s find Light Heart and Mac!” PhoenixTDM said. Icy Breeze agreed and they both walked away.
“Sun Ray, have you met Lucas yet?” Waterfall asked.
“No,” Sun Ray responded. Waterfall turned to the blue colt and said, “Lucas, meet Sun Ray. Sun Ray, meet Lucas." The two shook hooves and introduced each other.
“So, when do you think Icy Breeze and PhoenixTDM are going to get together?” Waterfall asked.
“Hmmm, I dunno. But it’s obvious they like each other. Maybe on Hearts and Hooves Day? It’s September right now, and Hearts and Hooves Day is in February… How many months apart is that?” Sun Ray asked.
“Can’t you count? It’s really easy” Lucas asked. Sun Ray looked down, embarrassed.
“Lucas, she has a disability called dyscalculia. It’s where you have trouble with math and struggle with the concepts of it. She has a hard time doing basic math because of it,” Waterfall explained.
“Oh! I didn’t know that. Sorry, Sun Ray! That was rude of me,” Lucas apologized. Sun Ray smiled and accepted his apology. She now felt even worse about what she said to Jany the day before. She had forgotten what it was like to be treated differently for something “not normal”.
“Also today is the 6th of September, so the 14th of February would be in 5 months plus a few days,” Lucas said.
“How did you do that so quickly!?” Sun Ray asked.
“I’m really fast at mental math. I inherited that trait from my dad, who always says he has a calculator brain ,” Lucas explained. Sun Ray nodded and wished she had the same trait. It was very annoying to not be able to do simple calculations, like 7+6 off the top of her head.
“Hi, Sun Ray!” She heard. Sun Ray turned around and saw Jany and Fluffball. Fluffball was in her earth pony form again, like the last day at school.
“Fluffball and Jany! Hi!” Sun Ray said. She hugged her two friends. Then, Sun Ray introduced them to her cousin and her new friend, Lucas.
“Wait, you two don’t have cutie marks, either!” Sun Ray exclaimed, “Would you like to join the CMC with us?”
“Nah, I’m not really worrying about getting my cutie mark,” Lucas told them.
“Me, neither,” Waterfall said. Sun Ray was disappointed but was still happy that she had new friends.
Fluffball’s expression turned confused. “Waterfall? I’m not trying to be rude, but why do you have a muzzle like a colt?”
“I have a condition where I was born with colt parts and filly parts. And about one in every 400 foals are born with this condition. But I identify as a filly,” Waterfall explained.
“Ohhh okay,” Fluffball responded, smiling.
“Sun Ray!” Somepony called. Sun Ray turned around to find her younger twin siblings standing next to a red pegasus filly with magenta hair and azure-blue eyes and a brown earth colt with dark brown hair and light green eyes.
“Look, these are our new friends!” Thunderstrike exclaimed. Sun Ray smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Sun Ray! What are your names?” Lucas looked over at the four young foals and said, “Oh, hey, Kaia.”
“Hi, Lucas!” The red pegasus exclaimed.
“You know her?” Waterfall and Sun Ray asked at the same time. Lucas nodded, “She’s my cousin.”
“Cool!” Sun Ray exclaimed. She turned to her siblings and their friends, “Nice to meet you, Kaia! And who is this colt?” She asked.
“I’m Bullseye!” he yelled. Sun Ray noticed a scar under his right eye.
“How did you get that scar?” she asked.
“Last year I was at my aunt and uncle’s farm way out in Dodge Junction. A bull charged at me and his horn hit my face - right under my eye! Then, it started charging at me again but I grabbed a red flag that was on the fence and held it up and the bull stopped! Then I got my cutie mark.” He explained.
Fluffball, Jany, and Sun Ray all gaped in astonishment. Jany was the first to speak, “You’re only like 5 years old and you already have a cutie mark!?” Bullseye nodded.
Kaia spoke up, “I'm 5, too, and I got my cutie mark when I was 4! I got the winning goal for my peewee soccer team!”
“Woah…” Sun Ray said, astonished that such young kids already had their cutie marks. Finally, the bell rang for school to start.
After school, Sun Ray, Fluffball, and Jany all stood outside of school with all the other fillies and colts, waiting for their parents to come to pick them up.
“I was wondering… Since we heard two cutie mark stories today, we should go around asking ponies we know how they got their cutie marks!” Fluffball said.
Sun Ray liked that idea, “What if we ask my cousin, Icy Breeze? He got his cutie mark a long time ago, I think. I was only two or three years old and barely remember him telling me about it.” Her two friends agreed with her and they started looking for Icy Breeze.
“There he is!” Sun Ray pointed towards the light purple pegasus colt, who was talking with PhoenixTDM and two unicorns. The three fillies trotted towards him.
“Hi, Icy!” Sun Ray greeted.
