Being rich was the best thing that ever happened to Dash. Everything about this was amazing! And all those philosophical types always told you being rich was depressing or something? Idiots! Dash was never listening to another philosopher ever again! They could take their wisdom and shove it.
Rainbow Dash finally got her dream house! A bathroom big enough to have an actual bath, meaning going to the bathhouse was optional, was number one on her list. All she could ever hope for above that was a fairly large bedroom and a kitchen, and she’d be set.
And now here she was! All three of those boxes checked off on her new home!
Wait, no. That was just the pool house.
To think Dash got her dream home as an add-on to the place she bought hurt her brain. She couldn’t comprehend it.
And yet here she was, in this ridiculously large house. It was hardly a mansion, but it had more space than she could even think what to do with. For now, Dash and Twilight slept together in the master bedroom so they only used two bedrooms. Then you had a few obvious stuff like kitchen, living room and maybe a dining room.
But then what? Six guest rooms?
If Dash ever bought a bunch of pinball machines and pool tables those were going in the basement. She struggled to think about what you even did with a house this big. Maybe she’d go spy on Pinkie, across the street, later.
Dash owned nothing but a radio and a bag until a month ago on top of that. It wasn’t like she had anything to put inside any of these rooms. Twilight brought a few things from her house, but it wasn’t enough to fill the void. Save the two bedrooms, everything else was empty.
Except for one room, that was. There was a pile of gifts in the entrance room so high that part of it reached halfway up the spiral staircase Dash also had. Simply cataloging this would take all day, so they hardly had time to organize it.
It was crazy! Every day more gifts showed up, everywhere she went she got free stuff, any food place she showed up insisted that she eat for free. Dash just got rich and now everypony was just giving her everything for free? What sense did that make? Not that Dash was ever going to say ‘no’ to free stuff.
Dash looked out into the room, at what was effectively a treasure hoard.
They got a Luxorama Nimbus Max bed and pillows made from real clouds you could sleep on. They got a set of silverware that was made of silver, a piano, a fancy guitar signed by somepony name ‘skimbo’, and boxes of stuff she hadn’t even opened yet.
She’d gotten enough gift baskets filled with expensive cheese, chocolate, bread, wine, and cooking oils that she was starting to wonder if she could live off exclusively off gift baskets. One pony gave her a ninety-pound cheese wheel. That was one and a half times Dash’s weight in cheese. Expensive cheese at that!
Twilight was sitting in the corner of the room dedicated to all her new books. They formed a semi-circle around a cushion Twilight sat on, the walls of the books stacked twice as high as Twilight would be on her hind legs. They had a few nice bookshelves made of mahogany, but no books had yet to be put on them.
Every pony who made clothing or jewelry wanted the two of them wearing their stuff right now, so they had piles of designer clothes, gold, and gemstones just lying around. Dash would have killed to have some of that stuff a year ago and now she had no idea what to do with it.
Maybe when she had time, she’d pawn off most of this fashionable crap off and give it to charity. Everything except the stuff that looked good, and Dash did find the best-looking outfit in the pile.
Obviously, Dash went for the North Wind swag. North Wind was the coolest brand that every pegasus wanted. Looking herself over in the mirror Dash could tell why.
She wore the nicest jacket she’d ever touched, blue with purple trim and the North Wind logo on the back. She also had stylish North Wind goggles resting on top of her forehead. Her North Wind boots were short and went great with the North Wind socks that came halfway up her legs
She looked so cool with this stuff on!
“Are you going to spend all day making poses in the mirror?” Twilight asked.
“Twilight, this is a Luxorama North Wind signature black label windbreaker.” Dash turned so she could see the back of it in the mirror. “This jacket is worth ten thousand bits! That’s food for two years!”
“Even if that is edible, there’s no way it’d last you two years,” Twilight muttered.
“Then this chain is another six thousand bits.” Dash grabbed the gold chain around her neck. “Sixty weeks of groceries. Goggles? Five thousand bits. Fifty weeks of groceries. These socks are inexplicably worth two hundred bits each. If I come out of this with nothing but the clothes on my back, I’m good for years, baby!”
“Just don’t forget the mission,” Twilight reminded her.
“You mean the mission to look sexy?” Dash winked at herself in the mirror. “I got that one locked down!”
“Rainbow Dash.”
“What? Half our mission is PR, yeah? So I gotta look cool and this jacket doubles the coolness of anyone who wears it.”
“I suppose. Though honestly, I still like my hat better than any of this stuff.” Twilight held up a necklace dripping with sapphires. They just had that kind of stuff lying around these days. “And isn’t my original hat worth a million bits? That means it's a hundred times more fashionable than that jacket, right?”
“There’s gotta be something here you like! Don’t lie to me.”
“Well.” Twilight closed her book and looked up at her little fortress of knowledge. “I do have all the books I want now.”
Now that she was living in a town and had unlimited funds, Twilight had been ordering books through the phone catalog non-stop. The ponies on the other end didn’t even need to ask who was calling anymore. This was in addition to a steady stream of books ponies sent into her as gifts once word got out she liked reading.
Already, Twilight had a lifetime’s supply of books. That is, more than Dash could have read in a lifetime. Twilight read so fast she might be done with all of this in a few months.
“And I have to admit that bed is better than anything I had before,” said Twilight.
There was a reason ponies compared things to sleeping on a cloud. The moment you laid down on their new bed you never wanted to get back up.
Adorably, Twilight needed to sleep in the same bed as Dash. She was still getting used to civilization. The thought of having thousands of strangers surrounding her in every direction unnerved her. For the first few days, Twilight acted like a dog, going to the window to watch every stranger who passed their house.
But she was getting better.
“And, uh.” Twilight went to the pile of clothes, her smile fading at what she picked up.
Somepony got her a shirt with ‘I agree with Rainbow Dash’ and another with ‘I don’t like boats’ printed on them. Those two phrases constituted most of what Twilight said on the radio.
Dash knew whoever got her that didn’t mean anything by it, but it was enough to shake Twilight.
“Everyone thinks I’m an idiot.” Twilight buried her face in the shirt. “I did such a horrible job! And millions of ponies heard me too.”
“No one hates you.” Dash sat down next to her. “Sure the interviews could have gone better, but no one cares about that compared to you taking down a witch. The whole ‘I agree with Rainbow Dash’ thing is just a stupid fad joke. It’ll be gone in a couple of weeks.”
“Yeah, until I open my mouth and embarrass myself again.”
“We just need to get you a book about public speaking.” Dash gave her a reassuring nuzzle. “Or maybe even lessons! I do have money left over to hire more ponies.”
“Wait. There’s a book about that?” Twilight perked up. “That’s it! Why didn’t I think of that? I guess I was too distracted by all this noise.”
Twilight picked up her phone catalog and within minutes was calling up the store to order what sounded like a dozen more books.
Another small victory for Rainbow Dash. She couldn’t stop smiling. Things were going great so far. Dash totally made Twilight’s life better by dragging her out of the woods. And soon she’d defeat all the other witches.
At the moment, it felt like nothing bad would ever happen again and danger was as far away as it could be. Though then again, who knew when the next threat would show up?
While Twilight was busy on the phone, Scootaloo crept into the room like she was trying to sneak up on Dash. She froze in place when Dash glanced in her direction. It was just after nine, earlier than she used to wake up.
And there was another pro for the list! After all, Scootaloo was the whole reason Dash went on this adventure in the first place. Even before the beginning, she'd been trying to get enough money to for them to let 'adopt' her own little sister.
