//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: The Walk // Story: The Three Strange Ponies // by Kama and Hallie //------------------------------// The two pegasi mares and the three strangers walk through the town of Ponyville, the mares leading the way while the newcomers look around to take in more of their surroundings. They all stared in awe at the citizens of the town, they seemed to be marveled at seeing other ponies. After a while of observing, they turn toward the two biggest and most eye-catching structures in the town in front of them. "Hey, what's that huge crystal tree building thing over there?" Doofus asked. "Oh, that was Twilight's old castle before she moved to Canterlot. Now it's mostly Starlight who lives there." Rainbow Dash answered for him. "Wait, so this 'Twilight', is she like some sort of queen or princess? And you're friends with her? That's so cool!" Smiley Face said enthusiastically, leaping with joy during the last sentence. "They didn't even answer your question yet." Question Mark mumbled mostly to himself. "Yeah, she's the princess and the ruler of Equestria now, pretty cool. We don't really have queens that much, for some reason." This visibly confused the young colt. "What? That doesn't make any sense. How do you have kings and princesses but not queens? Like, how does that work?" "Well...honestly, I don't really know. I don't really look into that sort of stuff." "And you're friends with the ruler of all the land?! Oh my god, that's awesome! Most of our interactions with our government are usually pretty bad and end up negatively." Smiley Face continued to admire. "Yeah, individuals like you are the last ones I'd expect to have good relations with the government. Miss Skittle Hair over there looks like someone the government would arrest constantly for always causing a scene on the streets." Question Mark added, which only caused his friends to roll their eyes. "Yeah, Twilight. Feels like only yesterday when she was just that dorky egghead I bumped into the mud while flying, now she's sitting on a throne in Canterlot running everything. She grew up so fast, though not as fast as I can fly, hehe." Rainbow momentarily reminisced. "Uh-huh, yeah. So uh, this Canterlot...is it supposed to be the capital? If so, where is it?" Question Mark asked showing absolutely no interest in what Rainbow was saying, contrasting his filly friend who was on the verge of tearing up. "Oh, Canterlot's right on top of that mountain over there, see? And yeah, it is pretty much the center of all of Equestria." Rainbow Dash pointed toward the mountain in the distance in which the three strangers followed her gaze, seeing a silhouette of a huge city and castle on the side of the mountain peak. The sight of which made them stare in awe and amazement. "Woah..." Doofus muttered. "So awesome." Smiley said breathlessly with wide eyes. "Ugh! Can you stop saying something is awesome every five fucking minutes?!" Question Mark yelled at the pink filly, it seemed whatever patience he was storing has reached its limit. "Language, young stallion!" Fluttershy yelled. Not too aggressive, but a little loud for what Rainbow is used to. "What?! Come on! This chick's the one pissing me off and I'm the one who gets the scolding?!" Question Mark attempted to defend himself and shift the blame to his dark pink friend. "Behave yourself. Stop being a big meanie, or else you'll get...the Stare!" Fluttershy said with dramatic intensity at the last part, closing her face with the colt's and staring at him with one wide eye. Question Mark did nothing but scoffed. "Pfffttt! What? The Stare? Why would I be threatened by a stare? What am I, six years old? If you're gonna threaten me, you should at least use something threatening." Rainbow knew the colt had just made a big mistake, and Fluttershy was about to unleash all of Tartarus on him. Once the colt stopped talking, Fluttershy stared as intensely as she could. This made the colt jerk his head back in surprise and gave an uncomfortable look, which was exactly what the mares were expecting. Oddly enough, the colt's uncomfortableness didn't seem to come from the Stare, it was CAUSED by it but not for the reason Fluttershy might think. This was proven true as the colt's reaction as Fluttershy stared for seconds straight was: "....what're you doing?" Fluttershy continued to stare, a lot more intense this time. "Are you trying to scare me with that, 'cause it's not working. My mom can make more terrifying disapproving stares than that." That was enough to make Fluttershy stop. "W-what? I don't understand, that usually works." "Yeah, except for Discord." Rainbow added from behind her. "Jee, the inhabitants here must be weak as hell if all it takes to make them submit themselves is a stare from a quiet yellow broad with hair that makes her look like a rape victim." Question Mark says mockingly. Now this really pissed Rainbow off. The constant negative comments and rude behavior already annoyed her to her limits, but insulting one of her best friends like that was crossing the line, who did this colt think he was?! Rainbow Das stepped in front of Fluttershy and put herself between her friend and the colt in front of her. Rainbow stared him in the eyes with a