“Hi, Sun Ray! These are my friends, Light Heart and Mac. You met PhoenixTDM this morning. Guys, this is my cousin, Sun Ray,” He introduced. The three fillies explained to them how they wanted to hear cutie mark stories to help them better understand how cutie marks work and how they appear.
“I got my cutie mark when PhoenixTDM and I became best friends in kindergarten. My special talent is friendship and spreading love and kindness,” Light Heart explained.
“I got mine the summer before fourth grade when I made mac and cheese for the first time! My special talent is making mac and cheese,” Mac said.
“I got mine a few months ago when I realized that I have three special talents, art, Minecraft, and scootering!” PhoenixTDM said. The three fillies were amazed that somepony could have three special talents.
“What about you, Icy?” Sun Ray asked.
“Well, I got my cutie mark when I was five on the first day of summer vacation and-” He was cut off by Sun Ray’s Aunt Apple Blossom, who was Icy Breeze’s mom, saying, “Icy, Waterfall, it’s time to go home!”
“I guess I’ll have to tell you later, then,” Icy told them. Icy Breeze and his sister flew off with their mother towards Cloudsdale. Sun Ray turned to her two friends, “What should we do now? I really wanted to know how he got his cutie mark!”
“How about we go back in time!? Fluffball and I have chaos powers so we can do it!” Jany suggested. Sun Ray and Fluffball absolutely loved the idea.
“Okay, so how many years ago did he get his cutie mark? He said it was when he was five. How old is he now?” Jany asked.
“Uhh… He’s 10. So uhh four years ago? I don’t know.” Sun Ray guessed.
“Five years,” Fluffball corrected. Sun Ray felt extremely stupid and dumb because her friends could do simple subtraction and she couldn’t.
“Let’s go to the past!!” Jany yelled. Suddenly, All of the fillies and colts were gone. Sun Ray looked around in confusement. It was sunny and warm. The trees were green instead of fall colors.
“Did we just go back in time?” Sun Ray asked. Jany nodded, happily. Sun Ray led the two of them to Icy Breeze’s house in Cloudsdale. Luckily, Jany could land on the clouds since she had chaos powers.
The three fillies looked in the window of Icy Breeze’s room where he was sleeping.
“Icy Breeze looks so tiny!” Sun Ray exclaimed. Jany agreed, “Yeah! Well he is only 5 years old!” Suddenly he woke up, yawned, and left his bedroom.
“He’s leaving! We have to follow him!” The three fillies flew over to the front of his cloud house and it abruptly opened, with Icy Breeze flying out.
The friends quickly darted behind a cloud so he wouldn’t see them and he started flying down to Ponyville.
They silently followed him and then he landed in a park. The three fillies landed close behind him and hid in a nearby bush.
They watched him as he started strolling in the park. Sun Ray was getting uncomfortable. The bush was scratching her and the sun felt hotter than lava.
Icy Breeze was standing in front of a puddle and said, “I wish this was ice!” He dipped his hoof into the puddle and then it turned into ice! Sun Ray was amazed and saw that Icy Breeze looked startled. He put his hoof in the water again and the whole entire puddle turned into ice. Sun Ray saw Icy Breeze’s blue ice cube cutie mark appear on his flank.
Icy Breeze looked very startled and surprised at the ice, but then flew off back to Cloudsdale without noticing his new cutie mark.
“THAT WAS SO COOL! Pun intended” Jany jumped out of the bush and onto the ground. Fluffball and Sun Ray both climbed out of the bush.
“Ew, I’m covered in leaves,” Sun Ray said. She started brushing off the leaves from her body and hair, when suddenly the leaves on her and her friends all disappeared!
“Woah! Where did it go? Oh yeah, you’ve got chaos magic,” Sun Ray said. Jany giggled. The three fillies walked over to the ice and marveled about how amazing it was. Fluffball stomped on the ice until it broke into little bits, and then Jany lifted it with her magic and poured it onto the three of them.
“Brrr that’s so cold!” Fluffball said. Sun Ray thought that the freezing cold bits of ice felt great against the intense heat of the sun beating down on her. But that thought left her with a question:
“I wonder how Icy Breeze made ice? He’s just a pegasus, not a unicorn,” Sun Ray said.
“Maybe we should ask him! Jany, can you take us back to the future? I can’t because I have weaker magic than you and also I haven’t learned time spells yet,” Fluffball asked. Jany nodded but then she asked, “Wait… How many years do we go? I forgot...”
“Four!” Sun Ray said, proudly. She was almost 100% positive that it was the right amount of years.
Jany smiled and said “Thanks, Sun Ray! Okay, time traveling to the future four years on the second day of school!”
Suddenly, Sun Ray was back in front of the schoolhouse. All of the fillies and colts were still gone, but that was because it was way after school ended. The trees were back to being the beautiful fall colors and the weather was nice and cool again.
