//------------------------------// // Ch. 11 Dawn Seeker's Day Off // Story: Dash of Humanity 3: Live, Fly, Reboot. // by Kaidan //------------------------------// I walked across my bedroom, stepping over the unplugged alarm clock, in my striped red bathrobe. Turning to face nopony in particular, I began to talk out loud. “Incredible. This time loop is one of the worst things to happen to me since I came to Equestria, and I never considered I could do anything I wanted consequence free. How could I possibly go back to studying magic after a revelation like this? I had a minor setback after Rarity caught me in her basement, and I still feel the whip marks. I like to think I learned a valuable lesson in friendship yesterday, one that I can shock Celestia with after all is said and done.” The curtains to my bedroom window were pulled open as I tugged down on the rope attached to them. I looked out over Ponyville, a town now full of possibility. “Time loops move pretty fast,” I said, staring out the window. “If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. I am supposed to be studying theoretical physics of the fourth dimension as it applies to the metamagic of transmutation today, but really, what’s the point?” I turned from the window and headed toward the bathroom, continuing my monologue. “I’m not a unicorn, I don’t plan on being a unicorn, so who gives a crap about electron orbits and their effect on spell casting?” I removed the robe and got into my shower, letting the hot water flow down over my back. “It’s been a hard day’s night,” I sang, “and I’ve been working like—well let's just leave it at that. It’s not like I’m still bitter about the DMCA or anything.” Using a soapy loofa on a stick, I scrubbed under my wings. “I don’t condone any acronyms really. Anything that needs an acronym is just not good in my opinion. A person shouldn’t believe in them, they should believe in themselves.” I lathered some shampoo into my mane, as I continued to talk to myself and anypony who might be listening. “To quote John Lennon’s song: I don’t believe in magic, I just believe in me. Had to paraphrase a bit there, it was a long list of things he didn’t believe in. After all, he was the walrus, and I’m a pegasus, and the fact that any of this makes sense as I talk to myself in a shower should be a huge red flag if a psychiatrist is listening.” Once the shower was finished I got out and dried off, getting back into my bathrobe and heading out onto my second story balcony. I looked up the street to where Roseluck was watering her flowers and smirked. “Today is gonna be my day.” I dropped the robe and flew up into the air, holding a leather strap in my right front hoof. The wind was drying my damp hair and making it curl and stick out as if it hadn’t even been brushed this morning. By the time I got to Rose my mane looked like a porcupine and a lint trap had a baby and left it on tumble dry for an hour. She gasped and said to me, “Looks like somepony’s got a case of the—” Rose was cut off as I shoved a gag into her open mouth, and fastened it around her head. There was a click as a small lock was set in place. “I guess I’ll have to thank Rarity for that gag gift she got for my birthday after all.” Rose mumbled something, before promptly fainting and twitching a leg in the regular dramatic way of the flower trio. “Wow, what a lightweight. That was just a gag, yesterday I got the whole nine yards.” The small alarm clock fell to the ground in the middle of central park in Ponyville. Pinkie Pie and I slowly walked up towards it, both wearing a dress shirt and tie. She hadn’t even asked me for an explanation. Maybe I’d been wrong about her randomness; it was amazingly useful after all. She even had a record of the Geto Boys, Celestia knows how. As the music blasted from the small record player, I could see several mares rushing their fillies and colts out of the park. I circled around the alarm clock that had been tormenting me for nearly half a year every morning. Balanced across my back and wings was the baseball bat from Pinkie’s party planning basement that I thought I’d have no use for. The record player hit the chorus of the song. “Die mother-buckers die mother-buckers still!” I brought the baseball bat down on the radio alarm clock, causing the casing to explode and reveal the small circuit boards inside. A couple more swings and the small spool of analog numbers used to show the time had scattered into dozens of little cards laying across the grass. Pinkie walked up, singing along to the song. “Walk around town with a frown on my face!” She kicked the alarm over, then slammed a hoof down on it hard enough to shatter the plastic. It still wasn’t enough, and I began swinging the bat again at one of the small transistors that was still intact. I must have hit it a dozen more times until it finally shot out a small spark and split open. Pinkie came up behind me and started pulling me back from the alarm clock, going so far as to take the bat away from me. The bat fell to the ground and I almost felt catharsis at having taken my anger out on the clock. Almost. Before she could stop me I rushed back over to the alarm clock and began jumping up and down on it, slamming my hoof into it hard enough to split the keratin and cause a trickle of blood from the frog. This time she had to grab my