face full of rage, while the colt just looked at her bored with a slight smirk. "Listen up, buddy! You do NOT insult me or my friends like that! Because if you do, I'm gonna teach you a lesson!" "Uh-huh. And what's the lesson?" "Oh, I'll tell you! I'll...uh...I'm gonna...er...oh, no." Rainbow tried to threaten the colt but stopped herself when she realized what that would mean, she almost threatened to harm a foal, and a colt nonetheless. She should never stoop that low because a foal said some bad, but he did insult her friend, so... But what Rainbow was thinking didn't stop the colt's mocking spree. "Wow, nothing? Yeah, kinda what I expected. Well, good thing you've got that prismatic mane so nobody notices the low density in your head, or would it be thick and high density? Is the inside of your skull solid or gas? Because either way there's no brain in there." Dash couldn't take it anymore, this colt just insulted her and her friend, and he thought he was so high and mighty with the way he spoke down to her. Rainbow lost control that moment, and let her body and anger speak first before her mind. She wished she calmed down sooner because she struck the colt with her hoof to his face. She didn't hit too hard, but it did leave a mark on his face. Rainbow's eyes widened and she winced as she saw what she had done, in the form of a big bruise on the side of the colt's face, a slight cut on the cheek, a bleeding gum, and a fallen out tooth. She's lucky she had some restraint, because who knows what she could've done if she released her full force on him. Question Mark looked back at her with either an enraged or merely irritated face trying to hide the pain. "OW! Okay, I'm sorry! Jeez, calm your tits." "Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry, I don't know what came over me! I didn't mean it! Are you alright?! Are you hurt?" Rainbow said frantically checking the colt's face. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. God, you're annoying." Question Mark tried pushing Rainbow's hooves away from his face. Both Smiley Face and Doofus Dweeb had completely different reactions to what had just occurred. Smiley looked completely shocked and worried about her friend as well, while Doofus just smiled and was clearly trying to hold back laughter. When Fluttershy noticed the panicking Rainbow Dash, she immediately trotted over to her to try and calm her down, saying all the usual things anypony would say in a situation like this and don't need to be mentioned. After Rainbow was assured that she was just angry and it wasn't her fault, she turned back to Question Mark who was rubbing the side of his face where Dash hit him. "Look, I'm really sorry. I wasn't thinking back there, and I shouldn't have done that especially to a foal. There's no excuse for what I just did..." "Well, technically there was a pretty good excuse for doing that." Doofus interrupted to add his input, which was followed by Smiley Face and even Question Mark agreeing with what he just said. "Yeah, well...the point is, that was really stupid for me to do and I understand if you're mad or hate me..." "Nah, it's alright. I deserved that." Question Mark said while waving his hoof at Rainbow. "Yeah, you kinda did." Smiley Face said from behind him. Rainbow was honestly surprised at how the colt responded, she at the very least expected him to hold a huge grudge against her after doing something like that, but he just brushed it off like it was no big deal. "R-really? You forgive me?" "Uh...yeah, sure." Question Mark answered plainly. "Ohmaigosh, thank you so much! I thought you'd just be mad at me." Rainbow said excitedly, feeling very moved by how the colt handled the situation, though Question Mark just responded by raising his eyebrow. "Wow, Question Mark. I didn't expect you to be somepony who would be this calm after all I've seen from you." Fluttershy said just as surprised as everyone else. "I mean, she's not the first per...one who's wanted to hit me in the face whenever I speak, she just happens to be the first one to do something about it." Question Mark shrugged. "I'm one of them, by the way." Doofus Dweeb raised his hoof. "Shut up, Dweeb! No one cares about your contribution!" the colt yelled to the stallion behind him. "Well, let's just all agree to put this whole mess behind us and just continue our walk to the castle." Fluttershy cut between the colt and the stallion. "Yeah, let's just do that." Smiley Face joined in what Fluttershy was doing and acted all 'fun counselor'-like towards her two friends. When the mares started to continue the walk, Doofus said one more thing to the colt. "You know, I wish I could've done that to you." "I wish I could do that to everyone I know and everyone in the world." Question Mark added his own idea After that they continued their walk. Not even a minute after continuing their walk to the Castle of Friendship in silence, the colt spoke up again. "Hey, uh...Can we go back to the questions and answers thing?" Rainbow Dash was still a little nervous about speaking to the colt after what she did to him, but considering the colt seemed to be putting the whole ordeal behind him she figured she would as well and answer whatever questions he may have. "Sure, go ahead, dude." "Is