Hoofed by Your Own Petard

by Tortfeasor

Prologue: What's Done Cannot be Undone

Disclaimer: All characters in this story are copyright of their respective owners. If I make any money off this story I’ll be just as surprised as you.

Rainbow Dash stood alone against all odds to defend Fluttershy’s honor. Breathing deeply, she snorted and watched as her breath steamed in front of her face. Fluttershy raised the flag and she licked her lips one last time as a precaution against the cold winds she’d surely encounter. The flag went down and she launched herself off the starting line. The race was unlike anything she’d done before, the speed, the adrenaline, the wind in her mane, Fluttershy’s screams of terror, she liked it. Wait, Fluttershy’s screams of terror?

Rainbow Dash looked over her shoulder to see the cloud Fluttershy had been standing on was empty and her friend was falling towards the ground. Fluttershy was the kindest pony Rainbow Dash knew but by far the worst flier. If she didn’t do anything Fluttershy would die. Sparing not even a second thought for losing the race Rainbow Dash changed direction and sped towards the ground after her friend. Fluttershy had the good sense to spread her wings and legs as much as she could to slow her fall but Rainbow Dash still had an awful lot of sky to make up.

Thrusting her hooves out in front of her to break the air and pumping her wings Rainbow Dash started making up that sky. Faster and faster she flew, there was no way those bullies could have kept up with her flying this fast. Fluttershy grew rapidly from a yellow and pink spot to a frightened Pegasus with blue eyes wide from terror grasping out to Rainbow Dash.
As she closed the last tens of yards the air itself seemed to be fighting back; growing thick in front of Rainbow Dash and forcing her to push harder than she ever had to gain the last bits of speed she needed to catch Fluttershy.

And at last catch Fluttershy she did. Pulling up at the speed she was going was not an option, nor was their landing one of Rainbow Dash’s prouder accomplishments. But they were both alive and aside from some scrapes and bruises both were more or less in one piece. Looking around at their surroundings Rainbow Dash saw animals she had never seen before poking their heads out of various hiding places to look at the two newcomers.

“Thank you Rainbow Dash!” Even near yelling Fluttershy wasn’t very loud but the feelings carried just fine, “If it weren’t for you I might have died.”

“You don’t need to thank me,” Rainbow Dash sighed as time caught up with her. It had probably been less than a minute from the start of the race to the ground but it felt like hours if not days. “I knocked you off that cloud in the first place. If it weren’t for me you never would have come close to dying.”

“Oh that’s not true at all, I don’t think we’ll ever know who knocked me off that cloud and it was you who came and got me. Those other ponies cared more about winning the race. And besides, it’s wonderful down here. All these animals I never knew about, the plants are so beautiful up close, and… and… I don’t know if I ever want to leave.”

“Come on Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash decided she needed to get Fluttershy back to reality in a hurry, “I think your parents would get a bit worried when you didn’t come home from flight camp.” That seemed to deflate Fluttershy, in fact a bit too much. “But I’m sure once you learn how to fly you can come down here all the time!”

That brought a smile back to Fluttershy’s face without putting crazy ideas in her head and Rainbow Dash finally let herself crack a smile at what she’d pulled off. Even if she’d thrown the race she’d saved her friend’s life and done some pretty awesome flying to do it. A small roar from above was the only clue either pony had that the race had ended.

“Stupid ponies!” Rainbow Dash answered with her own roar that doubtless failed to reach the sky but felt good to her all the same. “I hope… I hope… I hope you trip on the finish line and sprain your wings so you can’t fly for the rest of camp!”

“Oh Rainbow Dash you don’t mean that,” Fluttershy’s admonishment was gentle but still made Rainbow Dash feel about as big as one of her hooves.

“And you scared all the animals,” Fluttershy wasted no time in going around to the various trees and bushes drawing out their inhabitants. Even sticking her head underwater to coax some frogs who had dived when startled by Rainbow Dash.

“See, it’s all better, there’s nothing to worry about.” Rainbow Dash watched more than a little impressed as Fluttershy gathered the animals about her. And as much as she’d wanted to win that race she couldn’t help smiling when her friend’s flank flashed and three butterflies appeared on it.

