//------------------------------// // Rainbow Dash: Warm Leatherette // Story: Fastest Fall in Equestria // by Parchment_Scroll //------------------------------// Author's Note: WARNING! This chapter gets way darker than I originally intended, for about a page or so. I wanted to keep this lighthearted. I really did. The closest I wanted to come to dark was a bit poignant and tear-jerky (later on). But darn it, the topic of war was broached last chapter, and that led me to terrorism, and that led me to have Dave try to explain what kind of fear drives peoples' reactions to a terrorist attack, and even though I ended up cutting details out of his laundry-list of horrible things to do to ponies, it's still a horrible list. Also, leave it to the dark chapter to (I think) be the longest Rainbow Dash chapter yet. It's 'cause I missed writing so much. Totally. Main Character's Note: It's because I'm totally boss and you know it. Real Main Character's Note: Both of you shut up so we can finish this chapter and get back to how I'm supposed to deal with RD's responsibilities. Fastest Fall in Equestria Warm Leatherette Rainbow Dash: Dave stared at me, color draining from his face so quickly, I thought he was being cursed by Discord. He started to speak, then frowned, shut up, and sat down heavily. "I don't really know how to answer that," he said. "It's not an easy question to answer." "Dave," I said. "No, hear me out," he said. "Sometimes, people disagree, right? And sometimes, whether we want it to or not, those disagreements get violent. Well, sometimes those disagreements--" "Dave," I tried again, a bit louder. "Well," Dave continued, trying to finish his explanation, "those disagreements get huge. Between whole countries. And the violence of those sorts of disagreements is horrifying. People killing each other by the hundreds, often over things that are beyond their control, because communication between the people in charge has broken down." "Dave," I said, clamping a hand over his mouth, "I know what war is." "What?" I laughed. "It was a joke, silly." "Wait, Equestria has war?" "Not in a long time," I admitted. "Twilight Sparkle would be the pony to ask about the reasons, but I'm not completely ignorant. You know what my biggest dream is, right?" Dave nodded. "You're going to be a Wonderbolt," he said. I grinned. "You know it," I said. "Anyway, because they mean so much to me, I read everything there was to read on the Wonderbolts. Did you know that they got their start as an elite aerial combat unit?" Dave frowned. "That... makes sense," he acknowledged. "It wasn't common knowledge, but I've read a few fics where people put that forward as a theory. Probably because our equivalents -- the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds -- are part of our armed forces." I nodded. "I've seen what you guys know about our world -- basically, just what's in that cartoon, and interviews from the 'creators' -- and everything there is accurate. So you know about what constitutes a major battle in modern Equestria -- the fight at Appleloosa was one of the biggest in recent history. But it's not that ponies don't know what constitutes what you'd call a real battle." Dave nodded his understanding. "So what you're saying," he said, "is that ponies have had war, real war, in the past, and when faced with the sort of things that cause it... just choose not to fight?" I laughed. "Yeah, 'cause kicking a dragon in the face is totally not fighting." I frowned, looking around the apartment. "Look," I said, "can we talk about this somewhere else? Like, outside?" Dave's frown mirrored my own, then deepened. "I'm not so sure that's a good idea," he said. I grabbed his collar and dragged him right up to my muzzle. "Dave," I said, "have you ever seen a pegasus pony with cabin fever?" I asked rhetorically. (Hey, check me out, bronies: Rainbow Dash knows how to spell "rhetorically." Aww, yeah. Grammar just got 20% cooler.) He shook his head and squeaked. "It is not," I said, punctuating each word with a shake, "a pretty picture. Ask anypony." * * * * * As we headed out to get a bite to eat and continue our discussion on boring old history junk, I was introduced to probably the weirdest aspect of human -- or at least American -- culture. I realize you guys aren't nearly as fast as me. I understand that. I get that you guys use cars and stuff to make up for how slow you guys walk. I'm fine with that -- I couldn't imagine getting around as slowly as you guys (and gals) walk. No problem. But half the fun of going somewhere fast is feeling it. So spending the trip from one enclosed space to another inside a third enclosed space? Not cool, awesome, or radical. Stopping every block or two? Ugh. And don't get me started on the smells. You want to know how Earth cities smell to a pony? Like Spike burning up one of Twilight's chemistry experiments, except the smell is everywhere. I almost lost my appetite. Anyway, we stopped at a couple of places, looking for something we both could agree on. I get that humans are omnivores. I really do. But the thought of eating meat, even in somepon-- uh, somebody else's body? Way gross. * * * * * "Anyway," I said around a mouthful of spicy bean burrito, "the point isn't that ponies don't fight. It's that we don't wage war." Dave nodded. "At the risk of sounding stupid, why not?" I laughed, which got a bit of green sauce in my nose -- not a fun thing to happen, but at least I didn't have to smell the... what did Dave call it? Exhaustion? In any case, I took it like a mare and did not cough, sneeze, or have watery eyes, because that would be uncool, unawesome, and unradical by, like, miles. No matter what Dave says. "Well, duh," I said. "War sucks. I mean, yeah, the stuff ponies fight with is pretty cool, and you gotta be fast