Ever since that day with the gremlins, when they met Fluttershy, Dash had been even more desperate to keep Scootaloo close where she'd be safe. Scootaloo ended up falling into the sewers and getting kidnapped by that Rattler ghost, or whatever that guy's name was. But they had the nerve to tell Dash she wasn't responsible enough to take care of her own sister?
At least no other kids fell into the sewer with her.
But now Scootaloo was finally out of that orphanage and they just invented that new medication for her on top of that. Just seeing her wake up this early, and in the same house as Dash, was enough to make Dash smile.
“There you are!” Rainbow Dash flew across the room and grabbed her sister in a hug as soon as she saw her. “Morning, Scoots. Isn’t this place the best?”
“Oh! Uh! Yeah, hey Rainbow Dash.” Scootaloo smiled but received the hug as awkwardly as she could.
Scootaloo was being a little shy lately. She might still be nervous around Twilight. While Scootaloo had met ‘Silverstorm’ months ago, it was only recently that she learned the truth.
“So you brave enough to have some…” Dash reached into her exotic cheese gift basket and pulled one out at random. “Uh. Giraffe cheese for breakfast?”
“Giraffe cheese?” Scootaloo’s ears perked up at the idea. “Can you do that?”
“You can milk any mammal, I guess. I bet this is worth more than I used to make in a month at Curse Burger,” said Dash.
Twilight sat back in her throne of knowledge and immediately pulled out the relevant book. How she could do that so fast, and without disturbing the stack either, Dash had no idea.
“According to The Ultimate Cheese Guidebook,” Twilight held the book up over her face, quickly getting to the right page, “it’s worth six hundred bits per pound. It says giraffes are exceedingly difficult to milk.”
“Dang!”
‘Sell it’ were the first words that entered Dash’s mind at that revelation. But sell it to who? Was she going to run through the streets hoping to find somepony that wanted to pay thousands for a hunk of giraffe cheese before it went bad?
Eating it might be the least wasteful way to go after all.
From the way she was looking at the exotic cheese basket, it was clear Scootaloo didn’t want to try anything that comes from something no sane pony would milk.
“You don’t have to, you know.” Dash messed up her hair. She grabbed the fancy fruit basket and put it in front of her sister. “Here, you can have some fruit, or I can make you pancakes. There’s gotta be some fancy syrup around here somewhere.”
“No. This is good. Thanks.” Scootaloo pulled up the fruit basket, about half her size, and took a few grapes.
Meanwhile, Dash took a bit out of what might be the most expensive thing she’d ever eat. It tasted horrible when you first put it in your mouth but the more you chewed the better it seemed to get.
Scootaloo watched Dash’s reaction with a growing curiosity.
“Actually,” Scootaloo spoke, then paused like she expected to be yelled at. “Can I try some?”
“Ha! See, that’s how you know we’re related.” Dash broke off a piece of it and handed it over. “Most ponies ain’t brave enough for this.”
Scootaloo ate it without much hesitation, chewing for a long time before swallowing, cringing slightly the whole time.
“I honestly don’t know if that was good,” she said.
“Yeah, I find that’s the case with most overpriced food.” Dash was learning all kinds of things like that recently. “Did you decide what you wanna do today?”
“Huh?” Scootaloo pointed to herself, surprised. “What I want to do?”
Scootaloo looked totally lost at the question.
“Didn’t I tell you yesterday?” Dash asked. “I’m taking the day off to spend time with you, kid. We can do anything you want.”
“Oh! Uh.” She panicked slightly, trying to think of something. “Normally I’m lucky if I get to sit around reading comic books all day. I’m not sure what there even is to do.”
Scootaloo didn’t get out much. She was a fragile girl, to say the least. Even bumper cars were enough to knock her out cold. Going for a hike was about the most physically intense thing she could handle.
Comic books were the main place she had to turn to for excitement in her life. That and laughing at all the horrible things that happened to Dash.
“Well they got that huge outlet mall right next to the river,” said Dash. “We could check that out. They got a pinball arcade and a giant comic bookstore.”
Those last two were enough to tempt Scootaloo, who was sitting up at attention now.
“Um.” Scootaloo clearly wanted to do that but was hesitant to admit it. “Yeah! That could be fun.”
“I bet going to a place like that is way more fun when you can actually buy stuff,” said Dash. “I bet I could even buy you the most expensive comic book in the world now. Hey, Twi! What is the most expensive comic book in the world anyway?”
“Oh, I have no idea.” Twilight shook her head without taking her eyes off the book.
That took Dash by surprise. Dash had gotten used to Twilight being able to pull out the right book and get an answer immediately whenever she was sitting on her throne of knowledge.
“I thought you had a book about everything by now,” said Dash.
“I have a book about everything important,” said Twilight. “I put all the books that aren’t essential information in the basement.”
“Oh, and the The Ultimate Cheese Guidebook is essential information?” Dash asked.
“I don’t know what cheese is capable of!” Twilight defended herself. “I just learned it existed a few months ago. There could be wizard cheese, death cheese, or something even worse. What if there’s a cheese that turns whoever eats it into more cheese?”
That last one sounded easy enough to deal with, had it been real.
“But I can’t imagine a scenario where fiction or books about fiction would be useful,” said Twilight. “Whenever somepony gives me a book like that, I just throw it out.”
“You threw out all of the fictional books?” Scootaloo was offended at the idea. “But fiction books are the only cool ones! Why would you do that?”
“Reading fiction is a complete waste of time.” Twilight kept her muzzle buried in her book. “You can say it’s ‘fun’, but I enjoy reading about anything. Why would I spend my time reading about something that never happened when I could be reading useful information?”
Scootaloo got up and spread her wings defensively as her hobby came under attack.
“Because things that never happened are cool.” Scootaloo pointed to Twilight in the same way her hero, Firefly, did in the comic books. “Reality is cruel! A-and if you don’t like reality then it’s up to us to alter it!”
“Oh, that’s the thing Firefly from that comic book says, isn’t it?” Twilight asked.
Scootaloo blinked and froze in place.
“Huh?!” Scootaloo stepped back after a moment of delayed response. “You know about that?”
“Dash mentioned that one was your favorite on multiple occasions,” said Twilight. “She talks about you all the time.”
“She does?” Scootaloo looked up at Dash.
“Well, yeah. You were the whole reason I was able to convince Twilight to come into town the first time,” Dash said. “I have no idea how I would have pulled that one off without you.”
To be fair, that had been an uphill battle. Dash had to explain sisters, heart conditions, and orphanages to Twilight before it was even on the table. Scootaloo already looked skeptical of this enough without Dash bringing that up, though.
What even would have been plan B there? Luring her out with Summoner Knights cards?
“Plus you were talking about the new Firefly comic just last night,” Dash reminded her. “You were complaining about how they brought Tirek back from the dead.”
“You were actually paying attention?” Scootaloo took a step closer.
“Don’t sound so surprised!” Dash grabbed Scootaloo in another hug when she got too close. “I like you! Of course I’m not gonna ignore you.”
This time Scootaloo wasn't tense at all.
“But Twi. To be fair you’ve never actually given novels a chance,” said Dash. “Oh! You know, I’d bet you’d like the Daring Do novels. Those books are a lot more intellectual than you’d think. I know somepony gave us a copy of it too.”
“Maybe if they weren’t so time-consuming.” Twilight shook her head and went back to her non-fiction.
Scootaloo was staring up at Dash, holding her breath like she was nervous about saying something.
“You read the Daring Do books?” Scootaloo asked.
“I used to read them to you. So yeah?”
“Oh, yeah. Of course I remember that! I meant, uh!”