Applejack had never felt so homesick in all her days as she watched the sun rise over the mountains. Granny Smith and Big Macintosh were probably bucking their way through the red delicious trees right then. What she wouldn’t give for just one bite of an apple from Sweet Apple Acres, city food might have looked good but the chefs put so much effort into making the food look good they forgot to make enough. Maybe the sophisticated city life wasn’t for her. Aunt and Uncle Orange were good ponies but she didn’t much like their friends and she hadn’t found anything in the city she’d like to do more than go back to Ponyville and buck apples.

All Applejack wanted was a sign of what to do, as independent a filly as she was to make it to Manehatten on her own a little help now and then would be appreciated. But the sky outside was as calm as it ever was. Celestia’s sun rose slowly as the noises of the city began to pick up for another busy day. With a dramatic sigh that surely would have drawn her aunt or uncles notice Applejack flopped herself back on her bed. No matter how she worked the thoughts in her head this city adventure just wasn’t working out. It might take some of the fancy talking she’d learned from them to smooth it over but Applejack was going to have to tell her aunt and uncle that she was going back to Ponyville.

“This is horrible!” was the first thing Applejack heard from the living room as she opened her door. Curiously she walked into the living room to see Aunt and Uncle Orange at the dining table with the paper spread out before them.

“I don’t expect our government to be filled with saints,” Applejack watched her uncle continue on what was apparently a tirade at something he’d read in the paper, “but this is just ridiculous. Bribery, nepotism, really just about every joke you heard about corrupt politicians come true. And then trying to lie his way out of it and pin everything on some poor other pony. I swear, if they wouldn’t be different ponies doing the same things this would be almost enough to make you wish for the days when Celestia was an absolute monarch and appointed the city’s government.”

“Oh hush dear,” Aunt Orange peeked out from behind whatever section of the paper she was reading. “At least somepony is trying to keep them all honest. And if you keep going like that you’ll wake, oh hello Applejack dear.”

“Good morning Aunt Orange, Uncle Orange.” Applejack made herself take on the cultured tones of Manehatten, “I had hoped to talk with you about something but might I look at the paper first?”

Her uncle surrendered the paper to her waiting hooves and Applejack dove into the story about some politician on the city council being arrested for just about every type of corruption under the sun and it sounded like a few types over the sun. As she read on her homesickness became quickly forgotten. Before they’d died her parents had always stressed the importance of being honest and had done their best to live up to it. More than anything it was the lies the city ponies told that made Applejack yearn for the farm but this was something new. There were ponies here who told the truth and more than that worked against the lies other ponies told.

“Applejack?” Aunt Orange’s voice cut through the haze the filly had built around herself as she read, “you said you wanted to talk to us about something.”

“Yeah,” Applejack started in the drawl she’d grown up with before correcting herself, “Yes, I know that the school year will be starting soon and I have to choose between going back to Ponyville and staying here.” Applejack took one last look at the paper before taking a breath and choosing, “I’d like to enroll here in Manehatten.”

Rarity had no idea where her horn was taking her; she may have been the only unicorn in her class but she knew unicorn magic didn’t happen without a reason. Maybe it had to do with her love of fashion, or maybe even her cutie mark! Her happy dreams of what her magic might mean came to an abrupt end as her horn guided her rather unceremoniously into a giant rock. It was only a small mercy that nopony was around to see her pick herself up and dust herself off from such an ignominious occurrence.
But no matter, Rarity knew that her magic had led her here for a reason, it had to be her destiny!

“A rock?! That’s my destiny?!” Rarity cried out as she at last took in her surroundings.

“What is your problem horn?!” She tried to throw as menacing a glance as she could manage at the rebellious appendage. “I followed you all the way out here for a rock!?”

“Dumb rock!” Rarity vented quite a bit of anger into her scream but still had more than enough to spare.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself somewhat Rarity looked again at her surroundings, there was nothing spectacular to recommend the place. Or anything unspectacular for that matter. All her eyes could see was a dry riverbed and a few scraggly trees between the mountains.