there a story behind that crystal tree castle thing? I mean, it sticks out like an aristocrat in the slums amongst these cheap huts made of regular bricks and shitty haystack roofs." Fluttershy was about to scold Question Mark for swearing again, but Rainbow knew this would just annoy the colt again and cause another ruckus so she stopped her friend before she got to say anything. "Well, that's actually a really cool story, if you ask me. A few years ago when Twilight was still getting used to her princess duties and stuff, this really huge evil centaur named Tirek escaped from Tartarus stealing Equestria's magic." Rainbow explained in a way that dramatized Tirek's evilness. "Wait. Tartarus, centaurs and pegasuses? Isn't that like..." Smiley Face whispered to Question Mark yet again. "Yeah, I'm thinking it too." Question Mark whispered back. Gee, these kids really like whispering and keeping secrets, huh? Rainbow thought to herself. "Uh, before we go on, I wanna ask a few questions real quick." "Wow, you really like asking questions, huh?" Rainbow chuckled. "Well I'm a curious individual, and I like to research stuff as much as possible to get to the bottom of things." "Ha! Sounds like you could really get along well with Twilight." "Eh, I don't know. It could go two ways: I could either finally find someone who's as intelligent as I am and I can level with after spending a while in these two dry coconut's town where everyone's IQ is Antarctica's temperature in Celsius," the colt said while pointing to his two friends by his side which added to their annoyance. "Or I'll just find someone who's just as annoying as I am and in the end, it's just a fight to the death with boredom as the weapon." After Question Mark finished, he looked at Rainbow Dash, who was looking back at him with wide and confused eyes trying to digest what the colt just said. After realizing his long rant, Question Mark tried bringing the conversation back on track. "Actually, you know what? Let's just stop talking about me and you just answer my questions, otherwise we'll just lose track and get lost in the endless sea of conversation." "Uh, yeah. Let's just do that." "Okay, what was I gonna ask? Oh yeah, about Tartarus. Is it Cerberus, the three-headed dog who's guarding it?" "Yeah, it is. You know a few years ago before Twilight was even a princess, Cerberus left his post and caused some ruckus in the town. Twilight told us this might've caused Tirek to escape." "Uh-huh, and are there also hydras, chimeras, and minotaurs here as well?" "Oh, yeah. They're in the Everfree Forest where we found you, that place is crawling with all sorts of monsters like cragadiles and rocs." "Okay, we were right." Question Mark whispered to the pink filly beside him. "Wait, you're telling me you went through the Everfree without encountering a single monster? Damn, you guys are lucky." Rainbow said before getting a glare from Fluttershy for doing the exact thing they were encouraging the colt not to do, which Dash replied with an innocent smile and a quiet 'sorry'. "Anyway, sorry I interrupted your story about that T. Rex centaur guy. You may continue." Question Mark said to the cyan pegasus walking in front of him. "Oh, right. Where was I? Oh yeah, the princesses sent our friend Discord to hunt Tirek down, but Tirek must've said some stuff to him which made him betray us and help Tirek grow more powerful." Rainbow Dash continued. "Who's this Discord guy you keep mentioning?" Question Mark interrupted her yet again. "Discord's the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, he was once a big...meanie who tried to take over Equestria but I helped him embrace friendship and now he's our friend and he has helped us so many times." Fluttershy answered with enthusiasm. "You're friends with a princess and a chaos spirit, is there anything you guys CAN'T do?" Smiley Face said amazed like always. "Spirit of Chaos? Sounds like Nyarlathotep." Question Mark muttered to himself. Rainbow on the other hoof was getting a little irritated. "Dude, you want me to finish the story or not?" she shot at the colt. "Right, right, sorry. Do continue, I won't interrupt you anymore." Question Mark said waving his hoof. "Well, after Tirek betrayed Discord and fought Twilight and stuff, Discord apologized and gave Tirek's necklace to her which activated her element which turned out to be the final key to opening a chest that appeared when we returned the elements to the Tree of Harmony..." "What?" Question Mark and his two friends said completely baffled at what they were hearing, clearly having a hard time following what Dash was saying. "Eh, it's a long story." Rainbow tried to prevent herself from answering the strangers' questions. She was clearly exhausted answering them all and annoyed since everything they were asking were things everypony in Equestria should know by now. Like who doesn't know about the Elements of Harmony, Tirek's attack on Equestria, the way their society functions, and all that crap?! Those things are probably stuff they teach in schools by now or something. But since Rainbow knew that these three probably went through some weird and scary ordeals and can't remember anything, she decided to calm herself down and help them