Chapter 8:
The Sign
The girls and I finished turning back into ponies that night. There wasn’t much excitement or panic surrounding it; the worst thing that happened was a brief stint of awkwardness as we learned how to walk on all fours again. Shmangie did my mane up like Rarity’s, and the others all got googly-eyed when they saw it. They started fighting over who would get to go next, and we spent the rest of the evening taking turns trying out various styles. Shmangie also had a gift for Apple Bloom: a big red bow similar to the one she always wore. She was elated, of course, and I don’t think I’ve seen her without it since.
We began the cyberhunt the next day. I was the only one who could still use a computer at first, but Shmangie went out and got a few things so the others could help. We got these velcro straps that go around your wrists for holding things, and I had a dictation program on my computer in my old apartment. I downloaded it onto Shmangie’s and Apple Bloom’s computers, and we all began surfing the Net with ease.
I made the website that said who we were and what’d happened. We took a few pictures of ourselves for proof, but left any info about our humanity out. We used fake names for every registration process we ran into, and I even used a few tricks to prevent our IP address from being traced. Meanwhile, Babs watched the news sites, Apple Bloom kept an eye on social media, and Scootaloo sifted through seedier sites like 4chan.
There were some loose ends from our human lives to tie up before we could fully commit ourselves to the search. The first was quitting our jobs. We were gonna just call and quit over the phone, but then we remembered our voices had changed. We sent out emails instead with the cover story that we’d found employment at Shmangie’s company. She even added us to her employee roster for legitimacy when we told her about it. It was just too bad she couldn’t actually pay us.
The next was making something up to tell our families so they wouldn’t think we’d gone missing. We bounced around a few ideas, but finally settled on that we’d gone on a roadtrip across the U.S. It wasn’t that far-fetched of an idea, as we’d talked about it a lot our senior year. Obviously it never came to pass, but the point was that it was known constant amongst our families. They weren’t exactly happy when we told them, and it certainly wasn’t a permanent solution, but it at least bought us some time, and it kept them from calling the police.
There were other logistics issues as well: cancelling credit cards, shutting off utilities, withdrawing money out of our savings accounts, those sorts of things. I gotta tell you, you don’t realize all the ties you have to society until you have to go through and cut them off one by one. It was really depressing, and even though Shmangie was there for all of us, it still really stung. The one bright side of it was that it motivated us to put our best efforts into the cybersearch, as finding everypony would put us one step closer to getting back home.
The website went up on May 6th. We kept an eye on world events, monitored the email account we’d created, and settled down to wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Annnnnnnnnnd wait.
And then just for the heck of it? Yep, we waited some more.
There are times in your life when you don’t want to be right. We all have those moments where we say something pessimistic just because we don’t want to go along with something, but that doesn’t mean we want the endeavor to actually fail. True, I didn’t have high hopes about finding ponies online, but I didn’t want all our efforts to be for nothing, either. I figured it’d take a while, but ponies would eventually trickle in, we’d slowly establish a network, and once we’d found a decent number of them, we could make plans for meeting up and such.
We didn’t find anypony.
Not a single freaking one.
It wasn’t that our website didn’t get any traffic. Quite the contrary, we averaged a couple thousand hits a day. The problem was that, as I feared, no one took us seriously. Most of the emails we got were blatantly trolling, fishing for information, or just thought we were doing some kind of live-action roleplay. A few were amusing, like the animation studio guy who complimented our CGI and told us to apply at his company. Others were downright creepy, like the two people who invited us to lolicon groups. We didn’t respond to anything, and as the weeks dragged by, our motivation and productivity slowed to a crawl.
To make matters worse was the onset of cabin fever. This wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, as Shmangie’s house was large enough that we could get away from each other for periods of time. We were even able to go out to the backyard at night so long as we took necessary precautions. Even with that, though, our antsiness built steadily, and our tempers began to fray. We found ourselves snapping at each other for no reason, arguing over meaningless things and trivial offenses. Shmangie did her best to keep us behaving, but there was only so much she could do, and she was stressed too from having to watch us all the time.
It was clear something had to give. I knew we had to do something more, but if the girls’ first response was any indication, I’d have to have a fully thought-out, executable plan to present before they’d listen.
