//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5: Fall Out 
// Story: Dark Spectrum: Public Enemy 
// by Bootsy Slickmane 
//------------------------------//

	It was only after Rainbow awoke sometime near sundown that she realized that she didn't know when to go and pick up Spike so he could work on her suit. She couldn't just wait around at the library until he came out again, but they hadn't scheduled anything.

Fortunately, and much to Rainbow's surprise, her breakfast of dry cereal was interrupted by a flash of green fire and a scroll landing in her bowl. It took her a moment to realize where it must have come from. "Huh, I didn't know Spike could send these things anywhere," she said as she laid out the scroll on her table and unrolled it.




Hey, Rainbow. I'm all done organizing the library, so you can come get me now. I don't want to go through Everfree, so could you pick me up at the bush you dropped me at?

I mean, I'm not afraid of the Everfree Forest, it's just getting dark and it's creepy when it's dark there are more monsters at night I don't know how to find your house.




Well, that solves that issue. Rainbow quickly finished her cereal and got into her suit, finding the padding she'd added had tightened it up nicely. She paused to look over her goggles. They looked pretty cool, and those bug goggles Spike had drawn looked pretty lame. Oh well, she could deal with a little tunnel vision. She strapped them on and was out the front door.

Spike had been waiting next to the same shrub she'd dropped him off by earlier, and struck up a conversation as she carried him over the river that wound through Everfree.

"So, I've been thinking about my costume. I was thinking black with red stripes and spikes. And I want some cool blades like your suit has, and smoke bombs, and a grappling hook...." Spike trailed off for a few seconds before commenting, "I'm not sure what I want my cutie mark to be yet, though."

Rainbow almost fell out of the air, but corrected her course quickly. "You... want a cutie mark on your suit?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, your suit has one, so, you know...."

Spike hesitated a moment before explaining further. "I kinda always thought it would be cool to have a cutie mark. Every pony gets one when they find their special talent, and I'm pretty sure it's my destiny to be Twilight's Number One Assistant. I know I'm a dragon, and dragons don't have cutie marks, but I thought it might be cool to have one anyway."

Rainbow didn't know what to say to that. She'd never really considered the possibility that Spike might want to be more like his pony friends... at least not like that. And did he really think his destiny was assisting some egghead librarian? Eventually, she just shrugged to herself and said, "Yeah, sure, we'll figure out a cutie mark for your costume."

Spike smiled at that, and held onto Rainbow as the two soared past the tree line and over the gorge. Rainbow struck up a different conversation as they landed on her porch.

"Sooo... what's Twilight been up to?"

"I dunno. I actually haven't seen her very much for the last few weeks. She said she's been doing some kind of special project for Princess Celestia. She said it's something she doesn't need my help for, so I've had a lot of time to myself lately." Spike sighed, adding, "If this keeps up, I'd better find some more hobbies."

"Why don't you just go help Rarity make her stupid dresses?" Rainbow asked with a little more venom than she intended.

"Hey, Rarity's dresses aren't stupid, they're great! They're almost as beautiful as she is." Spike's eyes glazed over, and it took Rainbow a few taps on Spike's head to bring his focus back.

"Come on, we've got stuff to do," she said, walking back over to their work table.

Spike jogged along next to her. "And I would go help Rarity, but she's been busy helping Twilight. So's Pinkie, actually. And Fluttershy, and Applejack." Spike stopped for a moment, a hand on his chin. "Huh, I didn't notice that before. Must be something really important about friendship or something," he said with a shrug.

Rainbow slowed a little bit, but it wasn't just because she was getting close to their work table. She was fairly certain that the "special project" had nothing to do with friendship. Maybe those five thought it was, but Rainbow was convinced that they didn't even know what friendship was.

Spike hopped up onto the chair, continuing, "But if it's a project about friendship, shouldn't you be there too, Rainbow?"

Rainbow hesitated only half a second before answering, "I'm sure they'll involve me when they're ready. And when that happens, I'll be ready, too."

