* * * * *
"So Peebles knocked you up?"
"NO!"
Rainbow Dash looked up from her book with a sly smirk, savoring the flustered expression on Twilight's face. "So you knocked her up then."
"NO!" Twilight repeated. "Neither of us was knocked up! There was no knocking!"
Rainbow leered. "But you made a baby together."
"No! Well, yes. Well...SHE made the baby," Twilight said. "It's just...I may have added...a little DNA..."
Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Yeah I'm pretty sure that's how the whole getting a mare pregnant thing works."
Twilight groaned and rolled her eyes. "Alright, yes, you got me. I grew a magic wiener and we made the craziest, nastiest whoopie in all Equestria. They'll write songs and poems for years about our wild, nasty, too-hot-for-television lovemaking. And then Grape was born."
Rainbow snickered...then let out a full-blown laugh. She held up a tape recorder and gave Twilight a sly, cheeky grin.
Twilight's blood ran cold. "You didn't."
Rainbow clicked the rewind button on the tape recorder, then clicked play. "I grew a magic wiener and we made the craziest, nastiest whoopie in all Equestria," Twilight's voice said from the tape.
Twilight's horn began to spark as her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Rainboooooooow," she growled.
"YOINK!" Rainbow gave Twilight the stink-eye, then disappeared through one of the library's windows. A sonic boom shook the ground, and a rainbow explosion filled the sky. Twilight screamed in frustration and stamped her hooves on the ground, face burning red with embarrassment and rage.
"Rainbow Euphegenia Dash, you are the deadest dead that ever deaded!"
* * * * *
"Howdy RD! Care for an orange?"
Rainbow Dash blinked as she landed next to Applejack's fruit stand. In addition to the usual barrels of apples, there was one large crate of ripe oranges. "Buh?"
Applejack chuckled. "We're tryin' out a fruit exchange. Every month, we'll be tradin' a barrel of our apples for a barrel of some other farm's crop. We're keepin' some fer ourselves, an' sellin' th' rest. This month, it's oranges."
Rainbow shrugged and fished a bit out of her bag. "Sure, I'll take one." She peeled the orange with her teeth, then ate the fruit. "Wow, that's really juicy."
"Eeeyup."
"That's like the juiciest orange I've ever tasted."
Grape Bubblegum walked up to the stand. "Good morning, Applejack! Oh, hello Rainbow Dash! Pony-Mommy is looking for you!" She smiled cheerfully. "She wants to kill you a whole lot!"
Rainbow's eyes bugged out. "Oh crap, she's STILL mad about that?!"
Applejack cocked her head. "What'd you do now, Rainbow?"
Rainbow popped a pair of earbuds into Applejack's ears and clicked play on a tape recorder she held. After a moment, Applejack's eyes widened. Her ears wilted and the earbuds fell out. "Whuh-oh," she said. "Ah think you better run."
"Yeah," Rainbow agreed. "Thanks for the orange!"
* * * * *
Rainbow had to pee.
After her little snack, she'd ducked into the general store to duck Twilight. While there, she'd bought a cola, downed it, then spent a half hour flying around, darting from puffy cloud to puffy cloud, before circling around and heading for home.
She'd spotted Twilight circling her house like a vulture, and had turned tail and zoomed away before she could be spotted.
Now, she was hiding in a medium-sized cloud, which she'd slowly drifted across Ponyville so that she could watch her house from inside it.
She'd been hiding for almost an hour. And she really, really had to pee.
Movement from beneath her house drew her attention. Fluttershy appeared from below, flying up to the front door. Twilight swooped down and landed behind her. Fluttershy gave a frightened start. The two spoke for a long moment. Twilight dove off the front porch, descending toward Ponyville.
Rainbow breathed a sigh of relief. "Whew. Now I can go and—"
"Rainbow," a soft, stern voice said. She blinked.
Fluttershy was right in front of her, hooves on her flanks. She was frowning.
"That wasn't a very nice thing to do to Twilight," Fluttershy said.
"It was just a joke," Rainbow whined.
"Well, it wasn't very funny!" Fluttershy said. "Now, I want you to march right down there and apologize to Twilight."
Rainbow sighed. "Okay, fine. Um...after I stop by my house to pee. Cuz I really gotta pee."
The cloud she was hiding in suddenly turned yellow.
"...nevermind."