understand what they're dealing with. She's still not gonna answer every single one of their questions, though. Rainbow continued. "So we unlocked the chest, got superpowers and defeated Tirek and returned the magic to Equestria preventing its destruction, and then the chest floated away in some rainbow to that exact spot, and this huge castle just sprouted out of the ground which is now the Castle of Friendship." "Woah, cool. You guys must be like heroes to your entire land or something!" Smiley Face said awe-struck which irritated Question Mark. "Heroines, actually. And yeah, we kinda are." "That sounds like some DragonBall Z shit." Doofus said just as surprised at what he heard. "Yeah, that sounds badass and all. But Castle of Friendship? That sounds stupid as hell." Question Mark said. "I mean the name does sound kinda...frou-frou? Girly? I don't know. But it was quite a reward for all the things we did for those past years and thanks to the Map that appeared in the castle it made us help even more ponies and solve a lot more friendship problems than we thought we ever could. I mean, it even made Gilda and me friends again after hating each other for like, a couple years? But now we're cool, and she even started doing good stuff to other griffins in Griffinstone." Rainbow explained with memories flooding back in. "Friendship problems? Are those like international relationship issues or petty bickering among two brats?" Question Mark asked. "Well, it's pretty much any pony that's suffering some sort of personal problem like misunderstandings, fights, something that's harming their entire village or it can be really big dangerous problems like a supervillain trying to destroy the world!" Rainbow explained with her usual dramatization of stories. Smiley Face gets more intrigued by Rainbow's stories every second. "So other than a radar that tells you where someone's having a problem, the map can also function as a supervillain tracker? Tha..." "If you say 'that's so cool' one more time, I will rip your vocal cords out." Question Mark said to the slightly taller filly through tightly clenched teeth while holding out a folded hoof to her face. "Sorry..." she replied with a quiet voice looking away from the colt. "Yeah, that's what I used to call it when the Pony of Shadows got loose." Dash said pretending to not notice what the colt just said. Fluttershy angrily gestured to Rainbow to do something about how the colt just threatened his friend, but Rainbow just gestured back that she would, but she doesn't want things to get ugly between the mares and the colt considering the colt has a hobby of pissing ponies off. It could result in them harming an already damaged and confused colt. Thankfully Doofus was able to distract everypony from that. "Huh, so I guess you guys are like the..." "Avengers." "Justice League." Question Mark's two friends looked at him weirdly, which caused him to look worried. "I mean, I don't really like DC but you gotta admit they're pretty cool, too." "Huh, Justice League. I like that name. Maybe we could use that." Rainbow thought. "Yeah, just make sure none of us get sued." Question Mark mumbled to himself. "What?" "Nothing. About those 'friendship problems': I gotta say, it's kinda pathetic if you need the national hero...ines to solve your petty personal issues and bickering or whatever it is you go through, I don't know." "Well, you'd be surprised how those 'petty personal problems' could cause a lotta huge problems. I mean, just ask Starlight later." The five of them still haven't arrived at the castle, but they are getting close. They could start to see the school from where they were. "Um, hey. Can I ask one more question? I'm not gonna ask anymore after this, for now anyway." Question Mark broke the silence one more time. Man, this kid doesn't stop. Rainbow thought. But she decided to let the colt have his way this last time. "Alright, go ahead, kid." "What's that fancy chateau-looking building beside the castle on the side of that mound surrounded by waterfalls and a pond?" Question Mark pointed toward the school. "Oh, that's the School of Friendship. Twilight built that school to teach ponies and other creatures about 'respecting differences and communicating', basically teaching every creature about friendship values and whatnot. She used to be headmare there, but ever since she became Ruler of Equestria it's now run by Starlight." Rainbow explained. Smiley Face seemed happy and proud to hear that, Question Mark as expected, had a completely different reaction. "What?" the colt said flabbergasted like it was the most absurd thing he ever heard in his life. "Why? Is something wrong with that?" Rainbow asked, genuinely confused why the colt reacted the way he did. "I mean, I'm all for teaching respect and tolerance. But...a school of friendship? Seriously? And this is the princess who built that, so I'm guessing a lot of the country's finances are wasted on it. Shouldn't whatever that school is teaching be stuff we would've learned back in elementary school. I mean it's almost as stupid as building an entire museum just to teach people tolerance. Oh, wait, that exists? Why am I not surprised?!" Question Mark ranted mostly to himself. "Well, I don't see anything