“Let’s go find Icy Breeze!” Sun Ray said. The three fillies flew up to his house in Cloudsdale and knocked on the fluffy cloud door, but there was no response.
“I wonder where he is,” Jany asked.
“Maybe he’s in Ponyville!” Fluffball suggested. So, they started flying down to Ponyville.
When the three fillies landed, they started walking around looking for Sun Ray’s older cousin. This was one of Sun Ray’s first times walking in Ponyville. She had only really flown above it and looked down, all the ponies looking like ants. Ponyville was so much different than Cloudsdale. Ponies were buying things at the stands, planting flowers, and she saw two colts climbing a nearby tree.
“Look, there’s a big crowd over there! Let’s go see what they’re looking at,” Fluffball pointed towards a large group of ponies. Sun Ray noticed that Fluffball had changed back into her disguised form, a dark red pony with brown hair.
The three fillies galloped towards the crowd and pushed their way to the front. There was the filly that Sun Ray had met earlier that day, PhoenixTDM. She was riding a shiny blue scooter.
“The great lightning soars on her scooter, doing backflips and amazing tricks!” she shouted. PhoenixTDM then opened her wings, put her back hoof on the ground to kick off, and her scooter started going lightning fast. She steered the scooter towards a ramp and went up it, soaring in the air and landing a perfect backflip.
The whole crowd started cheering for her, and Sun Ray and her friends were amazed. Then, Sun Ray saw PhoenixTDM look at her flank, which was blank! PhoenixTDM said something Sun Ray couldn’t hear because of all the cheering and flew away with her scooter, disappointed.
“That was PhoenixTDM! Without a cutie mark! But we just saw her today and she told us how she got it!” Sun Ray said.
“What the hay?” Jany responded, “Did we go back to the wrong year?” Suddenly, Sun Ray remembered something. When Jany had asked Icy Breeze’s age, she said 10. He was five when he had gotten his cutie mark and she had said it was four years ago, but Fluffball had corrected her saying five!
“We’re one year off! It was five years, not four! I remember now,” Sun Ray told them.
“Oh, yeah! You accidentally said four this morning and I corrected you,” Fluffball responded. Then, the ponies around Sun Ray were different. There wasn’t a giant crowd anymore and there were different ponies everywhere.
“Are we back?” Fluffball asked.
“I hope so,” Jany answered. The three fillies decided to go find Icy Breeze and ask him. They flew back up to Cloudsdale and luckily he was actually at his house this time.
“Icy Breeze! Did we just ask your friends how they got their cutie marks earlier today?” Sun Ray asked as soon as he opened the door.
“Uhh yeah. Why?” He answered. Sun Ray, Fluffball, and Jany all sighed in relief. Icy Breeze looked confused, “What happened?”
“We went back in time and watched you get your cutie mark! But then when we tried to go back we went to the wrong year and then we saw your marefriend PhoenixTDM do a backflip on her scooter trying to get her cutie mark and then we came back to this year,” Sun Ray explained.
“Okay, first of all, she’s not my marefriend! And second of all, how did you guys go back in time? And how are those two earth ponies standing on a cloud?”
“Fluffball and I have chaos powers cause we’re related to Discord! Fluffball is also part changeling but she is disguised right now,” Jany told him.
“Ohhh, okay,” Icy Breeze said.
“Icy, how can you turn water into ice? You’re just a pegasus,” Sun Ray asked.
“Honestly, I don’t know…” Icy Breeze replied.
“Is there any form of magic in your family? Like did anypony enchant you or something?” Fluffball asked.
“The story! The one that Uncle Thunder Dash tells us all the time!” Sun Ray realized.
“Oh my celestia! That’s it!” Icy Breeze turned away and yelled, “MOM! Can you come here?” A light green pegasus flew towards the door.
“Sun Ray! What a nice surprise. What brings you here? Oh, I see you’ve brought some friends, too! Aww, hi, Jany! I met you when you were a little foal! My husband and I grew up being best friends with your aunt, Screwball!”
“Hi! Also, this is my cousin, Fluffball, but she is in a disguised form right now,” Jany said.
“Aww, I’m so glad that you two are friends with my niece!” Apple Blossom said. Sun Ray was also glad that she met Fluffball and Jany.
“Mom, you know how Discord gave you wings? Do you think that some of that chaos magic got passed down to me and that’s how I can freeze things?” Icy Breeze asked. Apple Blossom looked at him, deep in thought.
“Well, it sounds like the most reasonable explanation!” Apple Blossom said.
“Wow, you’ve got a tiny bit of chaos magic! That’s so cool!” Sun Ray said.
"Yeah, it is!" Icy agreed. Sun Ray was excited that her friends had something in common with her family. Maybe in the future they would find out more things that the chaos family had in common with the Dash family.