Scootaloo rubbed the back of her head, never revealing what she meant.
“Um.” Scootaloo scraped the ground one more time before working up the courage to speak again. “Did— did you know that the thing with the crystal skulls was based on a true story? They had numbers two and three but then they found number five and realized there were more of them than they thought just like in the book! Only like— like in real life the skulls aren’t used for anything cool.”
It always amazed Dash how much Scootaloo knew about this stuff. If she knew half as much about science as she did comic books and the like, she’d be the top scientist by a large margin.
This was her favorite thing to talk about and thankfully Dash was always interested to hear what was happening in her world.
Scootaloo went on for an hour talking about all her favorite comic books, getting increasingly stoked the longer Dash stayed invested. Scootaloo was so excited to have somepony listening to her that she teared up a little.
It broke Dash’s heart to see how starved for attention Scootaloo always was but Dash couldn’t deny how good it felt to finally have her sister back. No way Scootaloo would be ignored from now on.
“But then in the Ultimate Non-canon #13, there’s a fourth one called the canon cannon which allows you literally shoot plot holes into the story! And that’s why Infinite Catastrophe didn’t make any sense. Because Rotwood just blew holes in the story!” Scootaloo started to laugh, finally relaxed again.
“But then wouldn’t that make the joke non-canon comic the actual canon?” Dash asked. “Since the first one doesn’t work without it?”
“Oh, hey. That’s a good point.” Scootaloo stopped to think that over.
Twilight’s ears perked up and she looked toward the window, Dash’s first sign somepony was approaching. A knock on the door a second later startled poor Scootaloo out of her blissful state.
Dash went over and opened the door. Scootaloo stood back, nervously watching, hiding partially behind Twilight’s wall of books. When she saw who it was, she relaxed.
“Oh, hey Rainbow Dash.” Derpy gave her a salute. “I’m reporting for duty!”
One of the many perks of being S rank was that Dash got a certain amount of money to hire anypony she needed. In the end, she decided to take Derpy as her assistant. Of all the other ponies in the guild, Derpy was the one Dash could be the most certain wasn’t secretly working for somepony else.
“So I take it this means you finally moved in?” Dash made sure Derpy’s salary was good enough that she’d be able to move in. Also high enough that it’d be difficult to bribe her.
“Yeah! Me and Soarin just started moving into our new house on the poor side of town,” said Derpy. “Though I gotta say, the poor part of Ponytown looks like the rich part of Ponyville.”
Even Dash didn’t live in the ‘rich’ part of Ponytown. All the huge mansions were down by the river. A lot of famous artists and celebrities lived in this town too, Dash heard.
“And I wanted to say I’m sorry about constantly doubting you for all these years.” Derpy bowed her head to Dash. “It’s just, you know, for years and years your life was an endless train wreck of unmitigated failure and bad luck!”
“Yeah.” Dash rubbed the back of her head and glanced to the side. “Yeah, I remember that. Thanks.”
“But now I understand that you really were amazing this whole time! You just never got a single break in your whole life and the second you did, you soared to the top. It’s like, something about the system or whatever! Anyway, that’s why I wanna be on your team from now on. To make it up to you.”
“You are my first pick,” said Dash, “but you don’t gotta take this job just because you feel bad about before.”
“No! They’re gonna make this into a movie in thirty years and I don’t want to be that one jock pony who’s always doubting you!”
Now Dash was imagining a movie where Derpy demanded Dash fork over her lunch money.
“I feel like that’d be Raindrops if anypony.” For once, Dash smiled when she remembered Raindrops. “Oh hey, how is she doing anyway? You didn’t see how she reacted to the news did you?”
“Oh, she did not take it well at all.” Derpy shook her head. “She keeps insisting that you somehow faked defeating Trixie or something.”
Dash laughed, imagining Raindrops off stewing somewhere. Life just kept getting better.
“Oh, hey! Is that your sister?” Derpy noticed Scootaloo creeping up from behind Dash. “So you finally got her out of the orphanage?”
“Heh! Well, it’s not like they can tell me I’m too poor to take her in now.” Dash cocked a winning smile and rubbed the back of her head.
“Hey there!” Derpy bent down and inflected her voice like she was talking to a baby. “Do you remember me?”
“Uh.” Scootaloo took a step back.
“She was five last time you saw her,” Dash reminded her. “Cut her some slack.”
“Oh, right.” Derpy got back up.
Scootaloo sighed with relief.
“You know, Rainbow Dash always talked about how she was gonna get rich and famous so she could take you out of the orphanage,” Derpy told her.
It was true. Dash didn’t want to talk about it too much, but she used to work endlessly in hopes of getting enough money to be deemed worthy of taking care of her sister. Eventually, she realized that no amount of hard work at a dead-end job would get you anywhere, so she became a slayer instead.
Part of the reason she wanted to go after Twilight in the first place was so she could take Scootaloo back home.
“You must be so happy that you finally get to live with your sister again,” Derpy said to Scootaloo.
“Oh! Yeah, totally!” Scootaloo nodded too quickly.
“What are you so nervous about today?” Dash pulled Scootaloo closer.
“Um! It’s just moving into a new house and all that. You know?” Scootaloo smiled.
Scootaloo spent most of the last month being so excited about this too. Something was up.
“You know if there’s ever anything bothering you, you can come talk to me, yeah?” Dash rustled her mane.
“Yeah. Right.” Scootaloo lowered her head. “Thanks.”
Dash frowned, wishing she could think of some way to figure out the problem.
“Oh!” Derpy raised her hoof. “Speaking of talking about things. I already have something spooky to report to you. At least I think it’s spooky.”
“Yeah?”
Derpy glanced behind her before moving closer, making Dash expect this to be gossip.
“See, two days after you beat Trixie, Starlight sent a pony down to look at your folder, right?” Derpy asked. “But when they did it was empty! Other than your basic info I mean.”
“So? That should be the case, right?” Dash asked. “Trixie was technically the first mission I completed.”
“Yeah, it was the first mission, but you did do that one thing, remember?”
“Apparently not?”
“You found that incredibly rare magical artifact!” Derpy reminded her. “Those gummies that make you younger? Even though you didn’t turn them in, I still put that in your folder so you’d at least have something in there.”
Dash’s heart stopped beating as her brain reeled through the implications of that one remark. Dash had made a serious mistake and left an important piece of evidence behind!
That was the night she’d loudly announced to everypony she was off to find Twilight Sparkle too! Anypony who saw that would get suspicious. She could claim that she’d found it elsewhere, but the truth would be right in front of everypony either way.
“And Starlight’s guy saw that?” Dash asked.
“No. Like I said, it was there right before you went off to fight Trixie, but it was gone just after you came back,” said Derpy. “I think somepony stole that paper. Though I don’t know why they would.”
Dash half knew the answer. That report was a massive red flag! But why were they covering for Dash? This was over a month ago, too, so if they were going to send a blackmail letter, they’d have already done it.
All she could say for now was that somepony knew the truth and was destroying evidence that Twilight was Twilight. They must be a genius on top of that, to have figured out to do all this in a single second.
At least it was a good thing short term. Maybe the mystery genius would track down and destroy any other evidence that pointed to Twilight being a witch.
“Did you tell anypony else about this?” Dash asked.
“No,” said Derpy. “I figure I should tell you first. Especially since you’re my boss now.”
That was a relief.
“Good job, Derpy.” Dash patted her on the head.
Derpy smiled and stuck her tongue out at the acknowledgment.
“But yeah, you can never speak of this again,” said Dash.