tail in her mouth, dragging me away from the remains of the cursed device. I managed to grab the power cord and tried to bite it in half in my mouth as I was dragged away. Across Equestria in every dictionary that existed, beneath the word ‘obliterated’, a picture of a radio alarm clock appeared. It would puzzle scholars for the remainder of the day, until the next time loop reset the dictionaries to normal. Annihilating an alarm clock can work up quite the appetite, so after Pinkie and I got changed we went back down to the kitchen to view the Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness. It had four layers and was larger than most wedding cakes I’d ever seen. It was coated top to bottom in enough sugar to give an entire football stadium diabetes. “Oh, Dawn, that cake is really delicious. I remember eating an entire one in a single bite once!” Pinkie stated. “Can I learn this power?” I asked Pinkie. She grinned. “Not from an alicorn.” “I’ll take it.” I slammed down a bag full of bits on the counter in front of Mrs. Cake, and pointed at the cake. “Oh, sure Dawn. Do you want us to deliver it to your home?” she asked. “Nope, I’ll need you to wheel it out here and get me a fork and lots of water,” I explained. By the time she’d wheeled it out, I’d gathered a small audience. Maybe Pinkie had snuck out to gather them up. I recognized Thunderlane, Big Mac, Berry Punch, Lyra, Octavia, Flitter, and a few others. I flew up to hover above the cake and carved out my first bite with the fork. As I began to chew the cake, I could feel the sugar making its way through the enamel of my teeth, causing the roots to ache. It was so sweet, so sugary, and I could already feel my pancreas shriveling up in fear. By the time I’d swallowed the first bite, I’d made up my mind. “This cake is better than sex.” Mrs. Cake blushed, rushing off to make sure her kids weren’t close enough to have heard this. I saw a couple ponies in the crowd nodding in agreement. As I ate a few more bites, I noticed that bits were changing hooves among the crowd. It looked like they were taking bets on whether or not I’d finish it. “Hey, if you’re gonna take bets, I just want to say one thing. I’m going to eat this whole bucking cake, or die trying.” I smiled and took a big bite directly out of the cake, getting frosting all over my muzzle. This seemed to encourage Thunderlane, who placed a sizable bet right afterwards. The first layer didn’t last long, it was the smallest and at the top. About halfway through the second layer, I had to stop and drink some water. I was starting to sweat, and my wings were getting sore from hovering with all the extra weight I was consuming. I landed on the ground to give them a rest, as I polished off the second half of the second lair. My stomach was starting to cramp up a bit as I dug into the third layer of the cake. Mixed in with the sweat and tears was a growing layer of frosting. My forelegs, head, and the fluffier bits of my chest were coated in yellow frosting as I carelessly dug in. By now the Cake’s shop was standing room only. There must have been fifty or sixty ponies watching, with more outside peering through windows. Pinkie was keeping my water glass full, and facilitating the bets. “Five to one odds with a ten percent cut to the house that he finishes the third layer! Twenty to one he has to get his stomach pumped after!” Pinkie shouted. “I’ll take that bet!” Berry yelled. “Fifty to one he finishes the whole cake. Ten thousand to one he finishes the whole cake and walks out of the shop under his own power!” Pinkie barked. “I’ll take that bet!” Kevin shouted. Nopony seemed to notice, or care, that a changeling named Kevin had just placed a bet, except for me. I glanced over at him with a surprised look. He shrugged. “If someone gives you ten thousand to one, on anything, you take it.” I saluted him with my fork, taking a long drink of water. My breath smelled like fruity acetone, and my vision was a bit blurry, but I had yet to vomit. I was three layers through the cake and feeling energetic enough to take on the whole damn world. The pain in my teeth had subsided, they were now so thoroughly saturated in ten thousand times the daily recommended value of sugar that the nerves had likely died. Each bite into that fourth and final layer was harder than the last. I was grateful that Pinkie had used the really good frosting, and none of that pasty store-bought stuff. My bites got slower and slower as I struggled to stay awake and focused. The fourth layer was mostly gone, or mostly there, as my vision doubled. Far in the distance I could hear Pinkie asking me something, but it was hard to make out. I was so thirsty I could have drank an entire lake by now, emptying each glass as soon as Pinkie set it before me. Each time I burped I had to make a conscious effort not to throw up. “I’m… fine…” I wave a hoof around wildly. “Get back! Mine!” I fell forward onto the cake, and began eating my way through it with my face. I used my forelegs to shovel it towards my hungry maw. My stomach was so distended any pony might have mistaken me for pregnant. I bit into something cardboard and looked up in confusion. Pinkie was lifting my foreleg in the air, shouting. I mumbled and tried to ask her to be quiet, my headache felt like it would split my skull over at any second. “He did