//------------------------------// // 32 // Story: Twilights Mane Passion // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// “Fluttershy, is that really you? Where in the world have you been? I haven’t seen you in a while.” Rainbow flew up to the shy mare and gave her a short affectionate cuddle; she didn’t want to be lame by prolonging the good feelings of hugging her. “You haven’t seen me in more than five years Rainbow, by the way happy birthday today. I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything.” Fluttershy knew she couldn’t stay long to make sure her other friends wouldn’t do anything to Rainbow. She did promise she’d be back in an hour to her little angel bunny… maybe she should just name him Angel. “Oh that’s no problem, has it really been five years though? I thought you’ve only been gone for one.” Rainbow didn’t notice Tress leaping for her in an attempt to throttle her for just being so oblivious. Twilight tackled Tress to the floor and Barb watched on, lazily eating ice cream as her mom wrestled with her best friend. This was pretty entertaining to the young dragon and she has seen plenty of strange things in her life at her grandparents’ house. “Rainbow, I left after Gilda had been around for a year. What happened to her anyway, if you don’t mind me asking?” Fluttershy was curious as to how well the griffon did at winning the Rainbow’s heart. “She left around two years ago… I think. She seemed pretty upset about having to go home though.” Rainbow liked Gilda as she liked doing awesome and cool things too, they were pretty good friends. “So what’s been up with you?” “Tress, please don’t do this. I know she’s annoying and I certainly feel your pain in that area, don’t think I don’t. We should just let them talk and today is her birthday, I’m not about to let you hospitalize a pony on their birthday in this house.” Twilight was having quite the time pinning down Tress, as Tress was physically more capable and larger then she is. “Twilight I respectfully ask you to let me go, so I can trample and or maul her.” Tress continued to put up a very good struggle. One of which Fluttershy was witness to, but Rainbow had her back to them. Fluttershy had a large bead of sweat trail down the side of her head at the scene that was going on beyond Rainbow’s view. She knew Rainbow was aggravating them in some way, maybe the likeliest reason is because she was so ignorant of what Fluttershy herself went through. They were good friends, but they didn’t need to do things like fret over stuff like this for her sake. This was just how Rainbow was. “Oh, um… I’ve been well… I ran away from home, lived on the streets of Canterlot’s for three years and slept in a lot of trees. I really discovered all the finer points of my cutie mark and that I’m also good at medicine during all it. I even spent some time living with Twilight’s family. It was very nice except when the food came to life, which can actually be very scary even if it still tastes good.” Fluttershy watched as Tress pinned Twilight and Barb started counting up to ten. Apparently they turned whatever they were doing into a competition instead of a possible assault on Rainbow. “I moved to Ponyville a few days ago with my good friends and now have the most wonderful job in the world!” “And Tress takes the Trouble Takers Takedown wrestling championship belt.” Barb announced gleefully off to the side. “Huh?” Tress said simply as she turned her head to look in Barb’s direction while making sure Twilight couldn’t get any magic off. It was around this moment that Tress started to calm down. It was better if Tress just left the room and stopped thinking about hurting Rainbow at all, she’d be more upset at making Fluttershy upset. Well at least now that she had come to her senses. “Twilight I’m going to let you go now, we are going to stand and walk into the next room and we are going to sit down on the floor and discuss couches. We will ignore Rainbow until she finds an actual reason to bother us.” “That actually sounds pretty good to me.” Twilight blushed at the position Tress had currently put her in, the way her mane tickled and slid along her face was really nice. “You got into the Wonderbolts? Because that’s the coolest job there is! I’m going to be the best one someday.” This was Rainbow’s translation as to the best job in the world and not what Fluttershy thought was her perfect job. “You must have had it so easy Fluttershy, I bet running away was a cakewalk for you and you never had any hardships.” “Excuse me Twilight, but you make have to restrain me again and drag me from the room before I do something every pony in this room will soon regret.” Tress said threateningly as her eyes turn green and red while glowing slightly as she helped Twilight to her hooves. Running away from home was never an easy thing, Fluttershy was lucky to be a very bright and intelligent mare to barely survive her own at the age of eleven. Without the animals she befriended aiding her she could have been long dead by this point. “The only reason why I’m not leaping at the chance to hurt her right now is simple. She just doesn’t know what Fluttershy has gone through yet and more importantly she doesn't know any better.” “I think I need to leave too before I start thinking of letting you carry out whatever it is you’re currently thinking.” Twilight quickly levitated Tress against her will and quickly ran out of the room before the situation got worse. There was another reason why she needed to get Tress out of the room and she addressed it. “Tress, I don’t mean to panic you but you’re eyes are green and red.” “What! Get me to a mirror Twilight.” Tress felt herself be dragged along through the air towards the closest to bathroom. “Oh no, I’m not a Wonderbolt silly. That’s your dream job. Also it wasn’t very easy for me at all, if you consider being homeless and almost having no bits for food easy. My dream job is running an animal sanctuary and working with other ponies that are good with animals.” Fluttershy really hoped her friends were alright. They disliked Rainbow a lot, but she was sure with a little time Rainbow would grow on them. “Is every pony staying for an evening meal? To not make enough for all a bad friend I will feel.” Zecora just shook her head at the way Twilight and Tress left the room. She thought there was something off about Tress’s eyes; it looked like she was possessed though Zecora didn’t know for sure if that was the case. She knew that those two would at least be around. “I’m sorry Zecora, I can’t stay. I