//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Mare Do Well vs Professor Nightshade // by ssjgokillo //------------------------------// Mare Do Well vs. Professor Nightshade Chapter 01: Trouble Begins Anew Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Like this really needed to be said. Twilight Sparkle greeted the morning with a smile. She may have been biased, being the personal protege of the pony who raised the sun and all, but she loved seeing the early morning sky. It was a comforting reminder of her teacher after all. That wasn't to say though that she did not also enjoy the beauty of Luna’s nights. If only she could find a way to forgo sleep completely; but last time she tried that... well she had promised Spike, her parents, and the Canterlot Fire Department that she’d never try that again. This morning was particularly beautiful. The sky was already clear, the birds were singing in the trees and the sun's warmth was pouring down over the land. Mornings like this, they seemed to shimmer. In fact Twilight could feel a song welling up inside her, just begging to be released. She flung her window open, startling a bird that had been standing on the sill and inhaled deeply of the fresh morning air, ready to sing about this wonderful morning. “Watch out!” A voice shouted from the sky. Twilight didn’t have time to react, as a cyan blur shot through her window, colliding with her and causing the two of them to go tumbling head over hoof, rolling across the floor until they crashed into the wall. “Eheheheh... sorry about that.” The blur said, sounding genuinely sheepish about their tumble. Twilight’s vision was spinning but she didn’t need to see to know the owner of this particular voice. “Rainbow Dash...” Twilight growled out as she shook her head, trying to get the room to stop spinning, “What was that for?!” Rainbow Dash smiled nervously, offering Twilight a hoof. Twilight shook her head again, and grabbed the offered hoof, letting Rainbow Dash pull her back up. “Sorry about that Twilight, I was going to land in front of the library but I was going a bit too fast, so when I saw the window open up...” “Uh huh...” Twilight grumbled, using her magic to close the window. No sense in “inviting” another pegasus to fly into her home, though she doubted anyone other than Rainbow Dash would try. Besides the feeling of the song was gone now. Perhaps she’d sing it another time. “So what brings you by so early Rainbow?” Twilight asked. It was quite unusual for her friend to be up at his hour, unless she had weather duty. “Oh yeah!” Rainbow Dash used a wing to open the saddlebags she was carrying, and pulled out a familiar outfit. The purple body suit, the dark blue cape and cowl, and Twilight was certain there was a similarly colored hat hidden away in the saddlebags. “I was wondering if you could cast some magic on this baby for me.” Rainbow said after laying the Mare Do Well costume on the ground. “Rainbow, why do you have one of the Mare Do Well suits?” Twilight asked. Rainbow Dash was just about the last pony she expected to see with one of those. After all it had only been yesterday that Rainbow Dash had discovered that the Mysterious Mare Do Well was actually her friends, who were trying to teach her a lesson about humility. “Because I’m going to be Mare Do Well.” Rainbow Dash replied as though it was the simplest thing in the world. “What?! What do you mean you’re going to be Mare Do Well?” “Are you kidding me? Being a masked hero is so awesome! I’ll be just like Batmare! Plus, I figure this way I can be cool, heroic, and humble at the same time. Can’t reveal my secret identity now can I?” Rainbow Dash smirked as she said the last bit. Twilight brought a hoof to her face. “Rainbow, you just told me all about your ‘secret identity’ and you haven’t even started it yet!” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Well of course you and the rest of the girls will already know. I had to get the costume from Fluttershy after all.” That answered the question as to where Rainbow Dash had gotten the costume from. Still though, Twilight felt uneasy about the whole situation. “But Rainbow, you don’t need to be Mare Do Well to be a hero, you do a great job of that on your own. And I’m sure you won’t go all over the top with your gloating again. Besides, last week aside, Ponyville is generally a peaceful place. I don’t know if we really need a full time costumed hero.” Twilight said. “Oh sure, then what do you call last week?” Rainbow Dash asked, “Or what about when the parasprites were devouring the town? Or the stampedes, the Ursa Minors, or any of the other craziness Ponyville seems to go through?” Twilight opened her mouth to retort but stopped before she said anything. Rainbow Dash had a valid point. It seemed like ever since she moved to Ponyville, there was one crisis after another. She couldn’t help but wonder if the town had been this... interesting, before she moved here from Canterlot. Finally Twilight just shook her head and sighed. “Alright Rainbow, you want to be Mare Do Well, then have fun I guess.” She still felt like it was a bad idea but wasn’t it her job as Rainbow Dash’s friend to support her? “Great! So what kind of magic can you gear this thing up with?” Rainbow Dash asked, nudging at the costume with a hoof, “Can you make it so