“Dumb rock!” Rarity whirled back at the uncaring monolith. “Dumb horn!” Rarity felt very much unsatisfied at her ability to vent at the source of her problems. “Dumb place!” Rarity cried as she turned and hit the one thing she could, the earth beneath her hooves.

“Ouch!” Rarity cried, in pain this time, as she jerked her hoof from whatever it had hit. “What in Equestria?” She looked down at the hole she had gouged in the dirt and saw a sparkle glint in the late morning sunlight.

“Is that a gem?” Carefully Rarity wedged the rock from the ground to find herself looking at one of the beautiful almost pre-cut gemstones useful for so many things to ponies and other creatures all across Equestria. “I wonder…”

Rarity’s next venture into the ground was much less painful than her first and she was rewarded with a gold nugget about the size of a bit. It was heavier than it looked but Rarity barely noticed the weight. Squeezing around the rock she walked to the edge of the overhang her horn had brought her to. The whole riverbed, the whole landscape as far as she could see looked just like where she was. And if there were gems and gold under that bit of land then what was there under all that land?
“Sorry horn,” Rarity’s next glance up was much more apologetic. “But you rock,” she whipped herself about to glare at its unchanging face,” I don’t care if you’re filled to bursting with gems, you tried to keep me from my destiny!”

She could easily find enough gems here to replace the costumes for the school play with nothing but gemstones but that had already fallen to the back of her mind. Gems weren’t particularly rare in Equestria but even her untrained eye knew these were gems of the highest quality. And gold certainly didn’t grow on trees or it wouldn’t be useful as a currency. Ponies all across Equestria needed what she’d just found. And she would be the one to bring it to them, maybe with a little help to cover all this land. The middle of nowhere was the last place Rarity had imagined she’d be when she got her cutie mark. Still it made no difference when the shovel and pickaxe overlaid on a diamond appeared on her flank as the epiphany of her future struck her.

Pinkamena Diane Pie, Pinkie Pie to her friends, or at least she would be if she had any friends, pushed another rock into the pile she was building. The rock farm on which she and her sisters lived with their parents was just a bit outside Ponyville. She spent her days working the fields, there was no talking, there was no smiling, there were only rocks.

The dinner bell calling the family to the evening meal broke Pinkamena from her melancholy reverie. It was an endless series of long days moving the rocks from the south field to the east field. And when that endless series of long days finally ended there would be another endless series of long days moving rocks from other fields into the newly cleared south field.

As she walked towards her house Pinkamena sighed and looked up at the sky hoping for some change from the dullness of her life. But no there was only the nigh eternal cloud cover that condensed from the spray at the bottom of the Canterlot Waterfalls. Barely an hour’s trot away in Ponyville where she and her sisters went to school as often as their parents could spare their time it was sunny more often than not. Pinkamena loved the sun, it was so bright and cheery, and it made rainbows! Once they’d gone to the actual base of the falls and the sun through the water had made a spray of more colors than Pinkamena had though existed.

But those were happy memories of another time. At least the school year would be starting again soon and she’d get to go into Ponyville and the sun. But beyond that all Pinkamena Diane Pie could see in her future was rocks, no talking, no smiling, there were only rocks.

The start of the school year had Pinkamena nearly bouncing off the walls with happiness at the prospect of getting off the farm even if only for most of one day. She rarely had the opportunity to be happy and when chances like this came around she milked them for all they were worth. Seeing the other ponies always made her a bit sad though. They had friends to hang out with and smile and laugh with. Pinkamena only had her sisters, not that she didn’t love them. She just wanted some friends who weren’t also family. And she wanted to smile, it looked like so much fun.

Pinkamena had noticed the white unicorn from the next class up watching her and her sisters. It was hard not to notice unicorns and pegasi in an earth pony town like Ponyville. There were no pegasi at the school and counting the white one only four unicorns. She was still surprised when one afternoon the white unicorn with a purple mane and a cutie mark of a shovel and pickaxe over a diamond came trotting up to the farm.

“Um hello?” The white unicorn called out as she approached Pinkamena.