Fortunately, I’d been working on one as soon as I’d finished the website.
It was more something I’d done to kill time than anything else. The others all had their little jobs, but I didn’t really have anything, and I knew I was gonna start bouncing off the walls if I didn’t keep myself occupied somehow. So I sequestered myself away in the basement with my laptop, and began fleshing out a backup plan in case the cybersearch fell flat. I quickly fell into a routine of planning, practicing magic, and checking a usual list of websites, only coming upstairs to address biological needs and check-in with the others. I think they knew what I was doing, but seeing as they didn’t ask me any questions, I didn’t tell them any lies.
I found my thoughts wandering as the days passed. I asked myself a lot of existential questions, mostly about whether or not I wanted to take another pass at my initial destiny. I was a filly again, after all, so I could be anything I damn well wanted to be. Part of me still argued that I’d made the right decision in not pursuing a singing career. Heck, even with the life experience I had now, it was still going to be a tough road, and I might have an easier time of it if I just tried to build a life off the skills I’d already developed.
The other part of me, though, was quick to point out that I’d been miserable with my human life. I’d justified it by saying that things would turn around if I held out a little longer, but no matter how many hurdles I cleared, corners I turned, or achievements I earned, there wasn’t any happiness to be found. The victories felt hollow, the rewards were meaningless and empty, and even despite knowing that it was the wrong thing to do, I still kept stubbornly trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. It seemed pretty stupid to continue down what was obviously a destructive path, so even if I didn’t try to be a singer, I didn’t think I’d be trying to do the same thing over again.
I suppose these things were pretty moot to think about at the time. After all, any and all life choices were dependant on a considerable amount of other factors, the least of which not being that we managed to return to Equestria. I couldn’t very well resume my old life here, and even if I could, I didn’t think I would. The ideas and goals I’d had as a human were dead and gone, and the only thing that meant anything to me now were the Crusaders and my family—both my families.
Speaking of family, it was Shmangie that alerted me that things were moving again. It was May 20th, a full two weeks after we’d brought up the website, and I was down in the basement as usual going through my magical training exercises. I could lift about twenty pounds at that point, and was starting to experiment with holding multiple things at once. I knew I didn’t have Twilight’s raw power, or Rarity’s dexterity for that matter, but telekinesis was a useful skill, so I wanted to develop it as much as I could.
I was holding two ten-pound bags of sidewalk salt. I was completely focused on the magical task, the strenuous mental effort consuming all my focus and making me oblivious to the world. The two bags were floating a few feet off the ground, doing slow circles around me as I hummed in C Major. I was calm. I was in the zone. I could feel every contour of the items in my magical grip—
“SHMAGE!”
My concentration broke. The two bags fell to the wooden floor and skidded a few feet away in opposite directions.
“GET UP HERE, QUICK!”
I blinked several times. It took me second to process Shmangie’s yell, but when I did, I scrambled upstairs as fast as my little legs would allow.
I found her and the Crusaders staring wide-eyed at the living room TV. They were watching the evening news, and the volume was turned up really loud. The newscaster was droning on about some kind of military disturbance, but that wasn’t surprising as of late. There’d been a terrorist bombing in Seattle the same weekend we’d turned back into ponies, and then some kind of mishap in the airspace between the United States and Canada. We’d looked into both occurrences, of course, but the details were sketchy. Considering both matters concerned national security, we figured the government was withholding information until they could fully investigate, much like they did with the World Trade Center attacks. As such, there wasn’t enough to suggest ponies were involved, and even if they were, the trail would be long cold before we could get to it.
No, it wasn’t the newscaster’s words that got my attention...
...it was the familiar prismatic shockwave spreading out over a city that earned that honor.
I sat down abruptly. “That’s…”
Okay, now I was listening to the newscaster.
“—no injuries or property damage seemed to have come from the disturbance itself, but the resulting panic has caused the majority of citizens to flee the city, leaving homes, shops, and businesses at the mercy of those who’ve chosen to brave the phenomenon’s negative effects. Martial law is currently in effect, and all roadways in and out of Des Moines are completely jammed. Many have been forced to vacate the area on foot with only the clothes on their backs. The government has yet to release any official statement, but based on the projectile’s geographical location, astrophysicists speculate that it’s unlikely that this was an attack by a hostile nation. Rather, this is an astronomical phenomenon that was previously unknown to—”
“IT’S A SONIC RAINBOOM!” Scootaloo screamed. Her wings buzzed as she hovered a few inches in the air. “Rainbow Dash is alive! She’s alive she’s alive she’s alive!”
