Thursday
It was early in the morning again and Twilight Sparkle was returning from the market, food and supplies stuffed into her saddlebags for the next week. She’d had to pick up an extra load of supplies today too; hanging around with Rainbow Dash had the unhappy effect of reducing her food supplies tenfold.
Speaking of that particular mare, she hadn’t seen her since they’d parted ways yesterday on their hunt for Mare Do Better. Almost instinctively, she looked back at her saddlebags. Of course, food wasn’t the only thing that she was carrying, certain garments had to be washed every now and again and washing them in her house was far too risky.
Not that she was too worried about being found out, it was mostly just paranoia that kept her sharp. Alright, she’d almost freaked out when Rainbow had asked her to help in the search, but she thought that she’d kept her cool remarkably well, all considering.
And nothing against Rainbow, but she hadn’t really been paying that much attention to any slips that Twilight had let through, but having said that… Rainbow had been paying plenty of attention yesterday when they’d hung out.
A memory of her and Rainbow discussing their childhood on the way to the lake replayed itself. If she was honest with herself, she’d never expected to be able to hold a conversation with Rainbow for the whole three hour journey, let alone the time at the lake and the way back too.
Looking at it analytically, she’d thought they had almost nothing in common, sure, both her and Rainbow were at the top of their game, but that was subjective. Applejack was the at the top of her game in farming, Fluttershy was at the top of her game in flora and fauna knowledge, Rarity was at the top of her game when it came to fashion and Pinkie was at the top of her game when it came to making ponies smile.
Strange really, it had never occurred to her that their differences could provide fuel for discussions instead. They’d managed to while away the afternoon comparing their various experiences while they were growing up and afterwards.
She was actually quite glad that Rainbow had suggested the talk in retrospect. She’d never realised how much she didn’t know about one of her best friends, like how Rainbow had constantly been put under pressure to perform the sonic rainboom again to no avail, it had brought back one or two painful memories from Magic Kindergarten for her.
She’d been the youngest filly ever to pass into the School for Gifted Unicorns, but until then she’d had no formal magical training of any sort, she’d just been left to her own devices. Sadly she’d been too young at the time to go straight into formal education, so she’d been put into the kindergarten class with special lessons in control from Celestia every now and then. The other foals had resented that and had made her life a living hell as they mocked her potential that apparently only Celestia could see.
Of course, for every instance of that, there were several where Rainbow and her had just had completely different experiences and completely different personalities resulting from that. But that was fine, that was what made her friends unique.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered a high whistling sound, one she’d learnt to recognise through experience, and one which seemed to be heading straight for her.
She had just enough time to safeguard her bags before she was blindsided, knocked sideways into an alley with enough force to part her from her saddlebags.
“Oww…” she groaned, “Good morning to you too Rainbow.”
Her greeting was met with silence.
Wondering why her attacker had remained silent, she rolled onto her front and got to her hooves, wincing slightly as she did so.
She looked down to the entrance of the alley, no worse for wear, but froze when she saw the culprit, and more importantly, what she was holding.
Rainbow was stood at the entrance of the alleyway, Twilight’s saddlebags laid open behind her, and the hood of Mare Do Well clasped in her teeth.
Thoughts immediately assaulted Twilight’s brain, telling her in earnest that whatever she said next would either make or break her friendship with Rainbow and possibly avoid another date with the ground.
“Ah.”
Or that was an option too, well done brain...
Rainbow spoke up from the end of the alley, “It was you then?”
Twilight settled for a slow nod, looking down bashfully; the cat was so far out of the bag that it had gone overseas anyway, so there was no point lying.
Twilight thought she heard a sigh from Rainbow and looked up. She thought she could see a hint of disappointment in her expression before Rainbow spoke up, her voice cracking slightly, “Why?”
She bit her lip. It didn’t take a genius to see that Rainbow was upset, a fact which was currently nagging relentlessly at Twilight, but still…
She let out an explosive sigh, “Come back to the library with me… I promise I’ll explain everything. Just… put the mask away… please.”
Rainbow nodded once, turning around and replacing the mask in the bags silently before picking them up and passing them over to Twilight.
“Thanks…” she muttered
Rainbow stayed silent, turning back to wait at the exit of the alley.
Twilight swallowed nervously, then followed Rainbow out onto the street and turned towards the library, already dreading the talk.
The door swung shut silently behind Rainbow Dash as Twilight closed them off from any peeking eyes.
A few moments later, Rainbow spoke up, “So… the explanation?”
Twilight sighed, “In a moment… just let me put my bags away and find some coffee.”
I’m stalling for time…
Somehow the thought rung true inside her own head and she stopped mid-stride.
“No… you know what? We may as well get this over with now, I’ll just be putting off the inevitable otherwise,” she turned to face Rainbow, determined to see this through to the end, “So… what did you want to know?”
Rainbow jumped, startled as Twilight rounded on her. Twilight waited patiently as Rainbow quickly searched through her mind for a question and asked the first one that came to mind, “Um… why Mare Do Better?”
Despite the situation, Twilight’s brows shot up into her head as she contemplated the… unexpected question. She’d expected Rainbow to ask the big one almost immediately, but she wasn’t going to complain if she had extra time to marshal her thoughts in the meantime. “Well… I suppose it was because Mare Do Well would have been too obvious and too… well… overused. Mare Do Better suited me because I already had the costumes that Rarity gave to us and Mare Do Well was comparatively bad, so it was a name of intent too.”