and way cool to pull off the kind of aerial maneuvers that a good pegasus fighter can do, but the fighting itself? ...No, actually, that's pretty awesome. Um..." Dave chuckled. "I think I get what you're trying to say," he said. "In the end, no matter how dramatic it is, you're talking about people killing each other. Whenever there's a war, someone dies. Hundreds, thousands, in a couple of cases, even millions." Now it was my turn to turn pale. "Did you just seriously say 'millions'? Like, in one war?" Dave didn't answer. "What kind of bucked-up world is this, anyway?" Dave shrugged. "Answering that," he said, "would take years. It's different from what you're used to, though, I'll say that much. We've had long, dark periods, and precious few bright ones. Most of the time, it's hard to even tell if we're living in one or the other - everything seems so bleak most of the time." "Oh, it can't be as bad as all that," I said. Boy, was I wrong. Dave proceeded to explain to me what terrorism was. He did it by taking a terrible event from recent Earth history and ponyfiying it -- oh, shut up stupid red squiggly line, that is too a word. "Why would anypony do that?" I asked in, let's face it, outright horror. "To scare people. To make them too afraid to fight back. To hurt them because, in the eyes of the ones that did it, they deserved it." "Nopony deserves to die," I countered. Dave shrugged. "You remember that story you thought was so funny where Pinkie Pie was doing those terrible things to you?" I grinned. "Hay, yeah," I said. "I even got an idea for a sequel!" "What if somepony did that to all your friends?" "What, wrote stories like that about them?" I laughed harder. "Oh, man, that would be great! I can totally see Twilight Sparkle all 'mua-ha-ha, I kill ponies for science!'" "No," he said, either not getting that I'd rather talk about messed-up fanfics than what he was driving at, or too determined to care. "What if somepony tortured your friends to death?" "I'd, uh..." I frowned. "I'd totally kick their flanks straight to Canterlot and let the Princesses deal with them in court!" "Would you? If they, say, broke Applejack's legs, and made her try to walk on them before killing her?" "That's seriously wrong. You need to stop now." "If they cut off Twilight Sparkle's horn one inch at a time, and used the bits to cut her up?" "You are a sick sick man and I want you to stop talking right now." "If they cut off Fluttershy's wings and fed them to a manticore right in front of--" I couldn't take it anymore. "SHUT UP!" "What would you do?" he persisted. "IF ANYONE DID ANYTHING LIKE THAT TO FLUTTERSHY -- TO ANY OF MY FRIENDS -- I'D KILL 'EM SLOW, AND I'D ENJOY IT!" "You would?" I tried not to cry, not to let him know how badly he'd rattled me. "Heck yeah," I said, sniffliing. "They'd deserve-- Oh." One point to the human. "Okay, um... That was really emotional and stuff and I'd like to change the subject now." "Right. So back to the original topic at hand -- terrorism. So picture those ponies I was talking about before that. The ones who attacked Manehattan. What if they did it because they were told that one of the princesses was Nightmare Moon?" "But..." I frowned. "We totally kicked Nightmare Moon's flank. Princess Luna's a pretty cool mare, y'know. She totally pranked me on Nightmare Night, it was classic." Immediately, Dave's hands went over his funny-shaped ears. (Seriously, you humans have really weird ears. It's the weirdest thing about you.) "Ah! Spoilers! Lalalalalala! No spoiling season two!" I laughed. I needed a good laugh, and I honestly think Dave knew that. He's an okay guy when he's not being downright evil just to prove a stupid point. "Anyway, I'd just talk to 'em." "They wouldn't listen." "Why not?" "Because all Equestrian ponies are under Nightmare Moon's evil spell, obviously. And if they start sounding like they're making sense, it's either because they're lying, they don't know any better, or they're putting the same spell on you." "That's the silliest thing I ever heard." "Oh, really?" Dave got a wicked gleam in his eyes, and, to my horror (and eternal embarrassment), began to sing. "She's an evil enchantress "And she does evil dances! "If you look in her eyes, "She will put you in trances! "Then what will she do? "She'll mix up an evil brew "And she'll gobble you up "In a big tasty stew, so..." I couldn't resist. I joined him on the last "WATCH OUT!" "Okay, okay," I relented. "I get the point. Except, if I'm being honest, we were all really silly to believe those old mares' tales about zebras." "But you believed 'em, nonetheless. So much so, when bad things started happening, you thought she put a curse on you." "So we did," I admitted. "Now imagine a whole country full of zebras." "I have. I always wonder if they have pegasus zebras and unicorn zebras?" Hay, a thing I've noticed about bronies? You guys get sidetracked pretty easily when it comes to little details about Equestria. It took, like, ten whole minutes of joking and laughing about Zebra Dash and Twilight Zebra and Zebrity and Zebrashy and Zebrajack and... we both decided the absolute last thing we wanted to discuss was Zebra Pie. In the words of Ponyville's most famous panicker, "the horror, the horror!" Okay, yeah, I get sidetracked pretty easily too. Anyway, he made his point, and we had fun talking about pony stuff, and then the creepiest thing happened. "Do you smell that?" I frowned. "All I smell is that awful stink those car things make," I said. "Smells like rain." As soon as he said it, I noticed it, too. Hidden behind the stink of car fatigue -- er, exhaustion, or whatever -- was the dusty-attic smell of a good stormcloud ready to drop a payload of life-giving water. I looked up and saw absolutely huge storm clouds rolling in... all on their own.