wrong with that. I think it's great that they take friendship as their main priority. We need more of what you guys are doing, especially where we come from." Smiley Face assured her friend. "Well I can definitely agree on that last part, but I disagree with the first. I think you ponies are way too obsessed with this whole friendship thing." "I wish I had real friends." Doofus Dweeb randomly added. "I mean come on, Castle of Friendship? School of Friendship? Friendship problems? Friendship lessons? Am I missing anything here?" Question Mark ranted again. "Well, Twilight is the Princess of Friendship, she formed the Council of Friendship consisting of her, Rainbow, me, and all our other friends, and our main belief is that friendship is magic." Fluttershy explained with a smile. Question Mark pursed his lips irritatingly while extending a hoof to Fluttershy's direction as if to present what she just said to prove a point. "See? Right there! I mean, don't get me wrong, we are social creatures so socializing is an important part of our lives but you guys aren't just romanticizing it, you're straight-up worshipping it. You're probably one of those weirdos who believe all that 'power of friendship' bullcrap, aren't ya?" "Hey, it's not bullcrap! It's real and it's helped us overcome so many obstacles over the years and even helped us saved Equestria's flank multiple times! Though I kinda agree that Twilight can get a little annoying with her friendship lectures, sometimes I wish I could tell her to shut up like Starlight did when we first met her. She constantly has to lecture somepony about sciency egghead stuff or morals every time somepony does something wrong." Rainbow Dash said. "Wow, this Twilight chick sounds like a fucking loser." Question Mark chuckled hearing what Dash said. The colt's comment caused Fluttershy to gasp and Rainbow Dash to be enraged a second time. "Hey! I told you not to talk about my friends like that, buddy!" Rainbow turned around and prodded her hoof to the colt's chest. "Or what? We both know you can't harm me 'cause if you do I'll report child abuse on your ass, Skittles. It would be a shame if that happened considering you're a national icon." Question Mark said with a slight smirk on his face. Rainbow hesitated, and eventually went back to walking. Behind the colt, his two friends looked at them with worried faces. "I mean, she seems to have this unhealthy attraction to the concept of friendship. I'm betting that she was a shut-in with no physical contact with anybody in the outside world and mostly just views the world through some other media, wasn't she?" Question Mark speculated. "Actually...yeah, she was. That was pretty accurate. She used to lock herself in her library and barely interact with anypony, but now she's a lot more social and hangs out with other ponies and trusts them a lot more than she used to." Rainbow said genuinely surprised. Question Mark smirked, gesturing his hoof to Rainbow Dash's explanation. "See? What'd I tell you? The ones who spend most of their lives cooped up and ignorant of the outside world will start obsessing themselves over the things they missed out on to the point it starts to consume them." "You're one to talk. You always coop yourself up in your tent researching magic, conspiracies, ufos, magic, and whatever weird stuff it is you find out about." Smiley Face shot at the colt. "But at least I'm not ignorant of the outside world. If she believes in friendship as much as what I'm hearing, who's to say some random pony doesn't take advantage of her and make her life a living hell?" "Actually, that happened to our friend Rarity a few years ago when we went to Manehatten ago. Her dress style got stolen after sharing it with another pony and she became really sad when she got back to us." Fluttershy explained. "Well, she must've learned her lesson not to trust anyone after that." "No, she learned to always be generous no matter what." "Wow, then she's just as stupid as the Twilight chick, then. If there's anything what I do has taught me is to trust no one, especially if you're involved with dangerous individuals like I am. They'll do anything to take back the files I stole from them." "Hey! Rarity's not stupid, especially not Twilight." Fluttershy scolded. She was actually curious as to what the colt was talking about in the rest of his story but decided to take care of the other matter at hoof first. "Yeah, Twilight's easily the smartest girl I know!" Rainbow backed Fluttershy up. "Then I don't know if that says more about Twilight or you guys." Question Mark said. Fluttershy's face became sadder and Rainbow was trying her best not to do something about the colt's behavior. "Plus, I'm not wrong about her obsession with friendship involving the school. I know she's royalty but just look at how fancy that building is! Like, how much money did she waste building a school like that? And her students are obviously no better since they probably threw away all their life savings going to a school about relationship issues, making that school the biggest money-wasting degree since gender studies." Question Mark explained. Rainbow was about to give the colt a piece of her mind before Fluttershy stopped anything from going any further