“This sounds kind of ominous,” said Derpy. “Hey, Dash. You’re not doing drugs or anything, are you?”
“Drugs? Of course not!”
“Drugs are bad, Rainbow Dash!”
“Yeah, I know! I’m not doing drugs, okay?”
“Then why does this need to be a secret again?” Derpy asked. “You know I’m on your side, right? You can tell me.”
“Yeah, there’s some stuff I gotta tell you.” If Dash couldn’t convince Derpy that Twilight wasn’t evil, she wouldn’t be able to convince anypony. “Look, there’s a slide show we’re going to show a few ponies in a couple of weeks. You’re one of them. Just don’t talk about this until then.”
“Alright, I guess.” Derpy’s ears drooped. She didn’t like it but didn’t press things further than that.
“Until then, your first job is to make a report about everything we know about the witches,” said Dash. “I figure there’s gotta be a bunch of classified stuff they only tell S rank ponies. I want you to get all of it for me.”
“I can do that!” Derpy saluted her, then looked around the house. “Um. Do I get an office?”
“Do you not come with your own office?” Dash asked.
“I don’t think so.” Derpy looked both ways to make sure.
“Let me think.” Dash looked out into the backyard. “Oh! The pool house can be your office. What’s even the point of a pool house anyway? It’s the same distance as the normal house from the pool.”
Though Dash still had no furniture to speak of. Certainly, she had no office furniture. The closest thing to a desk she had was that piano.
“Until further notice, this piano will have to be your desk!” Dash pushed the piano towards Derpy. “Guess you can go set it up. If anypony shows up while I’m out, just send them away. Thanks.”
“Oh, wow. I never had a piano desk before! Thanks, Rainbow Dash! Oh, but could I use your phone to call Soarin? I wanna tell him I'm gonna be here a while. Oh! And tell him about Scootaloo too!”
"No, you can't!" Scootaloo answered faster than Dash. Everypony looked over at her. "Cause the phone guy hasn't installed the phone thing yet. Remember?"
"Ah, yeah. That's right." Dash tapped her back hoof. "Maybe you could use Pinkie's phone? She's right across the street."
"You can't!" Scootaloo shot the idea down. "Because, um, Pinkie doesn't own a phone!"
Derpy turned to Dash, skeptical.
"Yeah. Pinkie grew up ahmish, you know?" Dash reminded her. "She's been meaning to get with the times."
"Guess I won't call him, then. Ah well."
Derpy pressed her head against the piano and began pushing it towards the backyard.
Hopefully, that was the only visitor they’d get today.
“Anyway—”
“Hi Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie jumped up out of nowhere and grabbed Dash in a hug. “What are you doing today?”
That was the thing about living across the street from Pinkie they didn’t tell you about. She acted like the two of them lived in one big house that happened to have a street down the middle of it. It was worth having the best alarm system in the world next door, though. Dash already resigned herself to this fate.
“Just going through some of this swag, then we’re gonna go somewhere.” Dash gestured towards the pile.
“You know you’re not supposed to actually take all of this stuff, right?” Pinkie looked over some fancy-looking plates Dash didn’t even remember getting at this point. “Especially if it was some rich pony who gave it to you.”
“Pinkie, I grew up dirt poor.” Dash pointed to her pile of expensive junk. “I can’t say no to free stuff.”
“But you know they’re going to expect something in return from you,” Pinkie pointed out. “I learned that the hard way.”
“Huh?” Dash blinked and put the guitar down. “No, none of them tried to bribe me or anything.”
“Well, they’re not going to say it outright.”
“Yeah? Maybe when I refuse to do anything they want they’ll learn a lesson about how bribery is bad or something. Maybe taking all their stuff then never giving them anything in return was the secret all along.”
“Eh. Well, I guess if we may or may not be taking down the government either way.” Pinkie got to the gift basket section of the room and started looking it all over. “That’s probably gonna ruffle more feathers in the long run.”
“We don’t necessarily have to take out Starlight,” Dash reminded her. “Just stealing a thing.”
Dash hated referring to it as ‘the thing’. Though they’d been too busy to discuss it for a while, given how much media attention they’d been under this past month.
“Hey, Twi? When are you gonna tell us what this thing looks like again?” Dash asked.
“I haven’t bothered telling you because I don’t think it would help,” said Twilight. “I could tell you that the one I had was a crown with a gemstone that mirrors the cutie mark of the wearer, but no two of these ever look the same. It could be anything. It could be a harp, a cup, a spear, even an entire train as far as I know.”
“Then how can we possibly find it?” Dash asked. “Are we gonna have to ask that guy?”
“There’s no way you’d mistake it for anything else if you ever found it,” said Twilight. “Like I said before when we meet Starlight in person I might be able to find a lead on where it is.”
“And I’m pretty good at finding stuff.” Pinkie took an apple out of one of the gift baskets and took a bite. “You know psychic powers and everything. I say give me three or four months!”
It was nice that they had multiple options for this kind of thing.
“There’s one other thing that’s bothering me. Are we seriously going to keep calling it ‘the thing’ forever?” Dash asked.
“I can tell you what I call them,” said Twilight. “The general term is an ‘element of harmony’. Though I doubt that name means anything to you.”
It didn’t.
“Harmony?” Dash repeated it. “So it’s a musical instrument? I thought you said it was a crown.”
“No, like it’s a conduit that harmonizes you, as an entity, with the metaphorical concept it’s attuned to. The one I had was called ‘the element of magic’. You could, hypothetically, make one for any concept. It could even be something completely bizarre. You could make an element of fact-checking, hiccups, stalking, communicable diseases, or even UFOs.”
“So,” Dash tried to draw a useful conclusion from all that but struggled.
Twilight was right. None of that was particularly helpful information.
Though it did make her wonder what Starlight had made an ‘element’ of. It also made Dash wonder which one she’d choose if it worked like that. What would be the most overpowered concept to become one with? Death lasers? Supernovas? Black holes? Time?
“So like!” Pinkie reached her conclusion first. “So like I could create a 'the element of laughter’ and then all of my jokes would be maximally hilarious forever? And I would never not have fun?”
“That’s not exactly how it works, but sort of.” Twilight shook her head. “Honestly, a spellbook would be more powerful than any of these. I suppose as long as you don’t use it to ascend it’s not that bad to have one, though.”
Dash kept tapping her hoof this whole time, trying to think up something useful to say or do. But it did look like they just needed to wait for now.
Meanwhile, Scootaloo was being all shifty-eyed and quiet off to the side. She had a star fruit in her mouth as she glanced silently at whoever spoke. Dash didn’t want to involve her in all this.
“Gotta admit, you’re right that doesn’t tell me much.” Dash shrugged. “Sides, we’re supposed to be taking the day off today.”
“Oh!” Pinkie raised her hoof. “I have an entire mini-golf course in my backyard. Do you want to come over and play mini-golf?”
Mini-golf sounded like the perfect level of physical activity for somepony like Scootaloo.
“You do?” Dash asked. “You must really like mini-golf.”
“Not really.” Pinkie shrugged. “My house was built on a zebra burial ground and mini-golf is the only thing that can keep the zebra god of destruction from sperging out. The town won’t let me take it down.”
“Ah.” Dash nodded. “Hey, I always wondered if that sort of thing drives down the value of the house.”
“Not as much as you’d think,” said Pinkie.
“You wanna play mini-golf?” Dash asked her sister.
“I never played mini-golf before,” Scootaloo admitted. “I guess I could give it a shot.”
The town was steep enough that you could put a ball on Dash’s lawn and it’d roll right over to Pinkie’s. The whole of Ponytown was on a steep incline like that, leading to the river in the valley below. One advantage to this was that you could stand on any rooftop and get a good look at the water.