"Uh, ooookay then," Spike said with one eyebrow up. Both eyebrows dropped low suddenly. "Oh, and I know where you got all this lab equipment. I thought it all looked familiar, and I realized where I'd seen it when I went down to the library's basement and saw it was empty."

"It wasn't totally empty; I left a few things."

Spike shook his head. "Rainbow, why didn't you just tell me you needed to borrow Twilight's equipment? I could have helped you bring it back with us when we first came to your hideout."

"I couldn't.... Wait, what?" Rainbow stared at Spike in confusion as he grabbed a cookie out of the little box that sat on the table.

"I could have just told Twilight I needed it to help the Cutie Mark Crusaders find their special talents and she probably wouldn't have minded," Spike said through his cookie, crumbs tumbling from his mouth. "Speaking of cutie marks, I think I want mine to have some green fire on it somewhere."

Spike suddenly gasped, then spent a few seconds coughing out crumbs before he could speak again. "I've got it! Our new cutie marks should fit together, you know, like puzzle pieces! That way, when the city needs our help, the mayor can shine our combined marks up on a cloud to alert us! Then we come swooping in and save Ponyville! Aw, this is gonna be so awesome!"

It was the second time in the last half hour that Rainbow found herself at a loss for words. She bit her lower lip, eyes staring down at the table of tools while the little dragon shuddered with what she assumed was excitement. "Uh, Spike?"

"Yeah, Rainbow?"

She hated to burst his bubble if she was right, but she was starting to feel bad about what she might be doing. "You do know that I'm not a superhero, right?"

"Wh-what?! You... but... the costume...." Spike pointed at the suit she was still wearing.

"Every supervillain needs a cool and sinister outfit. Duh."

Spike dropped his quill, eyes wide. "You're a supervillain?!"

Rainbow slapped a hoof to her face. "I'm Dark Spectrum. You know, the one who's been going around making mayhem in Ponyville? Don't you read the papers?"

"I... no, I didn't know. I thought you were still a superhero, like when you saved that filly in the well and saved that grass from weeds. I thought the pony that was causing so much trouble was, like, your nemesis or something."

"Oh." That's all Rainbow could say. It certainly explained why Spike was so eager to be her sidekick. Knowing why he had been helping her didn't make her feel very good, though. It made her feel kinda mean, actually, like she was taking advantage of him. "Uh, sorry?"

Spike shook his head, eyes on the work table. "I don't understand. Why are you doing this? Why are you a supervillain now?"

Rainbow sighed, helping herself to a cookie from the box. She still wasn't quite sure what to tell him. She didn't want him to know that she was seeking revenge against his best friends, but she didn't want to lie to the only friend she had left in Ponyville. Finding out that those five had plotted against her had devastated Rainbow's feelings, but she really, really, really didn't want to admit it.

Spike looked up from the table. "Did... did something happen?"

"Yeah," Rainbow finally said, "Mare Do Well happened."

"Are you still upset about that? C'mon, it's not that big a deal."

Rainbow scrunched up her muzzle. "'Not that big a deal?' Mare Do Well ruined my reputation and made me look like a total lame-wad. I can't go around Ponyville anymore without everypony yelling at me. Nopony will even sell me food. They all think I drove their favorite hero away."

"Uh, you kinda did," Spike said. Rainbow glared at the dragon, and he elaborated. "Well, when you confronted them they stopped being Mare Do Well, right?"

Rainbow put a hoof to her chin. She hadn't really thought of it like that before. Technically, Rainbow really was the reason for Mare Do Well's disappearance. But she was also the reason Mare Do Well existed in the first place.

"And they were only doing it to help you, remember? I already wrote a letter to Princess Celestia for you about the lesson you learned." Spike hopped down off the chair. "Do you want me to go get it?"

"The only lesson I learned is that my so-called friends are hippie... uh, hippo.... Crud, what's that word?" Rainbow looked to Spike, who just shrugged. "Well, you know what I mean. They told me not to brag and rub my accomplishments in everypony's face, and then they go and do what they told me not to do. The Mayor even threw a parade for them! I never got a parade!"

