Chapter 1
‘Princess Luna continues to grow in popularity after the defeat of the Nightmare Forces. It is only a matter of time before Celestia feels threatened and returns her to her lunar prison. Just like she relocated Princess Cadence to the arctic north.’
Princess Luna sighed. “Again? Really sister? Why doth these ‘tabloids’ demonize ye and try to absolve me of my role in these horrid events?”
Celestia drank a cup of coffee and chuckled. “Well, there was the fact a group of lunar monsters appeared with a second Nightmare Moon.”
Luna groaned. “Yes, but the Nightmare Forces could not influence me without me giving into their temptations! Even Rarity doth feel guilt and she was more controlled than I! Did they not notice my attempts at making amends every Nightmare Night?!”
“Calm down Lulu,” the Day Princess replied with a chuckle. “The tabloids tend to do that. When Discord was appear, they even said that he was merely controlled by someone else, some of them claimed it was me. Tabloids thrive on controversy, and if they actually went with what was correct, there wouldn’t be any.”
“I know, Tia, but it tis annoying. And what’s this about us relocating Cadence to the Arctic North! The Crystal Empire serves a vital role to Equestria!…And tis also a fantastic vacation destination. The Equestrian games are even going to be there!”
Celestia chuckled. “They’ve been doing that since Cadence decided to be a diplomat. For some reason the ‘tyrant Celestia’ articles are extremely common. I read them whenever I need a good laugh. I mean really, if I was who they said I am, then the tabloids wouldn‘t even exist to insult me.”
“I suppose I can understand that, it’s jus-”
“BEHOLD CANTERLOT!”
Celestia blinked and headed to the window, looking out to see the Guard in proper defensive position, weapons aimed at what seemed to be an inky black Alicorn with a red energy mane and a Cutie Mark of a shattered world, standing atop a onyx chariot adorned with blood red rubies pulled by pitch black pegasi with glowing red eyes.
“I AM RUIN! WITH THE POWER OF HATRED AND RAGE I WILL CRUSH THE PRINCESSES AND CONQUER EQUESTRIA! I DECLARE WAR ON PEACE AND HAPPINESS!”
Princess Celestia gave an annoyed sigh as Ruin kept up his boasting and threatening. “Lulu! There’s another one!”
Luna face hoofed. “I shall tell the guards to take the proper precautions…”
A unicorn guard brushed the smoldering pile of ashes that used to be Ruin into a dustpan.
“Why doth these villains keep going after us?” asked Luna, having a minor wound on her leg bandaged up. “Doth they not realize that we hath saved Equestria from their kind numerous times in the past? Many without the Elements?”
The Day Princess gave a nod as her wing was bandaged. “I blame Queen Chrysalis for it. It’s annoying; you lose once to a supercharged Changeling Queen in a room crowded with innocent civilians, and suddenly everypony thinks they can defeat you.”
“And why tis it always the power of hatred?” asked Luna, cocking her head. “I mean the villains everypony doth know we actually defeated used hatred!”
“Yes, Discord uses Chaos and Queen Chrysalis used love, and yet for some reason villains assume hate is effective against us.”
“FOR LORD RUIN!” yelled the pegasi pulling Ruin’s chariot, leaping at the princesses with knifes.
And then fell to the ground, paralyzed by well placed stun spells from the unicorn Guards.
“Good job, Commander,” Celestia stated as the Guards took the Pegasi away.
“Well, at least if they come after us, Twilight and company doth not need to deal with them.”
Celestia nodded in agreement. “Yes…I wonder how her day is going…”
“Oh, hello Rainbow Dash,” said Twilight, giving a smile to the rainbow-maned Pegasus as she trotted into the library. However, the librarian then frowned upon noticing the taped up wing her friend was sporting. “What happened?” she asked as she trotted over to Rainbow and looked over her wing in concern.
Rainbow grunted, looking down at her bandaged limb. “Oh, just a sprained wing,” she muttered in annoyance. “Totally awesome stunts can be hard on your wings.”
“Are you going to be alright?” the purple Alicorn asked. She knew how much Rainbow Dash’s flight mattered to her.
“Yeah yeah yeah,” Rainbow Dash said, then gave a small smirk.
“…You sure?”
“Yeah, it stinks my wing’s hurt, but eh, it isn’t as bad as when I broke it. Speaking of which, got anything good to read while I’m laid up, Twilight?”
“Oh, right!” Twilight trotted over to the fiction shelf. How could she have forgotten that? Twilight had gotten her into reading in the first place! “Hmm…Well, you’ve already read every Daring Doo book…There’s this new horror story called Rainbow Factory, it’s pretty popular.”
“Eh, no thanks.”
Twilight gave teasing look to Rainbow Dash. “What’s wrong? Scared?”
Rainbow Dash suddenly looked rather sheepish. “Nah, it’s not that it’s…well…”
“You <i]are scared!”
Rainbow Dash finally gave a sigh and a grim look. “Fine, I’ll tell you: it’s a true story and I‘m the head of it.”
Twilight‘s eyes widened. “WHAT?!”