it! He finished the cake!” The ponies erupted in cheering, but I wasn’t done yet. There was somepony out there named Kevin who I was going to make very rich for the rest of this loop. I felt a relief of pressure, and some gasps of horror. Near the back of the crowd I heard somepony shout “Yes! I had thirty bits on him wetting himself!” I struggled to my hooves, drooling and my mouth hung wide open. My eyes couldn’t focus, but I could see a pathway to the door opening up before me. Whether they were hoping I’d take home the gold and beat the thousand to one odds, or escaping the expanding puddle, I’d never find out. The crowd cheered. “Dawn! Dawn! Dawn!” I shuffled one foot in front of the other, my heart racing, ears ringing. I could feel sharp pains in my sides, in parts of the pony body I didn’t even know I had. Several more steps forward I stumbled, making it to the door and stepping down into the dirt outside. I grinned and said something incoherent that got a good laugh from the crowd, before promptly falling over dead of hyperglycemic shock. Come on everypony smile, smile, smile Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine I woke up and reached to hit the alarm clock, but my swing went wide. I rolled out of bed and caught the floor with my face. Groaning in pain, I decided to just knock the whole nightstand down and flail wildly until the alarm clock finally stopped making noise. The taste of sweet victory, smell of fruity nail polish, and aching of my teeth were slowly fading. I was slowly being healed by the time loop, or perhaps it was just the phantom aches and memories that were vanishing. My pancreas had served with distinction yesterday, and I had learned what it takes to eat an entire cake in a single sitting. This also furthered my conviction that Pinkie Pie should not exist, as nopony should be able to eat that large a cake and not die. I laid there for a while basking in the afterglow, before finally getting to my hooves to begin my next day off. There were still a lot of things I wanted to do, or could do, so I decided to head out first to Fluttershy’s cottage. It was a short flight from my home, but I had to stop by Barnyard Bargains first to purchase something. By the time I arrived at Fluttershy’s I had everything I needed to unravel one of the greatest mysteries of our times. I was going to find out what was in Fluttershy’s shed. I walked right up to the locked door and removed the bolt cutters from my bag. It was trivial to cut through the metal shackle with the large cutting tool. I knocked the lock off the door and walked into the shed, letting the light from outside illuminate it. On the walls were various gardening tools and a couple work benches. There were bags of animal and bird feed, as well as fertilizer and weed killer. I paced around the room, letting out a disappointed sigh. “I guess I was expecting another dungeon or something cool. Maybe Fluttershy’s just a perfectly normal pony.” I looked down at a garish rug on the floor, it was tacky even by my standards. “Eh, mostly normal.” Turning around to leave, my hind hoof flicked the rug back enough to reveal a hidden trap door. I closed the door to the shed, flying back into town unaware of anything out of the ordinary. Sun’s Flank was one of the shadier bars in Ponyville. Granted, there were only a few bars, but if you named your bar something that would certainly draw the ire of an alicorn whose power was the nuclear furnace known as the sun, then you had balls. The kinds of ponies who drank the alcohol at the Sun’s Flank, which was often cut with pure grain alcohol to stretch it out a little longer, were similarly brave. However, I wasn’t here to get hammered. I had something better in mind. It wasn’t long before the town's most notoriously promiscuous, and if Lyra is to be believed, awesome in the sack mare came into the bar. As soon as she sat down, I sauntered over to Cloud Kicker and sat down across the table from her. “You’ve got to help me! I’m trapped in a time loop and only you can help me escape it!” She raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? And how will I do that?” “I’ve got to bang the hottest mare in town to break the loop, and save all of Ponyville!” I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. Cloud Kicker looked at me incredulously. “So my boss’s colt friend wants me to bang ‘em to free them from a time loop. I mean, it’s not the worst pick up line I’ve had, but you clearly didn’t think this through, Dawn.” I finally let out the chuckle I’d been holding in. “I know, right? But it’s pretty good for a pick up line if I weren’t seeing somepony?” “I don’t think you need pick up lines, what I think you need is somepony to teach you about the weather vane trick.” Cloud smirked and leaned forward, beckoning me to lean closer to her. She began to whisper in my ear. I began to blush, and realized I wouldn’t be able to get out of the booth until I’d spent ten to fifteen minutes thinking about baseball or politicians, and I might have to throw my grandmother in there for good measure. “Holy hell, that’s hot,” I responded. “Yeah, and if you and Dash ever want to have a three way, let me know. I’m sure I could make an exception to my rule about not banging the boss and her friends, just to see the look on her face when you get the weather vein to start