Pinkie’s house was smaller than Dash’s but her backyard was huge. The miniature golf course’s 12 holes only took up a fraction of it. That part of the lawn was flattened out a bit to counteract the fact that her backyard was otherwise a hill.
The first hole played into the hilly terrain. The path from start to finish was a heavily winding, downhill path. A small tap looked like all you needed.
Dash tapped her ball, hoping it’d just roll the whole way down. Somehow it got stuck on the ledge halfway down.
“Really?!” Dash shook her head. “I thought I’d at least get to the bottom."
Next up was Scootaloo. She took the putter in her mouth, gave the ball a tap, and sent it rolling down the hill just like her sister before her. Only this time the strategy worked perfectly. The ball perfectly snaked down the path and went straight into the hole.
“Hey! You’re really good at this!” Dash cheered for her.
“Really?!” Scootaloo’s wings opened wide at the praise. That really was all it took to excite her. She ran over and sat as close to Dash as she could.
“Yeah! At least somepony in our family’s good at this.” Dash put a wing around her.
To handicap herself, Pinkie held the club of her putter in her mouth and hit the ball with its handle. Even like that, she was good!
The ball arced over the entire slope and just barely missed going straight into the hole. It just barely missed going off-course too. But it was a lot closer than Dash’s.
Then it was Twilight’s turn. Twilight took the putter, looking down at the ball then over at the hole with an intensely serious look. She stood there silently for a long time, assessing the situation carefully.
Dash sat with a wing wrapped around Scootaloo as they waited for Twilight to do something.
“See, ‘Silverstorm’ here’s either incredibly good or incredibly bad at everything she tries,” Dash half-whispered to her sister. “Which do you think this is gonna be?”
“Well.” Scootaloo looked Twilight over. “She’s doing lots of math in her head, I bet. She’s totally gonna get a hole in one.”
“You’d think that,” said Dash. “But there’s no way to know how this will go.”
Twilight pulled back the putter and swung. The ball went sailing out of sight. From this high up in the hills, there was nothing to stop it.
Pinkie jumped up on Rainbow Dash’s back and squinted in the direction the ball had gone off to.
“Looks like it went into the river.” Pinkie jumped off Dash’s back.
“Wow.” Dash laughed. “The water trap was miles outside the entire course and you still hit it.”
“Whoops.” Twilight blushed. “I guess I hit it a little harder than I meant to.”
A little after three, they ended up going down to the outlet mall after all. The Ponytown outlets were partially next to the river and partially on it. Several stores were built along docks or were little boats themselves.
The thing stretched on forever, or so it seemed. Exploring this place would take several trips. The bookstore they found looked larger than every store in Ponyville combined. It went up four stories and had multiple cafes inside of it.
Of course, the other two ponies in Dash’s group wanted to check it out. Scootaloo dragged her over to where the comic books were and started looking through a bunch of unfamiliar, foreign comics. Despite her earlier protests, Twilight ended up curiously flipping through the pictures in one of them.
Come to think of it, had Twilight ever seen a comic book before? Dash honestly couldn’t remember.
The place was crowded today, but they didn’t get a lot of attention, relatively speaking.
One of the big advantages of living in this town was the fact that all the ponies here were more used to seeing celebrities. Between that and being month-old news, the two of them were able to walk around a bit more freely than normal.
They got about two ‘I agree with Rainbow Dash!’s from passersbys, but that was about it. Dash made sure to strike a pose for any such fan, though Twilight still blushed at embarrassment upon hearing her unintentional catchphrase.
As the other two were looking, Dash heard a voice coming from the next section over and walked towards where it came from.
“If you need a friend, Starlight will be your friend. If you need a hero, Starlight will be your hero. If you need a god, Starlight will be your god!”
Dash instantly recognized the pegasus as Night Glider, a mare with white hair and dark blue fur. More importantly, she was one of the S rank ponies who lived in this town and one of the ones devoted to Starlight. So far, the only other S-rankers Dash met were those more aligned with Sunset.
She looked to be doing something akin to street preaching. She had the familiar black robes with green trim all of Starlight's followers had. The design was more elaborate than those Dash was used to seeing, however. She had an elaborate vine-like design around the edge with little nicks every so often, giving the vines thorns. That was the best one you could get, Dash was sure.
How did she get permission to preach inside the store?
The entire section she was standing by was dedicated to Starlight’s books, had a life-sized cutout of the president just in front of it. Maybe the owner of the store was in Starlight’s pocket too.
Dash backed up to Twilight’s side.
“Hey, Silver,” Dash whispered to her, gesturing to Night Glider. “That’s one of Starlight’s top ponies. Think we should talk to her?”
“I dunno.” Twilight tried to bury her face in her book. “I’m not good at talking to ponies in places this crowded.”
“Well you’re not going to get any better by hiding forever. Come on.” Dash started pushing Twilight away from safety. “You can wait over here, Scoots.”
Scootaloo stayed where she was, but watched the older ponies as they went over to Night Glider.
Night Glider didn’t have an audience at the moment, having just started, so her attention went straight to Dash when they came over.
“Oh! How Lucky!” Night Glider’s smile was huge! Like, huger than any other smile Dash had ever seen. But it was a little off. “If it isn’t Rainbow Dash and the other one! You just moved into town, haven’t you? It must be fate that brought you to me so fast.”
Twilight muttered her fake name.
“Yeah, hey,” said Dash. “You live in this town too, right?”
“Oh, I have an enormous mansion just a little west of here by the river,” said Night glider. “But I don’t live there.”
That sort of excess still made Dash sick. Night Glider probably owned fifty houses she never used when there were so many ponies who couldn’t even get one.
“I mostly sleep at the church center and leave my home open for homeless ponies and others who need it,” Night Glider continued. “You were homeless just a little while ago, right? I’m sure you can appreciate how hard that was. That’s why I give those in need a place to stay and help them get back up on their feet.”
That subverted Dash’s expectations enough to leave her in stunned silence for a few seconds.
“Oh! That’s actually pretty nice of you,” Dash had to admit.
“Thanks! I just can’t bear knowing that even a single room in one of my houses is being wasted when there are ponies who don’t have a home.” Night Glider still smiled, despite talking about the plight of others. “You know, some ponies have five or six rooms they don’t even use but still refuse to share. I don’t understand how anypony can be that selfish.”
That was the exact number of empty rooms Dash had at her house. Was that a coincidence?
“I do volunteer work fifty hours a week and donate over ninety percent of my income to charity,” said Night Glider. “Whenever I go to buy something, I ask myself if I need this more than a starving foal needs to eat. I think that’s the best policy to keep in mind whenever you go shopping. That’s why I don’t own any clothes.”
Night Glider laughed.
Dash looked down at her ten-thousand-bit jacket, feeling guilty about wearing it for the first time.
“But, come on,” said Dash. “You can’t seriously devote that much of your life to this sort of thing. Nopony has that kind of energy.”
“Oh, but I do! Every moment of my day is spent helping those in need,” said Night Glider. “But don’t think I’m judging you or anything. Most rich ponies don’t deserve half of what they have, but you totally earned it! And I know it can’t be easy for you to do the right thing without Starlight’s help. I used to be even worse than you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“See, I was hopelessly addicted to pinball. My addiction was so bad I even ended up becoming the pinball world champion.” Night Glider’s smile almost straightened out the idea was so horrible to her. “My cutie mark is a pinball with two feathers representing the flippers, you know. Isn’t that horrible?”