Rainbow suddenly looked stone-faced, almost scared. “And now that I’ve told you, I’m going to have to silence you.”
Twilight took a few steps back…moments before Rainbow Dash lost it and fell on her back laughing her head off. “Gotcha!”
The Alicorn gave a snarl. “Rainbow! That wasn’t funny!”
“Oh come on, Twilight! I’m the Element of Loyalty! Did you really think I’d hurt yah? That‘s as crazy as that horror novel Pinkie Pie wrote!”
Twilight gave it some thought and her scowl turned into a chuckle. “Yeah, I guess…who knew Pinkie had that kind of imagination…” They both gave a shudder. Still, Twilight had to admit, Rainbow was right. The idea of any of them willingly killing any of the others was ridiculous. They were horrified when they just hurt one another’s feelings! “So you do want the Rainbow Factory?”
Rainbow Dash got back to her hooves and shook her head. “Nah, and I’m not scared of a stupid book.”
“Then why don’t you check it out?”
Rainbow gave an annoyed sigh. “Alright, alright, I’ll tell yah…”
“Well?”
“…Spectra’s made of magically solidified light mixed with water, not foals, a machine that huge would require more Pegasus magic to run than it than would most of the factory and there‘s not even the <i]room for it in the Factory (you‘d need a separate blatantly obvious building), there’s five emergency exits on every floor and half the rooms either have a dozens of windows or are open air, on top of the fact the walls are made of clouds, so anypony running from crazy ponies could escape easy, and come on! Rainbows? Storm clouds I could see considering Equestria actually needs them, but rainbows? Heck, I’ve got a rainbow fountain in my house! If it really was that costly to make rainbows, I sure wouldn‘t be wasting them to make my house look twenty percent cooler!”
Twilight‘s jaw dropped as she stared at the blue pony in shock. “R-Rainbow Dash…”
Rainbow blushed and looked away. “I’m captain of the Ponyville Weather Patrol, I had to get a degree in weather management. Just because I flunked out of flight school doesn’t mean I didn’t graduate school at all…I just don’t like ponies knowing I know all this stuff…I’m afraid they’ll think I’m a geek…”
Twilight covered her mouth to contain a chuckle. “Rainbow, it’s nothing to be ashamed of…Is that how you knew all that stuff you told us on the weather factory tour?”
Rainbow chuckled, rubbing the back of her head. “Yeah, I thought it‘d make me look smart and I was kind of nervous about the competition…anyway, the point is; if I read a scary story, I want it to get my heart pumping and give me a thrill! I know too much about the weather factory for it to do that…Got anything else?”
Twilight turned her attention back to the shelf. “How about…Harry Trotter? It’s another best seller about a different type of magic.”
“Hmm…sure, why not?…Hey, got anything Scoots might like? I‘m going to go hang out with her later…Wonder what she‘s doing right now.”
<hr>
“Come on! What’s taking so long?” Scootaloo exclaimed, anxiously tapping her hooves on the window, eyes glued on the sky.
“Scootaloo, what’s wrong?” asked a blue-furred mare with a mare hugging a foal as her Cutie Mark.
“Oh! Hey Miss Tender Hooves…” the little orange filly replied, looking over to her with a small smile.. “It’s just…Rainbow Dash was supposed to be here, but she’s running late…I don‘t know what‘s taking her…”
Tender Hoof trotted over to her and put a hoof on her shoulder with a comforting look. “Rainbow Dash never misses one of your meetings with her, I’m sure there’s a good reason…”
“I know…it’s just…”
“The more you want something to happen, the harder it is to wait?”
Scootaloo gave a small nod. “Yeah…”
“What about Applebloom and Sweetie Belle? You could play with them until Rainbow shows up.”
“They’re busy with their sisters today…”
The older mare put her hoof to her chin and smiled lightly. “Well, why don’t we play a game to pass the time?”
The tiny filly blinked, looking back to her caretaker. “Well…I guess we could…But what should we-”
“Tag!” Tender Hooves shouted, lightly touching the filly’s nose and running out the door.
“Hey! Wait for me!”
---
Rainbow Dash trotted up to the building, looking up at the sign reading ‘Ponyville Orphanage.’ She looked around at the little foals frolicking and playing around, but didn’t see the one she was here to see. “Scoots!” she called.
“Over here Rainbow!” called a familiar voice.
Rainbow blinked, turning to see Scootaloo jump on Miss Tender Hooves’ back.
“Tag! You’re it!”
The blue Pegasus gave a small smile as the orphanage owner and Scoots laughed, out of breath. “Hey Scoots! Sorry I’m late, just roughed my wing up a little and had to walk over.”
Scootaloo frowned, looking at the wing. “Are you alright, Dash?”
Rainbow gave a nod. “Yeah, don’t worry about me.” She looked to Tender Hooves. “Mrs. Tender Hooves, can I take her out for the day?”
The elder mare gave a nod. “Sure, have a wonderful day, just be back on time,” she said, giving a smile and sharing a hug with the foal before letting her go to spend the day with Rainbow Dash…