A quick glance revealed that the rest of her family was occupied elsewhere leaving Pinkamena to handle this stranger.
“You’re from my school,” Pinkamena pointed a hoof, perhaps accusatory, at the unicorn.

“Yes,” the unicorn seemed a bit taken aback at Pinkamena’s hoof, “My name is Rarity. I was hoping I might speak with you or one of your sisters.”

“What about?” Pinkamena’s curiosity had always been nearly insatiable and this was no exception.

As Rarity told Pinkamena what exactly she had in mind the pink pony felt and did nothing to stop the smile that grew on her face. In her perfect world she would leave both the rock farm and rock farming, except of course to come home and visit her parents. But this was absolutely a way off the farm and more importantly Rarity could be her friend.

“Call me Pinkie Pie, all my friends do. If you really can find those gems and gold we totally have a deal.”

Pinkie Pie looked up at the sky and for the first time in longer than she cared to remember the sun broke through the clouds over her farm.

Twilight Sparkle was scared out of her mind. Yes it had been her dream to come here ever since she’d seen Celestia raise the sun with her magic. Yes she had absorbed a small library’s worth of books about magical theory and technique. Yes she had driven her parents half mad with practicing and they’d been supportive of her the whole way through. But when the maintenance pony wheeled in the cart with the dragon egg and she looked up at the examiners with their looks of impatience to outright hostility she felt her legs turn to jelly and it was a small miracle she stayed on all four hooves.

Twilight felt sweat break out on her forehead as the examiners started making notes, nothing good she thought. Turning to the egg she started to simply channel magic into it. The small library she’d read hadn’t had anything about dragon eggs, let alone how to hatch them. She was on completely unfamiliar ground and as much as her parents being there meant, they couldn’t help her.

The stress of the situation combined with the examiners proving to be outright rude meant that where Twilight usually had no problems making her magic work she now had to scrape for every bit of it she could muster. Despite nearly flinging herself about the room a few small sparks was all she could muster.

“I’m sorry I wasted your time,” she muttered as she fell onto her haunches in defeat.

The examiners faces were unreadable beyond being unkind as they scribbled more on their clipboards with their magic. Twilight Sparkle turned to her parents to apologize to them only to see them still smiling, still encouraging her on. Renewed by her parent’s enthusiasm Twilight ignored the examiners and started pouring all the magic she could muster into the egg. Deeper and deeper into her magical power she kept going, well past what she’d done in practice at home. Still the egg just sat there, unmoving and unchanging.

Planting her hooves and groaning from the strain Twilight pushed herself to her limits and kept going. The first sign she had that she’d done something wrong was the feel of something warm running into her clenched teeth from her nose. As she tried to figure out what the warm substance was the shock of trying to channel far more magic than her young body could handle finally caught up to Twilight Sparkle and she collapsed in a pile on the ground. Her parents gasped and ran up to check on her. As blackness took her Twilight saw only the cold faces of the examiners as they kept writing on those clipboards.

Princess Celestia, ruler of all Equestria, was normally not much of a night pony. Certainly she could stay up late if called upon to and did so regularly without complaint, at least without complaints to any other pony. But her time always had been and always would be the day lit by her sun. Tonight though she had stayed up late without anypony asking her to, she was expecting mail and she did not intend to let it wait till morning. To say the mailpony making the late rounds was surprised when Celestia walked out onto her balcony to collect the letters in person would be an understatement.

Celestia waved the still very surprised Pegasus off into the night sky and then turned back inside. In truth she only wanted to see one letter in the pile before her. Quickly sorting through the papers with her magic she came across an envelope from her school for gifted unicorns and opened it.

The smile Celestia had worn quickly disappeared; she had had such high hopes for Twilight Sparkle. She was almost certain that the filly was one of the Elements of Harmony. But, Celestia reflected, she had seen in her life empires rise and fall on ‘almost.’ As much of a shame as it was to be wrong about Twilight Sparkle she had to trust the ponies she’d put in charge of the school or there was not much point to them being there. Nor would Twilight Sparkle be the first time in her long life that she had been wrong. However, Celestia thought as she looked out at the moon and stars, she was running out of time to be wrong.

“And I had so hoped you would be the one Twilight.”