“I don’t see how that’s a problem?” Dash tilted her head.
“Haha!” Night Glider’s smile got bigger. “Pinball is a total waste of time. Should I waste my time hitting a metal ball around when I could be building homeless shelters, defeating dangerous monsters, or spreading Starlight’s message?”
She did have a point, even if Dash wanted to object to that last example.
“Ponies do all sorts of things that are pointless,” said Night Glider. “Playing pinball, reading fiction, being with your family, drinking alcohol and all sorts of other stuff are no different than just sitting in a dark corner of a rundown apartment and injecting dopamine directly into your brain. They activate the same chemical pathways as heroin, you know.”
That seemed a bit harsh to Dash.
“The world would be a much better place if we all just cut out these unnecessary things from our lives and devoted ourselves to working selflessly, wouldn’t it?” Night Glider put a hoof on her heart and looked to the sky. “Ideally, nopony would ever spend a minute doing anything unproductive. That’s why I’m on team Starlight! Even now, I sometimes slip up and do something selfishly unproductive, but I know Starlight will still love me either way.”
“I don’t agree with that at all,” Twilight finally spoke up.
Night Glider turned to her, surprised by the sudden comment, but still smiling.
“Listen, I used to be the same way as you,” said Twilight. “I devoted every moment of my life to work, just like you’re trying to do. I know you’re probably ‘accomplishing’ things but… well, I don’t know if there’s any point in achievement if it never makes anypony happy. There are so many things you miss when you have tunnel vision like that that your world becomes tiny. I never would have had any friends if I stayed like that forever.”
Night Glider listened to this, nodding and smiling until Twilight was done.
“Haha! Well the blind can’t understand color, you know!” Night Glider smiled. “I don’t expect you to ‘get’ it. But even friends are a waste of time. The only use for friendship is if you can work together to get something done. But just using them to make yourself feel happy? Well you might as well be doing drugs in an abandoned steel mill at that point.”
Night Glider laughed again.
“So what?” Dash asked. “By that logic do you just never do anything that makes you happy? Then why the crow are you smiling?”
“Oh, I don’t seek out happiness. I embrace joy!”
“Those are the same thing,” said Twilight.
“The blind can’t understand color,” Night Glider repeated that phrase. “You wouldn’t get that either, I’m afraid.”
“You can’t just use some turn of phrase to dismiss everything I say!” Twilight shot at her. “That’s not an argument.”
“Oh, I know way more about philosophy and logic than you do,” Night Glider assured her. “But I don’t blame you for misunderstanding. The blind can’t understand color like I always say.”
“This is pointless!” Twilight turned away from Night Glider. “Dash, there’s no point in talking to somepony like this!
“Hold up. I still wanna ask her more about her religion and stuff,” Dash tried to stop Twilight.
Twilight didn’t stick around, but thankfully she didn’t wander out of sight, either.
“Well the blind can’t understand color.” Night Glider laughed as Twilight marched off. “Don’t worry, I don’t blame your friend. I got much worse heckling than that, before. Do you want a free book about Starlight?”
Dash wasn’t sure if she’d call that heckling, exactly.
It was true that Dash should try to learn more about Starlight’s cult and Night Glider looked like she was willing to blab about it till the sun rose tomorrow. Yet in the back of her head, Dash couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if Night Glider was the one who found the coin.
Ever since that day, Dash had been overly paranoid about being alone with strangers. For all she knew, the next pony could have found and lost the coin already. How would she ever even know it’d happened?
Dash looked down the aisle. Twilight was right there along with Scootaloo. Surely this was good enough.
“I guess I’ll take the book.” Dash grabbed one of them off the pile. “What’s it about, anyway?”
The title of the book was Perfect Philosophy. For whatever reason, it had an asteroid hurtling towards the planet on the cover.
“This book is a milestone for ponies comparable to our discovery of fire and superior to the inventions of the wheel and arch,” Night Glider recited what Dash soon realized was written on the back of the book. “In short, Starlight solved philosophy. Every other book on the topic is either wrong or redundant. In ten years, not one pony has ever found a single flaw with this book. Isn’t that incredible?”
This filled Dash with an immediate desire to find a flaw just on the cover alone.
“Well couldn’t it have been called ‘Flawless Philosophy’? That way it’d be alliteration,” said Dash. “I could say that’s a flaw in my opinion at least.”
“Haha!” Night Glider laughed at the idea. “Well the blind can’t understand color, can they?”
That was enough for Dash to realize why no pony had ever found a flaw with the book. Twilight was right.
“Can you be real with me for a second?” Dash asked. “You can’t seriously think Starlight is perfect. Nothing is perfect.”
“Oh, I can prove Starlight is the best pony right here from first principals alone,” said Night Glider. “Want to hear?”
“That sounds unlikely but sure. Go ahead.”
Dash braced herself for impact.
“So ‘best pony’, by definition, would be the pony to whom there is no pony better. It would have to be the perfect pony that we can’t even imagine a better pony than.”
“Okay.” Dash was skeptical but couldn’t disagree with that.
“And now that I’ve mentioned it, you’re imagining a hypothetical best pony in your mind.” Night Glider pointed both hooves at her head, giddy with excitement at where this was going.
“I guess?”
“But an actual best pony would be better than a merely hypothetical best pony! Because it’s better to exist than to not exist, you see. If best pony only exists as an idea in your mind, then you can imagine a better pony than best pony but ‘better than best’ is a logical contradiction so best pony logically can’t exist only in your mind and thus best pony must exist in reality!”
“Hold up! Hold up!” This was going off the rails too fast for Dash to respond to.
But Night Glider didn’t hold up. She kept driving this train of logic straight into the ocean.
“And we all know Starlight used logic to achieve perfect morality. And if her morality is perfect that means no pony could ever be better than her in terms of morality meaning best pony cannot surpass her meaning it’s a logical contradiction to say that Starlight is not best pony meaning Starlight must be perfect in all ways because otherwise, she can’t be best pony which we already concluded that she is.”
And she looked so proud when Dash reacted to that with stunned silence. Dash felt like she was barrel deep in a pool of mud and had only ten seconds to get out before Night Glider won.
“I got some issues with all that,” Dash started speaking before her arguments were even clear in her mind. “Like, couldn’t the ‘best pony’ or whatever be tied with Starlight on the morality thing but still better than her at everything else? And isn’t it subjective what traits make a pony ‘the best’? I know my edgy sixteen-year-old self would have disagreed that it’s better to exist than not exist.”
Night Glider listened to this patiently and happily, not interrupting once as she nodded with sympathy and understanding. Then, when she’d given Dash plenty of time to say what she wanted and another second to be sure it was all out, Night Glider opened her mouth.
“Sorry. But if you don’t accept these obvious truths then it means you’re too uninformed to discuss this topic.” Night Glider put a book on the table. “You’re clearly lacking essential understanding and critical insights that would otherwise let you prune hypotheses that I consider obviously incorrect. You really should read this book to try and educate yourself.”
Feeling insulted, Dash glared at Night Glider before looking down at the book. It was a paperback with a picture of Starlight in deep thought on the cover. This book was I Glim, therefore, I Glam.
“It’s like I always say, the blind can’t understand color,” Night Glider repeated her increasingly annoying mantra. She wasn’t kidding about ‘always saying’ that.
“Okay. Well am I at least ‘informed’ enough for you to explain the basics of your religion to me?” Dash asked. She barely even knew that much.
“I’d love to!” Night Glider’s smile somehow got even bigger. “You know, normally we don’t tell ponies who haven’t taken a few courses the whole truth. It’d be like trying to explain calculus to a second-grader, you know? Most ponies aren’t smart enough to handle it, but I can tell you’re a genius, so I’ll give you the whole story.”