I stood there in shock. There’s nopony else it could’ve been. How many other creatures were there that could make an explosion that shattered the visible light spectrum? Rainbow Dash was alive and well, and not only had she revealed herself to the world, she was in the United States! Within travelling distance of us, even!
Babs snorted. “Of course it’s Rainbow. Only she’d go and do something flashy and intimidating over a major city when the country’s on high alert.”
“Hey, lay off!” Scootaloo said hotly. She turned to her with her hooves on her hips. I noted that she seemed to be getting better at maneuvering in the air. Too bad she couldn’t stay aloft for very long. “This is the first break we’ve gotten! This isn’t a shady email or random forum thread, it’s a feathering Sonic Rainboom! This is exactly what we’ve been waiting for!”
I was tempted to side with Scootaloo, but Babs did have a point. This was great news, but the timing was terrible. The government was probably scrambling trying to figure out how a high-speed projectile got into the middle of the United States airspace undetected, as well as why it detonated prematurely. They’d be swarming the area trying to find answers, and they’d probably do almost anything to get them. It was going to be more difficult than ever to make a move now.
“It’s so pretty,” Shmangie murmured. Her eyes hadn’t left the screen, which was still showing the Rainboom. “It’s different from the show, though. It’s like the Northern Lights, but brighter, and in a big circle.”
I smiled. “Wait till you see one in person. Your skin goes all tingly when the magic passes through you, and it makes you want to laugh and sing and dance. It also makes everything smell like fresh spring rain.”
I knew a thing or two about Rainbooms. Not because I’d researched them, but because Scootaloo had done a report about them for school back in Equestria, and she went full-on Twilight with it. She made diagrams, wrote out no less than ten pages, cited sources from various books, and even got Rainbow herself to come in and give a firsthoof account. Not like it was hard to convince the Queen of Modesty to talk about herself, but still. Scootaloo proceeded to spout everything she’d learned for weeks afterwards, which, while extremely annoying, had also made the information stick in my memory.
Sonic Rainbooms are a form of extremely advanced Tempulari. In order to perform one, a pegasus needs to gather together a massive amount of aether, which is naturally occurring, ambient magic found in the atmosphere. They then need to compress the aether into a space smaller than a pea, and detonate it all at once at the speed of sound.
The hardest part is managing the aether. Gathering it is easy, since the pegasus needs to be moving through the atmosphere, and the speed, while difficult, isn’t impossible for an athlete to attain. Compressing it down, though, is the reason why Rainbooms are so rare. Rainbow described it as, ‘trying to squeeze a house-sized snowpile down to a thimble using only your hooves while rocketing down to the ground at Mach One,’ so that gives you a pretty good idea.
Sonic Rainbooms have two main effects. The first and most obvious is the enormous rainbow explosion, which is harmless save for the residual kinetic force. In fact, not only does the shockwave affect fauna in the way I described to Shmangie, since aether is a form of restorative magic, it can also heal corrupted or sickly flora. The second effect is that the caster’s innate magical and physical abilities become supercharged for a short time. Their bodies are essentially overloaded with aether, allowing them to perform unbelievable feats of strength and speed until the excess magic ‘bleeds out.’ This is how Rainbow was able to save Rarity and the Wonderbolts at the Best Young Flyer’s Competition, and why Rainbow’s mane temporarily morphs into her namesake whenever she does one.
Like I said, full-on Twilight.
Shmangie turned to me with yearning in her eyes. “Urge to be Rainboomed… rising...”
I snickered. “One thing at a time.”
Apple Bloom fiddled with her new bow. “You reckon Rainbow’s the one who caused all that fuss over the Canadian borders, too? I hate to say it, but it sounds like something she would do.”
“Which just leads to more questions,” Babs said. “Why’s she flying around and taking so many risks? Is she alone or with others? Is she trying to find other ponies? Are any of them in trouble? How’s she avoiding capture or detection?”