it gives me super strength? Oh! Or how about being able to shoot magic beams out of the eyes? And maybe some...” Twilight quickly cut Rainbow Dash off by sticking one of her forehooves in Rainbow’s mouth. “Just a second Rainbow. First, no, I can’t make the suit give you super strength, or any of that other stuff. That kind of magic takes a lot of power, even more so if I tried to weave it as an enchantment. Not to mention the fact that I don’t really know any spells like that.” Twilight thought for a moment, going over the spells she knew in her head, “The best I can do is charm the outfit for extra durability, so that it can survive the speeds you typically fly at and offer you a little protection, and put a sticking charm on the hat so it stays on unless you want to remove it. That’s about it.” Rainbow Dash pulled back, getting Twilight’s hoof out of her mouth. She was frowning, clearly displeased that Twilight couldn’t turn her costume into some kind of super weapon. “Oh well, I guess that’s better than nothing. Besides I’ve got enough skill to not need any tricks!” She said, a grin spreading across her face. Twilight shook her head in exasperation, before channeling magic through her horn. The Mare Do Well costume was enveloped in the purple light of her magical aura and floated into the air. Twilight closed her eyes as she began concentrating on the spells she wanted to apply to the outfit. She scrunched her face up in concentration for a moment as she used her magic to levitate the hat that completed the ensemble out from Rainbow Dash’s saddlebags, eliciting a small gasp of surprise from the rainbow maned pegasus as the hat floated out. Her horn flared brightly with power for a brief moment as tendrils of magical energy wrapped around the costume. Then, the magical lightshow died down, and she folded the costume up before levitating it back into Rainbow Dash’s saddlebags. Twilight opened her eyes to see Rainbow Dash looking into her saddlebag. “So that’s it then?” Rainbow Dash sounded unimpressed. What did she expect? Twilight to unweave the costume with her magic, before remaking it as she wrapped eldritch tendrils of magic into each stitch? “Yes Rainbow, that’s it.” She said, deciding not to let the pegasus in on her annoyance. Seriously, sometimes that pegasus just wore on her nerves. If it wasn’t fast or exciting it generally just wasn’t impressive to Rainbow Dash. Forget the fact that it had taken Twilight a week just to master that durability spell. A whole week! “Great, thanks Twi! I’m gonna head out then, got stuff to do before I go out on patrol.” Rainbow said with a smirk. The pegasus flared her wings, and took off, Twilight just barely having time to fling the window open with her magic before Rainbow would have crashed through it... again. Twilight sighed and used her magic to add a quick item to today’s checklist; get window repaired. She’d really have to start billing Rainbow Dash if the pegasus made a habit of crashing through her windows... how did she always manage to do that unschathed? It was just one of those Ponyville mysteries. She also couldn’t help but worry about Rainbow Dash. She’d have to check in with her tomorrow to see how things worked out. She just hoped her friend would be alright. MDWvPN Unfortunately it was actually two days before Twilight was able to check in with Rainbow Dash on how her superhero career was going. She had gotten a bit behind on her studies with the craziness that happened the last week with the whole Mare Do Well mess, and had decided to hunker down for some serious study. Before she knew it an entire day had passed, and she had to spend the next day trying to make up for all she had missed the day previous as well as accomplish everything she needed to that day. It also explained why Spike kept trying to get her attention while she had been reading that book on transmogrification. She really need to stop tuning him out when she got in the zone. Now she was caught up on everything, and could finally spend some time trying to find Rainbow Dash to see how things had gone. Her walk through town had been relatively peaceful, so she took that as a good sign. After all, if something major had happened, everypony in Ponyville would be talking about it. Twilight kept her eyes up to the sky hoping to catch a glimpse of her rainbow-maned friend. This time of day Rainbow would typically either be practicing her flight maneuvers, or napping. In either case, the sky was the place she was sure to be. Her vigil was rewarded with the sight of a Rainbow tail hanging off a cloud above the park. Twilight looked around, making sure that she wasn’t going to be disturbing anypony, before calling out to Rainbow Dash. “Rainbow Dash!” She called out, “Rainbow Dash wake up!” She could hear a sound, something like a -ssnrrrrk-, before a yawn came from the cloud. After a moment Rainbow Dash poked her head over the edge, rubbing her eyes with a hoof. “Twilight? What’s up? I was having a killer nap.” Rainbow Dash asked, her voice tinged with annoyance at having been woken up. Twilight didn’t let Rainbow’s annoyed tone effect her. “I was looking for you Rainbow. Can you come down here so we can talk without shouting at each other?” “Su-yawn-sure thing Twilight, just give me a second.” Rainbow Dash said. Rainbow Dash stood up on the