slapping her.” “Well, thanks for the advice. We’ve still got some time before the time loop resets, so I had another idea I think you could help me out with.” I gestured around to the crowd. “I figure we round up everyone here and break into Applejack’s private reserves, and have a little drinking contest.” Cloud raised an eyebrow. “Wait, you’re serious about the time loop thing?” “Yeah, so can you round up as many ponies as you can, and be sure to bring whoever is the best at holding their liquor. We’re going to party like it’s nineteen ninety nine!” “Uh, I’m not sure what that means, but let’s do it. It’s your flank if the loop doesn’t reset anyway.” “What in tarnation is going on?!” Applejack shouted. Deep in the cellar that housed the Apple family reserves, four dozen ponies were drinking hard zapp apple cider and cheering “Chug! Chug! Chug!” so loudly hardly anypony noticed we’d been caught. Sitting across from Berry Punch, I was quickly throwing back shots that had been poured across the table. There were twenty-one in front of each of us to make up the traditional twenty-one gun salute. Each was some sort of vodka distilled from apples, but judging by the taste it was more like a mixture of moonshine and paint thinner. Berry was on her eighteenth shot, and I’d just downed my nineteenth. It was a race against time to prove I could drink Berry under the table, or it had been. I could barely see straight and was mostly putting anything I could find in my mouth and swallowing it. Maybe alcohol and good decision making don’t mix. The crowd erupted in cheering as I finished the last shot. Berry finished hers, and we both erupted in laughter, then hugged. I couldn’t feel my hooves, nose, or ears, and my stomach felt like it was on fire. The alcohol probably wouldn’t stay down long, and I stumbled over towards Applejack. “i kanew you weure hliodng out on us applejqack! Hah!” I stuttered. “Dawn, what in the blazes were you thinking?” She raised her voice. “Y’all are drinking over twenty years of reserves on private property!” “pull the sckit out of your flanmk and live a little. i got a new trick wibth da weather vein to show you before i die of alcohol poiskoning!” I had to grab onto her as I suddenly found myself unable to balance. I may have thrown up in her mane a bit after that, before I started laughing again. “I think we better get you to the hospital.” Applejack turned to guide me out of the cellar. Berry walked by and shot me a glance. She was notably more composed than I was. “Good going, Dawn. You had me worried for a minute.” “what trhe hell? how are you not drunmk? this isn't fanir!” She shrugged. “I wouldn’t try that again outside a time loop. You lightweights are liable to get hurt.” I groaned as Applejack lifted me up onto her back, and started to carry me up the ramp out of the cellar. We never did make it to the hospital. Come on everypony smile, smile, smile Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine My head began to pulsate with waves of pain. My skull felt like the two halves were being slowly separated by meat hooks. I’d never been so hung over. The radio sounded like it was being pumped through the largest subwoofer Vinyl Scratch owned, directly into my ears. I didn’t bother trying to turn it off, I couldn’t move without being overcome by waves of nausea and pain. After a few minutes the memories and pain faded, and I was able to find the alarm and silence it. As I rested in bed, I began to recall some of the highlights from my vacation. So far I’d managed to do almost every stupid or reckless thing I could think of. I did some light breaking and entering, discovering several interesting things. Twilight has an addiction to trashy romance novels like Fifty Tones of Neigh. Strawberry Sunrise has a huge crush on Applejack. Granny Smith is more spry than she looks, and has good aim with a frying pan. After an attempt to discover why Cranky Doodle is so grumpy, I’ve decided to never mess with him again. I even called for an emergency town hall meeting and gave one of the most riveting, detailed, and horrific renditions of The Aristocrats joke to ever be told. I know it was that good, because Mayor Mare immediately served me an eviction notice. Not from my house, but from all of Ponyville. During my last loop I spent most of my savings getting the spa twins to give me eight spa treatments in a row. It was almost time to get back to studying, I just didn’t want to. I wanted one more loop, one more ridiculous adventure, before I went back to work. Sitting up in bed, I realized what it would be. “I’m going to do a sonic rainboom!” I hurried to get ready and went outside, dressed in my flight suit to be as aerodynamic as possible. It was a plain dark blue, but hugged tightly to my body to help with high speed maneuvers. I relished the air flowing over my wings as I took off into the sky. Even if I were trapped in this time loop for eternity, the joy of flying was one thing I don’t think I’d ever get tired of. I continued climbing until I was high over the town and near the Everfree. My sights were set on Sweet Apple Acres. From this high up, gravity would do most of the work. I just had to angle downward, flap hard, and build speed until I broke the sound barrier. If I was lucky, some sort of pony-magic would kick in at about that moment and I’d shoot