“Wait, how many costumes did you have?”
“Oh… originally just the one that Rarity gave to me, then I offered to take care of the other costumes and made some adaptations here and there. I might not be Rarity, but I can do some things with my magic,” Twilight replied.
“But…” Rainbow paused, “why were you doing it in the first place?”
Twilight sighed, sitting back on the floor and gesturing for Rainbow to do the same, “Well… I guess it’s because… well... you remember what we were talking about yesterday? How I’d been tired of being the nerdy egghead who-”
“Who got pushed around in school and wouldn’t let your big brother fight your own battles? Yes, yes I remember that part,” Rainbow interrupted, then saw that Twilight was shooting a death-glare straight into her soul, “sorry…” she muttered quietly.
“As I was saying…” Twilight continued, breaking off her glare, “I guess I finally realised that I could do something about that and, well, did so.”
“So why here?” Rainbow asked, “Why now? Why Ponyville?”
“Why here?” Twilight parroted, “Well… I wasn’t exactly going to go to Canterlot to become a vigilante was I? The law enforcement over there is much too restrictive for any would-be heroes,” she paused to chuckle to herself softly before continuing, “Why Ponyville though? You remember the incident with Smarty Pants?”
Rainbow nodded, curious despite herself.
“Well… after deciding that I’d managed to make an absolute fool of myself in front of the town and almost cause a minor riot, I wanted to repay the town somehow, helping keep the town’s crime rate down seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“And the now?” Rainbow cut in.
“I was getting to it…” Twilight replied, smiling imperceptibly before slipping into a lecture tone, “Well since we’d had two instances of heroes, first you and then Mare Do Well, who have both proven to be… less than heroic when it came down to it, the criminal populous would have grown in confidence as the town was proven to have very ineffective law enforcement.”
Rainbow blinked.
Twilight sighed, “Basically because the criminals were more active now than before.”
“Why didn’t you just say that?”
“I just did…” Twilight replied, being very careful not to grind her teeth together.
“Whatever,” Rainbow waved a hoof in the air before pointing it at Twilight, “But… you as Mare Do Better? I mean… you’re not exactly the superhero type are you?”
“Gee thanks for the vote of confidence Dash…” Twilight replied sarcastically, “But as I’ve said before, learning anything is possible if you can perform enough research to become adept at it.”
“The fighting?” Rainbow questioned sceptically, to which Twilight used her magic to pull out a book titled, ‘Fighting Your Own Battles’.
“The running?”
‘The Physics of Momentum and Appliances Thereof’
“The appearing and disappearing?”
“You do remember that I’m a unicorn, right?”
Rainbow grimaced for a moment before she started talking again, “Alright, sure, you’re Mare Do Better and you learnt how to fight using books, but why in the hay did you agree to search for, well, you, with me?”
“You didn’t exactly give me much choice did you?” Twilight deadpanned.
“You could still have refused to help,” Rainbow insisted.
“I think I tried to do that too.”
Rainbow changed tactics, “And why didn’t you tell me that it was you straight away? That’s a whole week that I wasted searching for, well, you, when I could have been getting back into the swing of things after you all decided to come after me with the whole Mare Do Well plot!” Rainbow’s voice had risen steadily through her rant, causing Twilight to cringe back further and further until she finally finished and Twilight was almost trying to become one with the walls.
“I didn’t think it was a waste of time…” she mumbled, almost too quiet for Rainbow to hear.
“Huh?”
“Well…” Twilight started, slowly detaching herself from the wall, her voice getting stronger and more confident by the syllable, “I learnt a lot more about you for one thing, you and I got to hang out for once, that’s another.”
Rainbow stuttered, backtracking, “Well yeah- that was cool and all, but-”
“And wandering around Ponyville together?” Twilight interrupted, “Are you saying that that wasn’t at least enjoyable at the time too?”
“Well no… but-”
Twilight cut in again, leaving Rainbow no room to finish her sentences, “And when you and I were on night watch? I know for a fact that you were enjoying yourself somewhere under all your sarcastic commentary.”
Rainbow, finally admitting defeat, nodded.
Twilight nodded too, “See… it wasn’t a waste of time, it was just an investment of it elsewhere,” she spoke, gasping slightly as she caught her breath.
The library fell silent again.
“You know…” Twilight started, “I always admired what you did… when you were saving ponies. I could have gone without the ego though.”
Rainbow cracked a small smile, “I never would have guessed from the way you were all parroting me with Mare Do Well.”
“Ah, I guess so,” Twilight chuckled softly, “they say imitation is the best form of flattery, so congratulations on that at the very least.”
“Well… thanks,” Rainbow replied, smiling.
Yet another silence surrounded them.
“So… what’re you going to do now?” Rainbow asked, leaning backwards and propping herself up on her forehooves.
“About Mare Do Better?”
Rainbow nodded.
“I don’t really know… I guess I could just stop it and Ponyville would go back to how it was… but there might be other ponies that are likely to just continue from where the others left off.”
Rainbow nodded, thinking to herself before she perked up.
“Twilight?”
“Hmm?”
“I think I have an idea.”