cloud, stretching her legs and wings, before jumping off and gliding to the ground near Twilight. “So what’s up?” “I was just curious how the whole Mare Do Well thing was going.” Twilight said. Rainbow Dash’s face immediately answered that question. The glare she shot at the sky and the huff of air she gave was a clear sign of her displeasure. “It’s not going at all! It’s been so boooooriiiiing! There’s been nothing! I spent most of the day yesterday patrolling Ponyville, but there wasn’t even a cat stuck in a tree!” Twilight raised an eyebrow at that. “Well, isn’t that a good thing? I mean, we don’t actually want to see somepony in trouble right?” “Yeah yeah, but is it too much to ask for a little catastrophe or something?” Rainbow Dash groused. “You are joking right?” Twilight asked with a deadpan expression. Rainbow Dash sighed. “I just... wanted something cool to happen you know? I mean, don’t get me wrong, going on adventures and stuff with you and the girls is cool, but I was kinda hoping for something like out of Batmare! I mean, like some archenemy showing up to cause trouble!” Rainbow Dash’s ears drooped down, as she scuffed a hoof against the ground. “A... archenemy?” Twilight asked. “Yeah! You know like how Batmare has The Fool, or how Captain Equestria has Crimson Noggin. How cool would that be?!” Rainbow Dash smirked for a bit, before her face fell into a frown once again. “But nothing like that happened. Hay nothing really happened at all. I guess my hero-ing days are over already.” “I see...” Twilight’s tried to think of something, anything she could say to cheer Rainbow Dash up. She hadn’t realized that being Mare Do Well was such a big deal to her. She’d thought that Rainbow Dash would spend a week or so as a masked crime fighter, then go back to her regular life. She hadn’t expected her to be all depressed about not having any crime to fight. If only there were some villain, someone for Mare Do Well to test her mettle against. “Anyway if that’s all you needed Twilight, I’m gonna go fly around, see if anything’s going on.” Rainbow said. Twilight simply nodded, lost in thought, so the pegasus took off with a mighty flap of her wings. Twilight didn’t even realize Rainbow had left. Her mind was mulling over Rainbow’s depression and what she could do to fix it. The only villains she knew of were Nightmare Moon and Discord, and there was no way in Tartarus that she would ever even think of using those two. Rainbow needed a villain, one that wouldn’t cause too much trouble, but could cause the kind of epic showdowns normally only seen in comic books. She needed a villain she could control, to make sure that all they did was engage with Mare Do Well. But where we she find anypony like that? She kept mulling over the problem as she walked back to her house. She could ask one of the girls, a simple illusion spell would disguise their identity. But who? Rarity would never agree to something she’d deem as so “boorish”. Fluttershy... yeah right. Applejack would be too busy with her work on the farm. That left Pinkie Pie, a thought that actually caused Twilight to shudder. She could only imagine the kind of antics Pinkie Pie would get up to as a villain. It might be safer to have Discord back. There was one more option of course. It was outside her comfort zone, but surely she could try. After all she had those books on how to attain a more commanding personality, and she had the magic to be able to fight Rainbow Dash without actually hurting her. Still deep in thought, Twilight flared her horn with magic, making quills dip themselves in ink and dance across paper she levitated. She’d need to plan all this out. If she was going to pretend to be a villain, then she’d need to make sure she was prepared. She’d need a name, a new appearance, and an evil laugh. A lot of ponies would ignore the evil laugh, but Twilight was a mare of standards. If she was going to be a villain, then she’d be the best darn villain Ponyville had ever seen! Spike watched from the door to the kitchen as Twilight wrote on multiple sheets of paper all at once. She was “in the zone” again, and he was just about to go check on her and let her know dinner was ready. Before he could however, he heard a sound that stopped him in his tracks. It was so unexpected, he couldn’t even place it at first, but there it was. Twilight Sparkle, his surrogate big sister, one of the kindest ponies he’d ever met, was chuckling evily... positively evily, as her eyes flared with magic. Spike promptly turned around and went back into the kitchen. “I don’t even want to know...” He grumbled under his breath as he put Twilight’s food back in the fridge. MDWvPN Late that night, a dark purple figure flew above Ponyville, before landing on top of the roof of the Town Hall. Had anyone noticed it, they would have thought that perhaps Princess Luna had decided to visit the town, as the mare was certainly big enough. She folded her wings to her side, and looked upon the town, a dark chuckle escaping her. “This town is a mess, and I just need to rule it. Prepare yourselves my little pony, for soon Ponyville, you shall see the greatness that is... Professor Nightshade!” Her chuckle slowly grew louder, becoming full blown laughter as she took to wing again, flying over the town before disappearing in a flash of green light.