“She’s not avoiding detection,” I pointed out. “The military is well aware something's hopping between the U.S and Canada. They just don’t know that ‘thing’ is a small, flying cartoon horse.”
“Or maybe they are, and they’re making sure their equipment isn’t on the fritz or something.” Babs blew her mane out of her face and looked over at Scootaloo. “Not to discredit Rainbow’s flying skills or anything. I’d just like to think that the people who can call in a nuclear strike aren’t a bunch of clueless mooks.”
Scootaloo landed and rested her chin on her hoof. “Haven’t you been watching the news for the last two weeks? You should have a pretty good idea of how smart our government is by now.”
A smile tugged at Babs’ lips. “Hence why I said ‘like to think.’”
“So what do we do, then?” Apple Bloom began pulling the wrapper off a granola bar. “Do we wait to see if more ponies show up in Des Moines? Or do we just pack up and head down there ourselves?”
Scootaloo replied before I could. “We should totally go!” her eyes were fervent and bright. “Iowa’s not far away at all. We can get there in a day, and then we can start looking for Rainbow! She might know where the others are! She might know a way to get home!”
Shmangie cleared her throat. “Speaking as the one who’d actually be driving you there, the newscaster just said that the roads are completely jammed. I’m not gonna be able to get you girls within a hundred miles of Des Moines, and even if I could, I doubt you’re gonna find any ponies in the city.”
“I'll also bet that the place is probably swarming with military and government officials.” I hopped up on the couch beside Shmangie. “They’re gonna be looking for suspicious characters, and we don’t exactly blend into a crowd.”
“We can’t just pass this up!” Scootaloo got off the couch and pointed at the TV. “This is a sign! A sign that Rainbow doesn’t want us to hide anymore! She wants us all to meet up there! The Internet’s been a bust, and we’re doing nothing but wasting our time! We're never gonna get home just by sitting around and hoping they’re gonna come to us!”
I kept my expression carefully neutral. That was one down, but I knew Scootaloo would be the easiest to convert. The challenge lay in convincing the others.
“We all know what Rainbow means to ya, Scoots.” Apple Bloom gestured to herself and Babs, then to Shmangie and me. “But just packin’ up and going to Des Moines isn’t a smart idea. We need more answers first before we go sniffin’ around.”
Scootaloo rounded on her. “First off, you don’t know whether we’ll find anything or not. And second, how much longer do you think our families are going to buy the roadtrip excuse? How much longer did you plan on imposing on Angie’s hospitality? What makes you think that doing what we’ve been doing so far is going to produce anything other than a stinking crapload of nothing? Tell me, Apple Bloom! Tell me why we shouldn’t go after the only lead we’ve found in an entire fortnight!”
Apple Bloom remained as calm as ever. She took a bite of her granola bar, contemplated her response for a few seconds, then looked up at Scootaloo.
“A fortnight ain’t that long, sugar—”
“Oh, don’t give me that!” Scootaloo snapped. She shot a withering glare at all of us. “What happened to you guys? When did you become so worried about the consequences that it prevented you from taking action? We’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders! We’re MMPD! You know what we do? We go on adventures! We act on ideas! We aren’t afraid to make mistakes! We cause mischief and mayhem, and we look adorable while doing it!”
We all gave her a bemused look.
Scootaloo swished her tail. “Okay, that last one was more of a Crusader thing, but you know what I mean! Am I the only one who remembers this? Am I the only one who still has their spirit intact? Why are all of you so scared all of a sudden?”
I decided to let this play out rather than give my two cents. It was no secret that I wanted to act, as I’d been pretty dead-set on doing so until Shmangie talked me out of it. My guess was that Scootaloo’s accusations were aimed more at Apple Bloom and Babs. so there wasn't anything for me to add.
Speaking of Shmangie, I noticed she was keeping quiet, too. That’s what she normally did when we had discussions like this, though. She really only stepped in if things started to get out of hoof or was asked a question.
“It ain’t got nothin’ to do with fear,” Apple Bloom said. She crumpled up the granola wrapper and threw it in the trash. “It’s about being sensible. This ain’t like the shenanigans we used to pull back home or in Ponyville. The stakes here are high, and we can’t afford to go bitin’ off more than we can chew.”