Dash nodded.
“You see, the truth is that all of us are merely shadows. We never existed in the first place and even our illusion of existence will vanish soon enough. Starlight alone knows the secret to becoming more than a miserable shadow. She will make all of those that follow her into real ponies and bring us to the outer realm where we will live forever. Do you see? Once all of us real ponies are gone there will be no hope for any of you to truly live.”
“The outer realm?” Dash stopped her there. “You mean the place of infinite horror, chaos, and emptiness? That’s where you want to go live?”
“Nope! Starlight went there and she said that actually, it’s great.” Night Glider did a happy little nod.
Suddenly, this conversation felt less like an indulgence and more like critical information.
“But everyone who tries to go there is braindead within seconds,” said Dash.
“That’s because the average pony isn’t real enough to handle it,” said Night Glider. “Those outside of our religion aren’t real ponies at all. You don’t have even a spark of reality inside you right now. I’m at least slightly real thanks to Starlight Glimmer’s teachings. But Starlight? She’s the only pony who’s truly real! She’s the only thing in our entire world that’s completely real. Isn’t that amazing?”
This was getting creepier with ever sentence.
“What do you mean when you say I’m not ‘real’ exactly?” Dash asked. “I’m not gonna lie. It’s a little unnerving you’re running around saying ponies that aren’t in your club aren’t real.”
“Well the blind—"
“Colors. Got it.” Dash shook her head.
“You’re funny.” Night Glider laughed. “It’s difficult to explain what being a real person is like to somepony who just has no reality about them at all, you know. You have no thickness to you. It’s like a two-dimensional being trying to understand a three-dimensional one. Starlight alone knows how to grant ponies the gift of existence. Our church can teach you this.”
“Cool.” Dash sighed. “And you’re saying Starlight became real, which gives her the ability to go to the outer realm unharmed?”
“Of course! Where do you think all of her divine and forbidden knowledge comes from?” Night Glider asked. “Starlight developed and used the teachings of our religion to become real and left to the outer realm. She stayed there for five years, learning all the secrets of the outer gods and becoming best friends with our god, Cosmos. It was a perfect world!
“But the love of Starlight and Cosmos are so infinite that Starlight left the outer realm and returned to help the rest of us. Even though none of us are real ponies and don’t deserve any kindness at all, Starlight still decided to come back into this disgusting world. Doesn’t that just bring a tear to your eyes?”
It did bring a tear to Night Glider’s eye, but not enough for that smile to droop.
Dash looked down at her growing collection of books, wondering how much of that was true. What if Starlight really did have a way to run around the outer realm unharmed? Something needed to explain her unusual powers and knowledge.
It was common knowledge that just glancing into the outer realm for one second was enough to fill you with an incredible burst of inspiration and passion. That was how mad science worked. But you could do other things with it. Some ponies finished multiple novels in a single day after one second in there, for example.
Of course, doing that more than a few times, even throughout your life, would cause increasingly serious issues. Even somepony who could just glance inside once a day without getting hurt, though, could accomplish incredible feats.
“Hey! Why don’t you come to our church with me tomorrow?” Night Glider suggested. “You can learn how to become a real person like me!”
“Thanks, but no.” Dash wasn’t going anywhere near that place unless an army showed up to drag her in. Even that might not be enough what with Twilight as a roommate. “I got a lot to do.”
“Are you sure? I know you want to do the right thing and joining Starlight is the best way to do that. Think about it! Ten percent of all hospitals are named after Starlight. Forty percent of all charity money comes from her followers. Nopony else’s record for defeating monsters can compare to that of Starlight and her followers. You can’t possibly tell me we aren’t the greatest force for good in the world.”
Dash had no idea if any of those numbers, save Starlight’s record, were true. Right now she didn’t care, either. Good stats could only make up for so much creepiness.
“Pass.” Dash started walking off.
“Hold on just one more second!” Night Glider stepped into her path. “You know, Starlight told me she’d be willing to reward you for your loyalty.”
“What do you mean?”
“Starlight can help you get to into the elite four, you know,” Night Glider whispered to Dash. “She’s willing to too. If you’re willing to obey her, that is.”
“If Starlight can do that, why doesn’t she make you or that other guy one of the elite?” Dash asked.
“It’d be too hard to get somepony who follows her teachings to the top,” said Night Glider. “We’re confident we can have you replace Sunset if we push for it. But let’s say you get there, then convert afterward! I’m only asking you to give our religion a serious chance. I know you’ll see giving Starlight your loyalty is the right way to go.”
Truth be told, Sunset Shimmer was the one Dash would least want to replace right now. That pony had been helping them out a lot lately, enough that it’d almost feel like a betrayal. Maybe Dash would have been more tempted if it’d been one of the other two.
Still, such a big offer gave her pause from the sheer enormity of it. To think things could even escalate this fast.
“She’d even be willing to support some of your, well, controversial ideas,” said Night Glider. “You just have to give up on one or two of them. The whole ‘being friends with ghosts’ things has to go, but it’s better to get some of your goals than none of them right?”
Already she was asking too much of Dash. Dash couldn’t imagine how sad it’d make Fluttershy.
“I’m not giving up on the ghost thing,” she said.
“You can talk about the details with Starlight if you’re ever interested. Though you will have to compromise something, you know. Nothing is free,” said Night Glider. “Maybe you’d be willing to, hm, sell out your pirate friend instead? She can’t possibly be innocent, can she?”
For a second Dash’s heart skipped, but she got her cool back reminding herself Night Glider was thinking of pirate stuff, not witch stuff.
“You want me to sell Silverstorm out?!”
“Well. Do you really need her? You’re the one with all the popularity. Getting to the top means leaving ponies behind to move on to bigger and better things. You don’t need some thug at this point.”
The joke was on her because Dash totally needed a thug like that. But even if she didn’t…
“I’m not taking the deal,” said Dash. “I’m not giving up on any of my goals and I’m not going to stab somepony who helped me in the back like that. I’m not the type who just ‘leaves someone behind’, okay?”
Fluttershy, Sunset, and especially Twilight helped Dash out way too much. Dash wouldn’t betray any of them for Starlight’s favor, let alone all three at once.
“Don’t you know how politics works?” Night Glider asked. “To get anything done at all, you need to be willing to compromise. That means giving things up. You’re being naïve.”
“Being naïve has worked out great for me so far,” said Dash.
Night Glider laughed heartily at that line.
“You’re so funny, Rainbow Dash!”
“I’m not joking!” Dash's patience was wearing thin. “Don’t suggest something like this to me again. Thanks.”
“Well alright, but just remember that you can’t be friends with everyone, and you can’t get everything you want.” Even now, Night Glider’s smile didn’t falter. “You need to choose sides eventually. Keep in mind that Starlight always wins.”
Without another word, Dash left the stand and went back to Scootaloo.
As she returned, Scootaloo was quick to hold the comic book up over her face, pretending like she hadn’t been listening to that whole conversation. The charade didn’t last long, and she dropped it immediately.
“You really weren’t tempted by that offer?” Scootaloo asked. “But couldn’t you have become a billionaire or something?”
“Could I?” Dash thought about it. “Eh. Maybe. But I can’t even think of anything to buy with the couple million I got now. And you want to give me a thousand times that much? Nah, I’ll take my friends and dignity over that.”
“For real?”
Scootaloo stared up at Dash, eyes wide with admiration.