promised a rabbit I’d be back within an hour and the one that’s still recovering.” Fluttershy didn’t really want to leave Rainbow Dash alone with her two other good friends. As she made her way for the living room she turned to ask her old friend a question. “Don’t you need to go home too Rainbow?” “Nah, I’m sticking around for dinner. Free food sounds good right about now. I’ll have whatever you guys are having tonight.” Rainbow couldn’t understand why Fluttershy was sending her worried looks, there was nothing to be worried about and she had made a bunch of new friends today. “So where is your home Fluttershy? I didn’t see any other pegasus houses in the area where I’ve got mine.” “That’s because my home is on the ground Rainbow, I’ll show you later.” Fluttershy wondered if leaving was such a good idea, but she would do so anyway. She just hoped they didn’t rough up each other too much. “I really must be going now, I’m sorry if things go wrong at dinner Zecora.” “There is no need to worry, go on back to your charge which is cute and furry. I’ll see to it they do each other no pain, for they have more as friends to gain.” Zecora thought they had a certain quality of craziness working between them as friends that certainly had a unique charm to it. “Well if you’re sure everything will be okay Zecora.” Fluttershy didn’t say much further as she went for the front door and turned back to say something loud, well loud for her anyway. “I’ll catch up with your later Rainbow.” “Sure thing Fluttershy, we’ll make a day of it!” Rainbow called back still sitting at the table bored with the world as nothing interesting was happening. What were the other two mares doing? She watched as the zebra started working on dinner as the dragon thing finished off her ice cream. “Tress… have you’re powers recently come back and how strong are they at the moment if they have?” Twilight saw a look of apprehension in Tress’s eyes. “Well… I’ve been able to control a lock of my mane; it turns the general Mane-iac style of green when I’m controlling it. I really didn’t want to tell you until I figured out how I managed to get that much of my powers back.” Tress tried to focus on her mane and get it to change; only it wouldn’t. Tress was wondering what was wrong with her. She had the eyes, but the rest of her body and hair was still the same. “Well can you show me?” Twilight asked as she was witnessing Tress stare into the mirror a little harder than normal. “I’m trying, but it’s not working for some reason. Hold on a second, I think I’ve got an idea.” She was so focused on her eyes; she needed to move her focus away from her eyes. She really needed to redirect it somehow. Slowly she saw the green with red inner circle fade from her eyes and a length of her mane slowly started turning green. “Can you do your eyes and hair at the same time?” Twilight queried her as she noticed that Tress’s eyes returned to their usual vibrant blue. Her mane basically highlighted itself green on its own and she moved it to lift a hairbrush. “Not really, it’s sort of strange. My eyes are taking up some of my powers for some reason. Also I can only create this one small tentacle and stretch it to ten feet at maximum. I had Fluttershy measure it when I was at her house. So far I can only do either my mane or my tail like this and it’s either one or the other.” Tress couldn’t honestly understand why her eyes would be taking up the energy that made her super powers work. “Have you ever considered the fact that your super powers might have been more than just the things you can do with your beautiful mane? Did you even test everything you could do when you had your powers at full strength?” Seeing her friend shrug, Twilight knew that they had to test Tress’s powers as there was more to them then apparently her hair. She made note that more highly resilient body was a common super power for heroes and villains, so that was also something Tress was currently lacking without her powers. “Well no, but thanks for the compliment even if I’ve already heard it many times, I do try to keep it nice and clean as you very well know. What in the world could my eyes possibly be doing or what makes them so special that they’d draw from my Mane-iac powers?” Tress really never had power problems before, she was always full on powerful when she was Mane-iac. Right now she doubted she could even take a full on hit from Saddle Rager. She’s done it once or twice, but as she is now Tress would probably die the instant that his hoof made contact with her and provided he was in full rage mode at the time. “Well it’s no less true; I really do like working with your mane. Look, we’re going to look into this Tress so don’t worry about it too much right now. I do have one question though, when did you gain the ability to change your mane like that?” Twilight was curious as to when Tress had exactly discovered this sudden return of her abilities if even slightly. How long had she kept this a secret? “It first happened when Rainbow almost slammed into me earlier today and almost got me and Barb covered with a wave of mud. I think the zap apples might have restored some of my power and I reacted to the sudden possible threat at incredible speed.” Tress moved the brush back to where she got it from. She had taken a moment to draw all of the power back inside of herself returning her completely back to normal, well as normal as a super powered mare could be. “Tress, your powers should be inert. The magical energy from those apples shouldn’t be capable of doing this, though I must admit there might be something to it. Again we’ll look into this later; it smells like Zecora is almost finished working on dinner.” Twilight started to walk away followed by her best friend. Just before they reached the kitchen she heard a whimper behind her. Twilight stopped, turned back around and hugged Tress. “I’m not going to stop being your friend because of something like this Tress; you should really know this by now.” “Well that’s comforting at least, but I’m whimpering about the fact that Rainbow is apparently staying for dinner. I can already imagine the disappointed look on Fluttershy’s face when I give her a black eye.” Looking at the table Rainbow was talking with Zecora while Barb was making some vegetable stir fry and working a frying pan with her bare claws. Apparently Zecora was finished with most of what she had to cook. “Come on Tress. Let’s go get this over with.” Twilight dragged Tress to the table holding her hoof as she walked. "We'll get through this somehow."