“Exactly,” Babs said. “We don’t even know why Rainbow chose to do the Rainboom in Des Moines in the first place! Was it because she wants ponies to meet there? Is she trying to make a distraction? Did she just do it on a whim, and she just happened to be in Iowa at the time?”
“Argh!” Scootaloo threw up her hooves. “I’m sick of this! I’m sick of you two spouting out pathetic excuses all the time! No matter what we try to do, from get-togethers to delegating tasks to making plans, one of you always turns a molehill into Mount-feathering-Everest! You wanna know what I think? You don’t wanna go out and do anything because you’re just a couple of feathering cowards! So much for the vaunted honor of the Apple family!”
I sucked in a breath through clenched teeth. Babs flinched and stared at Scootaloo in shock for a split second, then looked away with hurt eyes and pursed lips. Apple Bloom simply froze. She didn’t look at Scootaloo, she didn’t show any sign of anger, she simply became a statue.
“Dylan!” Shmangie yelled. “What the hell!”
Scootaloo ears drooped slightly at the rebuke, but she shook her head and avoided Shmangie’s gaze. “No. This has been long overdue. It’s about time I spoke my damn mind.”
“Long overdue, my ass!” Shmangie gritted her teeth. “I’ve had it up to here with your attitude! Just because you’ve got nicotine withdrawal doesn’t give you the right to—”
“Take it back.”
The room went silent. We all turned to Apple Bloom, who was now staring daggers at Scootaloo. Her neck was corded, her posture was tense, and she spoke in a low, dangerous voice that made my hair stand on end.
“That was one of the lowest, meanest things you coulda said, and you know it.” Apple Bloom slowly got out of the chair to stand only a few feet away from Scootaloo. “You’re one of my oldest friends, and I love ya like a sister. You’ve slept in my home, eaten at my dinner table, and stuck with me through thick and thin. I’ll forgive ya if you apologize right now, but if you don’t, so help me Celestia, you and me are gonna trade a whole lot more than words.”
This was a perfect example of what I hated about the Apple family. You know how Applejack always prided herself on being honest and dependable in the show? You remember how mad she got whenever somepony questioned her on it, or even worse, when said pony was right to do so, and Applejack knew it? Those feelings stemmed from a lot of things, but the biggest one was a desire to defend the Apple family’s honor. All Apples have a fierce sense of devotion and obligation to family, and they believe that their name and reputation is something to cherish and uphold. You can insult them all you like and they won’t have a care, but they’ll buck you into next week if you smack talk their family name. Babs wasn't as prone to this due to not being the fighting type, although she could be intimidating when she wanted to be.
Apple Bloom, on the other hoof...
There was a pregnant pause. Shmangie made to get up and separate them, but I stopped her with a shake of my head. We had a moment of wordless sibling communication, but I won out. She reluctantly sat back down and let events unfold.
Scootaloo didn’t back down from Apple Bloom’s challenge. “Sure, I’ll apologize. All you gotta do is prove me wrong.”
“I ain’t gotta prove nothin’ to you.” Apple Bloom’s back hooves twitched. “You know me better than anypony in the world, present company excluded. I ain’t no coward, and I sure as hay haven’t lost my spirit!”
“Then why?!” Scootaloo yelled. “The Apple Bloom I remember didn’t sit back and hope that her cutie mark would suddenly appear! My best friend Mike didn’t hesitate when he had to start saving up to buy his own farm! You’ve never been one to hem and haw like this; just because the stakes are higher shouldn’t change that!”
Apple Bloom growled. “There’s a big difference between trying to get a cutie mark, and runnin’ headlong into a mob of hostile aliens! We’d be puttin’ our lives at stake, Scoots! I don’t know about you, but I’m in no hurry to get locked up and experimented on in some cold, sterile facility!”
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “You really think the government is going to ruin any and all chance of establishing peaceful contact with an alien race by holding us against our will and cutting us open? We’re running more risk of that by doing what we’re doing on the Internet!”
“They might if they find us snoopin’ around Des Moines and then take us in secret,” Apple Bloom said. “Humans are afraid of what they don’t understand, and they might think we’re dangerous and open fire before we even get a chance to open our mouths! We’re just a buncha kids! We can’t defend ourselves against fully armed soldiers!”