“You know, you’re way cooler than I thought you’d be!” Scootaloo’s look of admiration became downcast. “I kinda feel bad now.”
“Bad about what?”
“Huh?!” Scootaloo realized she’d said that out loud and panicked. “Nothing! Never mind!”
“Aw, come on.” Dash put a wing around her. “I know I’m a grown-up now, but you know you can talk to me, right?”
“I—" Scootaloo hesitated but did open up a little this time. “This was the best day of my life. I just don’t know if I deserve it.”
“You don’t think you deserve to have a single good day?”
“No. I mean I don’t deserve to be your sister.”
“You don’t have to do anything to deserve having a family, you know. Do you think ponies normally do something before they’re born to ‘deserve’ a family? Nah! So why should you have to.”
“Well.” Scootaloo thought long and hard about that one. Whatever conclusion she came to made her giddy with excitement. “You know what? Maybe you’re right!”
“Course I’m right!” Dash adjusted her goggles.
“You really are the best!” Scootaloo hugged her. “I— I love you, sis! I promise I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”
“Well, thanks.” Dash messed up her hair again. “Love you too.”
Though secretly she couldn’t imagine a pony as fragile as Scootaloo protecting anypony from more than a stray wind.
Twilight had trouble concentrating while Dash was still talking to Night Glider. Despite herself, she kept glancing back over at the two of them.
When Dash stormed away from Night Glider, looking just as annoyed at her as Twilight was, it gave Twilight a smile.
Twilight wished she didn’t get so jealous. Even knowing she was only talking to Night Glider for tactical reasons, Twilight didn’t like seeing the two of them together. Somehow, she doubted telling Dash to never talk to anypony Twilight didn’t like ever again wouldn’t go over well.
At least she understood why she hated Night Glider so much.
For a second there, Twilight felt like she was talking to her old self. That was exactly how Twilight used to be. Efficiency and the endless accumulation of power were the only things she focused on her whole life.
The Twilight from not too long ago would lecture her current self about how friends would only ever hold her back and distract her from her training. She doubted she could have explained herself to past Twilight, but increasingly she disliked her old attitude.
She remembered what Trixie said about being stuck in the middle of the road forever. She put so much effort into getting more powerful and yet year after year Twilight never felt much beyond a brief sense of accomplishment at her ever more infrequent milestones.
Even failing at mini-golf earlier felt better than being alone. Once she got used to being around Dash, just being in the same room as her more fulfillment than creating true void.
Twilight pulled out that book Dash mentioned before. Daring Do was the title of the first book in the series.
Or maybe she hadn’t changed that much.
Maybe she should try reading one of these ‘novels’ after all.
“Hey! Over here!” A raspy voice got Twilight’s attention.
She hoped it wasn’t another one of her fans. Twilight had yet to learn how to deal with them.
Yet another pegasus appeared. She looked a lot like Night Glider did. This one had white hair too, in a style not too unlike Night Gliders, though her fur was much lighter. She did have the same goggles Dash was wearing today, which Twilight took to mean she was also rich.
“You’re Silverstorm, yeah?” She spoke with a voice that was raspy even for a pegasus. “I was hoping I’d bump into one of you two. My name’s Fleetfoot. Maybe you heard of me? I’m rank S too.”
Fleetfoot? That name did sound familiar.
“Oh, wait! I think I was told about you.” Twilight went through the list of S rank ponies in her head. There were only thirteen of them in total. Dash and Pinkie went through the complete list with Twilight not long ago. “Rainbow Dash told me you were the only pegasus who can break Mach 2 without assistance.”
“You got that right. I’m the fastest pegasus alive, you know. Here’s a question! What’s the best weapon to use for somepony who can fly unreasonably fast?” Fleetfoot asked.
She took out the answer without waiting for a reply.
“Bag of holding!” Fleetfoot took out a bag. Twilight recognized the spatial distortions around it quickly enough to make out what it was. “Step one. Put something huge like an anchor inside of it. Step two. Fly as fast as you can. Step three. Take out the anchor!”
Fleetfoot made one sweeping motion with her bag and the anchor came right out. It was enormous, five times bigger than Twilight.
“When you take it out, it’ll be moving at the same speed you are! You ever seen something get hit by an anchor at Mach 2?” Fleetfoot made an explosion noise. “I guess that probably wouldn’t be impressive to you, huh? I wasn’t able to hurt Trixie no matter how much I tried, but you got her! But at least you heard of me.”
Fleetfoot struggled to get that anchor back in the bag.
Truth be told, Twilight was somewhat impressed by a pony able to fly that fast without magic or technology boosting them. More importantly, Fleetfoot was one of those ponies that were the most important to get on their side.
Twilight tried to remember who this pony was aligned with.
“I think they said you were, uh,” Twilight recalled the other facts about Fleetfoot, “you’re one of Flash Bang’s, um, I think ‘lapdog bitches’ was the term?”
“Guh!” Fleetfoot dropped her anchor and leaped back at an impressive speed but laughed a second later. “You don’t pull punches, do you? Though then again, you’re from the pirate coast. That’s one’s a compliment compared to the stuff I normally get from ponies over there.”
Twilight nervously chuckled, realizing too late she’d said something offensive.
“S-sorry. I’m bad at talking if you didn’t notice on the radio.” Twilight looked down at the ground. She wished she was back in the woods right now.
“Ah, don’t sweat it. I figured you just weren’t used to being out of the woods already.”
Fleetfoot finished shoving the anchor back in her bag and slung it around her back.
“You probably got a bad opinion of us, huh?” Fleetfoot slicked back her hair. “I guess that’s the price I pay. Look, even I’ll admit Flash Bang goes too far sometimes. But we’re under constant threat from a million different sources of danger. You know why your pal Sunset has to build so many orphanages, right? I’d rather go after the cause of the problem than just playing cleanup.”
“Every time I hear about Flash Bang it’s about how she’s going too far,” said Twilight. “I suppose I never actually met her, but I don’t see why you can’t admit that some ghosts aren’t that bad, for example.”
“Hey, I’m not hellbent on being mean to all these monsters and ghosts and stuff,” said Fleetfoot. “If we could just be friends with everypony that’d be great. Nailbat runs around lecturing us about all this stuff, but he doesn’t get the same kind of results. Trying to be friends with these monsters isn’t as easy or safe as you think.”
The idea that other ponies had already tried to pass some of the reforms her friends wanted never even occurred to Twilight. Her focus had been entirely on witches and Starlight.
“I don’t know anything about your politics,” Twilight admitted. “I used to live in the woods until recently. I just know what I feel is right. Maybe we can do a better job than whoever.”
“I kinda like that attitude better than what the rest of these elites have going.” Fleetfoot held her hoof out to Twilight. “As I said, I only care about results. If you show me you’d do a better job at protecting Equestria than Flash Bang, then me and Spitfire will side with you instead. If you reform Trixie, take out more witches and all this other stuff you’re boasting about, then I’ll consider you more worthy of my loyalty and your way of doing things better.”
Twilight knew none of the ponies in Equestria had her beat when it came to defeating the worst monsters. She didn’t understand their political system, but she did know getting these S-ranked ponies on her side was important.
“Though just so you know, that includes protecting us from Starlight and her cult.” Fleetfoot eyed a passing pony, perhaps one she knew to be in that cult, with suspicion.
Twilight was confident she could do that too.
“I can do that,” said Twilight. “No. I will do that.”
Now that Twilight thought about it, Rainbow Dash did suggest trying to make a friend. And Fleetfoot had been the closest any pony had ever gotten to catching Minuette.
“Actually. If you’re willing to help me with something, I can show you.”