"You did get a pretty cool fan club, though."

"Heh heh, yeah, that was pretty awesome." Rainbow paused to look at her ceiling, remembering the Rainbow Dash wigs, hats, shirts, and that creepy balloon doll somepony had made to look like her. "Hey, do they still hold meetings?"

"Uh, I haven't heard of any since Mare Do Well showed up."

The grin that Rainbow had attained faded quickly, and there was silence for a time between the two. Dash straightened some of the tools on the table and took a bite of her cookie.

"Rainbow, why don't you come back to Ponyville? I'm sure if you explain what happened and just apologize it'll be okay," Spike insisted.

Dash scoffed at the idea. "Let me guess: my friends all miss me and say they're sorry and want me to come home, right?"

"Um, actually, they haven't talked about you at all lately."

Rainbow was more than a little taken aback by that bit of information. "What?! Don't they read the paper? Don't they know what I've been doing? How am I supposed to draw them out if they ignore me?"

"What do you mean, 'draw them out?'"

Rainbow paused, considering her options one last time and chewing her cookie. Should she lie to him? She wasn't mad at him, and still considered him a friend, but by now she was sure he wouldn't like her plans. She didn't like lying to her friends, though. Maybe if she just told him part of the plan.

"Mare Do Well humiliated me, so I'm going to do the same to them. I'm gonna show Ponyville what hypocrites they— that's it! Hypocrites, yeah! Uh, anyway, I'm gonna unmask them and make them admit that they were pretending to be heroes just to make me look bad."

"But they really were heroes!" Spike asserted with arms spread wide. "They saved that pony in the balloon, and at the construction site, and..." Spike trailed off under Rainbow's level stare. "So, um, what're you gonna do once you unmask Mare Do Well?"

It was something she had been thinking about since she'd picked up the old Shadowbolt costume, but she'd come no closer to making a decision. "I don't know yet, Spike, but I was thinking about putting them all in a cage in the town square for a few weeks."

"Wh-what?! I meant, like, would you come back to Ponyville!" Oops. "You can't put all our friends in a cage!"

"They stopped being my friends when they started wearing that stupid mask! They're the ones who changed, not me!"

"Uh, I didn't say you—"

Rainbow cut him off. "They're all a bunch of... uh... what's a word for somepony that changes into somepony else?" Spike just stared at her as she put a hoof to her face, trying to concentrate. "Uh, flip-floppers! Yeah. They flip-flopped me. I mean on me." Spike raised an eyebrow at Rainbow's apparent flustration.

Rainbow steadied her breathing, head held in her hooves. No more games. No more beating around the bush. Spike was a good friend, and he deserved the truth. She brought her glare back to Spike. "They took everything from me, Spike. My career, my reputation, my friends.... What they did to me was awful, so I'm going to do something awful right back. This is how it's gonna be, so either help me or get out of the way."

"No!" Spike shouted. Rainbow flinched at the outburst, leaning back a little from the dragon. Spike was standing in front of her, his fists clenched, leaning slightly forward and glaring at her. "I'm not going to let you hurt Twilight, or Rarity, or anypony else!" His loyalty was admirable; she had to give him that. But he was in her way now, and there was only one thing to do about it.

Spike yelped, covering his head in surprise. The box of cookies bounced off his arms and landed at his feet. When he saw what she had tossed at him, he looked up at her with a sheepish chuckle. She just rolled her eyes and picked him up by the tail.

A short while later and she was dropping the little dragon into the same shrub just outside of Ponyville. She dropped the box of cookies into the bush with him. "You're a good dragon, okay? And I've always thought you were pretty cool.... But I can't forgive the others just like that. This is something I have to do so... so just keep your head down, okay?" She started to fly away, but paused to add, "And don't tell anypony where I am. Remember: you Pinkie Promised."

Rainbow flew back through the trees, her face blank. Now she had no one left in Ponyville she could count on. No one except herself.

And even that relationship was becoming strained.