“So we take precautions and don’t let them find us!” Scootaloo then pointed at me. “Or, better yet, we go with Sweetie’s old idea and reveal ourselves in such a big way that the government can’t cover it up! That way, they’d have to treat us right!”
It was beautiful. I couldn’t have planned it better myself. Apple Bloom didn’t look over at me, but I saw the flicker of doubt in her eyes. It seemed she really was worried about getting held against her will, but in my opinion, even if that did happen, it wouldn’t be much different than our current situation. It might be better, actually: a facility would be bigger, we wouldn’t have the constant fear of discovery looming over our heads, and we wouldn’t have to worry about the future as much.
It might seem disturbing that I was looking at incarceration as a possible upgrade to our current situation, but it gives you an idea of how what things were like at the time.
“Look.” Scootaloo ran a hoof down the side of her face. “I get how much this sucks, and I really wish we had some better options, but we don’t. Rainbow always used to say, ‘You can’t stand on the edge of a cliff forever.’ We can’t stay here, and going back up north is a step backward in my eyes. It’s fine that we’ve been trying some safer options up to this point, but Rainbow risked herself to send us this sign. You and Babs are letting yourselves become paralyzed with what-if and doomsday scenarios, and I’m not gonna stand for it. We need to mare up, stop making excuses, and just take the feathering plunge already.”
Apple Bloom clicked her teeth. The anger was still plain on her face, but she was also shifting back and forth on her hooves. It was clear that Scootaloo’s words had hit home, but now they were going toe-to-toe with the legendary earth pony stubbornness. It’s not easy to get called out on something, as I can readily testify to, and the hardest lies to see through are often the ones we tell ourselves. We really were on the edge of a cliff here, and were scared, plain and simple. It would’ve been easy, so very, very easy to just run away somewhere and hide for the rest of our days, but that wasn’t a future any of us wanted.
I looked over at Babs to gauge her reaction. Her eyes were watery, and she was stroking her own tail while watching TV. It may seem odd that somepony so sensitive would like to argue so much, but the truth is I wouldn’t have it any other way. To put it simply, Babs argues because she cares. She cares about her friends. She cares about her family. She cares about anything and anypony that she perceives to have a connection with. She’s always tried to be responsible, shrewd, logical, the one you can always count on to help you out in a pinch, no matter what. She’ll never admit it, but she’s an extremely considerate individual, and she absolutely hates it when others get hurt. The downside, though, is that she expects others to treat her the same way, and whenever she thinks an injustice is committed against her, she gets upset about it. She’s better about it than she used to be, but some scars run too deep to be fully healed.
“We’re not gonna be able to find Rainbow on our own,” Apple Bloom finally said. “Des Moines is too big, she’s too fast, and there’ll be too many people around for us to not be seen. We’re gonna need help.”
Scootaloo nodded stiffly. “I know.”
“There’s really only one way to get that help.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Apple Bloom turned to Babs. “You with us on this?”
Babs flattened her ears. “Not without an apology.”
Scootaloo looked between both glowering Apples, then groaned. “Oh, for Celestia’s—fine. I’m sorry I dissed your family. I’m also sorry that you thought for even a second I was actually serious. I’ll be sure to insult something else next time that won’t make you both so plothurt.”
“Dylan...” Shmangie warned.
Scootaloo shrugged. “Unless you’ve got a cigarette, that’s the best you’re getting.”
It wasn’t as halfhearted as you might think. Scootaloo was never good at saying sorry to begin with, and she’d never been one to regret the things she said. It was too bad we didn’t think to get her some nicotine patches, though. They probably would’ve helped improve her mood.
Regardless, both Apple Bloom and Babs seemed mollified. Apple Bloom sat back down, and Babs looked over and addressed Shmangie in a resigned tone.
“Guess we don’t have any alternatives. Will you help?”
Shmangie frowned. “Let’s hear what she’s come up with, first.”
I was confused at who they were talking about at first, but then, to my utmost joy, I suddenly found myself the target of four curious looks.
“All right, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom said. “We all know you been cookin’ up something these past few weeks. Spill it. What’s the plan?”