rainbows, lightning, or maybe some wicked fire out of my wingtips as I broke the barrier. There was no time like the present to find out whether or not Dash had been a good enough flight instructor to teach me something nopony else had ever done. I dove and began to beat my wings in a practiced rhythm. My legs tucked in against my barrel, and I assumed as aerodynamic a pose as I could. I appreciated the flight goggles that had come with the suit as I neared the sound barrier. Without them I wouldn’t be able to see very well as the wind whipped past. I was quickly running out of room, however. Sweet Apple Acres was coming up, and just beyond that the time barrier, and I hadn’t broken the speed of sound yet. I could feel the turbulence building and put my outstretched hooves together to form a spear shape. The wind was breaking over them, and with just one wrong move I would be sent tumbling to the ground. I could see something sparking at the tips of my forelegs, and felt a change in the air pressure. It looked like I was actually doing it. I began beating my wings harder, speeding up, fully focused on getting that little bit of speed. I was distracted by the weather magic sparking around my hooves and barely dodged one of the larger trees. My eyes went wide, then I ran directly into the Crusader’s club house. Come on everypony smile, smile, smile Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine I groaned as I reached over to shut off the alarm. I realized I’d done some pretty dumb stuff lately, but running straight into a large wooden structure at nearly the speed of sound had hurt the most so far. Thinking back, it seemed like I would have been able to do it if I had a little more room and speed. I had gotten distracted near the end, and lost altitude over the apple orchard. If there had been a way to build speed quicker, I could have pulled it off, then turned before hitting the barrier. Then I remembered about a certain trio of fillies that had built something in the Everfree that could give me just the boost I needed. Today, like yesterday, I hurried to get ready for the day. I made it to the clearing before the Cutie Mark Crusaders had even finished assembling their rail gun. “Hey girls, I’m here to help build your railgun,” I explained. “Dawn? How’d you know about this?” Sweetie asked. “We’re stuck in a time loop, you’ve built it before. Plus, I know you built it backwards. So we’re gonna build it right, then adjust the speed down enough to not liquify me. Then, I’m going to do a sonic rainboom… no wait, a quadruple sonic rainboom!” “Yes!” Scootaloo cheered. “This is gonna be so awesome!” “I’m glad somepony is excited, but isn’t it reckless to fire yourself out of a rail gun Dawn?” Apple Bloom asked. “Pfft.” I waved a hoof dismissively, and pointed to where Scootaloo had laid out a helmet, filly-sized flight suit, and her scooter. “You were totally gonna let her try it if the test firing went well.” Sweetie rolled her eyes. “We may have let her think that, but even we’re not dumb enough to do that to Scootaloo.” “What?” Scootaloo complained. “Come on, you agreed it’d be the coolest cutie mark ever!” “Tell you what, Scoots, if it works for me we’ll let you launch out of it next.” I said. Apple Bloom and Sweetie glanced at each other. “Well, if an adult says it’s okay…” It had taken us almost the entire day to make the necessary changes to correctly assemble the rail gun and tune it down just enough to fire me at only marginally unsafe velocities. Now I was seated inside the railgun, compressed inside some sort of small magical magnetic field. I squirmed and adjusted my flight goggles, making sure I was in position to be fired. “Okay, girls, I think I’m ready.” “Commencing countdown!” Sweetie said from outside. “Ten, nine, eight.” I started giggling in excitement. Dash would never believe me when I told her I broke her record, I only wish I could somehow measure the true speed. Would I just break mach one, or would I get up to mach 5? For all I knew, I might break the warp ten barrier. “Seven, six. Hey, does anyone smell that?” I sniffed, and realized something did smell a bit smokey. The magnetic field was grabbing me more tightly than before, and I couldn’t squirm much. There was a thrumming flow of magic down the length of the barrel, and my pegasi senses were screaming at me to run. “Five, four, three.” “Maybe we should abort” “It’s automated! I don’t know how!” I tried to say something, but it was near full charge, and I couldn’t breathe. “Two, One.” There was a deafening noise as the wind rushed past, but I was able to breathe again. I was hurtling through the air so quickly that I almost forgot to spread my wings. Once I did, I nearly spiraled out of control from the sheer speed I was traveling at. I felt a wall of wind, some sort of loud sound, and then total silence. I was slicing through the air so fast, I couldn’t hear the wind whipping past me. That meant I must have broken the sound barrier. I’d actually done it! I turned my head back to see if I was trailing rainbow, lightning, or something else unspeakably awesome. As I turned my head to look, it altered the airflow over my body, causing me to swerve to the left. I couldn’t get a good look at my contrail, but when I looked forward again I got a very good look at a rapidly approaching castle. “Mother F—”