with her announcement. "Why look at that, we've arrived." the yellow pegasus gestured to the castle that's right in front them now. The tree-shaped castle loomed over the five, with its crystal surface reflecting the sunlight. The sight filled the three strangers with amazement at the structure. "Woah, it's so much bigger up close." Smiley gaped. "Everything is bigger up close, Smiley." Question Mark said frustrated. "Yeah, you're right. But you gotta admit it's huge." "Of course. It's a castle, it's supposed to be huge. But yeah, this is a marvel of a structure." "This should be fun, the fanciest place I've ever been to in my life's a mall." Doofus said looking at the castle in front of them. "That and the fancy restaurants you keep wasting your money on for your failed first dates that dump you on the same night." Question Mark mocked the young stallion. "Shu...Okay, you're not wrong." "Have I ever been?" Question Mark answered. The five of them went up the steps and went through the huge door into a hallway full of doors and crystal pillars, both Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash suddenly remembering the day Twilight was moving out to Canterlot when they all hugged in these halls. At the other end of the hall, they see a light purple form in a kite-patterned sleeping robe levitating a cup of tea. It was Starlight Glimmer, who strangely looked like she just woke up eventhough it was the middle of the afternoon, Rainbow thought it must be because she must've been 'busy' with her herd late last night but Rainbow didn't want to delve too deep into that thought. "Oh! Hi there, Fluttershy. Hey there, Dash." Starlight greeted her two friends. "Hey there, Starlight. Something happened today you might wanna hear about. By the way, are Trixie and Sunburst here?" Rainbow asked. "Sure, we're just having brunch, I was just looking around." Starlight looked behind her two friends. "Who are they?" she pointed at the three strangers trying to act normal but instead made them look weirder. Fluttershy trotted over their direction to introduce the newcomers. "Oh, they're the reason we wanted to come see you. We found these three outside the Everfree Forst. This is Smiley Face." Fluttershy introduced the chubby pink filly. "Hello, there." the filly greeted cheerfully. "This is...Doofus Dweeb." Fluttershy introduced the tall scrawny stallion, although uncomfortable saying his name. Even Starlight raised an eyebrow at the young stallion's name. "Hey, there." the scrawny stallion attempted to introduce himself smoothly. "And this is Question Mark." Fluttershy introduced the white colt. "Um...hi?" the colt awkwardly tried to introduce himself. Suddenly Starlight noticed the bruise on the colt's face. "Oh, Goddess! What happened to your face?" Starlight touched the bruise on the colt's face. Rainbow Dash almost panicked when that came up again, but considering she already apologized and talked things out with the colt, she knew Question Mark would explain everything to Starlight and clear up what happened. ...or at least that's what everypony thought he would do. "IT WAS HER! That rainbow-haired girl hit me! We were just talking and she suddenly struck me across the face and knocked out my favorite tooth and caused my gum to bleed! Now I probably won't be able to eat properly anymore!" Question Mark cried hysterically while pointing at Rainbow's direction. "WHAT?!?" Rainbow shouted. She looked in the direction of the colt's two friends, and they looked both surprised yet also expectant of this. "What?! Rainbow, how could you?!" Starlight looked disappointingly and shocked at Rainbow. "Come on, I didn't mean it!" Rainbow defended herself. "Didn't mean it?! You struck a colt in the face!" "I didn't know what I was thinking! I lost control for a moment. Flutters, you saw what happened! Tell her!" "W-w-well, the colt was saying bad things about me and her." Fluttershy attempted to explain what happened. "Even if that's the case, you don't hit a foal just because they said mean things to you!" Starlight scolded. "Let's just go to the dining room, you can tell me all about these three. And Rainbow, you better have a better excuse for doing what you did because this could get you in trouble for this!" Starlight said pointing at Dash. As the six of them walked toward the dining room, Rainbow looked completely defeated after what happened. She saw Question Mark walking off following the others with a grin completely abandoning his sad and scared expression. Rainbow poked him in the back and the colt looked back at her. "What the heck, dude?! I thought we agreed about what happened!" Rainbow said in a hushed voice so nopony else would hear. "Well you didn't expect me to let you off the hook without at least a little payback, did you? Don't worry, I do this to everyone who fucks me over, not just you. Also, I've had this shattered tooth on the right side of my jaw for a few years now, so I always had to use my left side to chew food. But now you knocked out a tooth on my left side, so that last part about 'not eating properly for a while is a possibility." Question Mark explained then trotted off, leaving Rainbow Dash completely bummed out. And the six of them continued to walk through the hallway.