* * * * *
Rainbow Dash hid in the upper branches of the Golden Oak Library, surrounded by a veritable ocean of green leaves. She watched as an angry, stiff-winged Twilight glided to a halt on the ground, snapped her wings tight against her sides, and marched stiffly toward the door.
With a sigh, Rainbow dropped a small wrapped package to the ground in front of the irate alicorn.
Twilight blinked as the package landed at her hooves. She picked it up in her magic, opening the note taped to the outside. It read, simply:
"Sorry. - RD"
Twilight unwrapped the package, finding an audio cassette. She smirked, and her horn flared...
Rainbow suddenly found herself face-first on the ground in front of Twilight. "Uh...h-hey, Twilight," she said. "Um...we cool?"
Twilight snorted. "Next time you pull a stunt like that, I'm casting an eternal farting spell on you," she said. She walked past the prone pegasus, slapping her in the face with her tail as she went inside.
* * * * *
Rainbow trotted into Sugar Cube Corner, looking around for a table.
"Hey, Rainbow Dash! Over here!"
Rainbow spotted Finn, the boy who'd moved in with Fluttershy, waving at her, and trotted over, joining him. "Hey," she said. "Nice shirt."
Finn picked at his blue shirt, nodding. "Yeah, it's my favorite shirt. It's blue. You're blue." He smiled. "We're bluuuuuuue."
"Heheh, yeah," Rainbow said. Pinkie trotted over and put a big tray of assorted goodies between them. Finn selected an eclair, while Rainbow scarfed down an iced donut. "So, how's it going with Fluttershy?"
"Good, it's good," Finn said. "She's really nice. You'd think her house would smell like a zoo and have a serious poo problem, but..."
"Yeah, I'm not sure how she does it," Rainbow said. "She's just awesome that way."
"She's already BFFs with Beemo," Finn said as he picked up a cream cheese filled soft pretzel. "That dumb rabbit, though..." He tore the pretzel in half and stuffed half of it into his mouth. "Man, I hate that rabbit. And Jake really hates that rabbit."
"Eh, we all hate Angel," Rainbow said dismissively. "Fluttershy needs to realize how toxic her relationship with that stupid rabbit really is. Or find him a nice girl bunny to go off and make baby bunnies with."
"Yeah, maybe a little girl bunny action would settle him down," Finn said. "Or he'd turn out to be an abusive wife-beater...coming home drunk every night, hitting the wife, hitting the little bunnies..."
"Uhh...yeah," Rainbow said uncertainly. "So hey, catch you later," she said as she snagged a big, thick cookie off the plate and left, flicking a few bits at Pinkie.
* * * * *
Rainbow Dash lay atop a low-drifting cloud, trying to catch an afternoon nap. She was just drifting off to sleep when she heard Rarity clear her throat daintily beneath her.
"Rainbow Dash...would you be a dear and come down here?" Rarity asked.
Rainbow sighed. "Can it wait, Rarity? Trying to take a nap here!"
"It'll only take a minute, darling!" Rarity insisted.
Groaning, Rainbow hopped down off the cloud. "Alright, alright...what do you need?"
"I just need to borrow you and your glorious mane for a moment to do some color-matching."
Rainbow shrugged. "Yeah, okay." She trotted after Rarity, following her into Carousel Boutique. Rarity made Rainbow stand under a large lamp, which she turned on with her magic. "Gah!" Rainbow hissed, wincing at the sudden bright glare; she whipped out her favorite sunglasses and put them on.
"Sorry about that, darling," Rarity said. "I need a pure light source for the best results."
"So uhh...what exactly are we doing?" Rainbow asked.
Rarity levitated several swatches of dark blue fabric over and laid them out on a small bench next to Rainbow. "I need to determine which of these is the purest shade of indigo," Rarity said.
Rainbow looked at the fabric swatches, which to her eye were all more or less the same color. "Uhhh..."
"Yes, I know, they all look the same," Rarity said, rolling her eyes. "But trust me, there's a difference." She put on her work glasses, then levitated a sparkly golden comb over and used it to lift the back of Rainbow's mane, sifting through the strands. "Hmmm," Rarity said, "that's...odd."
"What? Do I have lice or something?"
"No, no..." Rarity said, shaking her head. "I could've sworn...I mean, yes, it looks like your mane is just six colors, but...I could have sworn it was the full spectrum..."
Rainbow blinked. "Huh?"
Rarity held up a lock of Rainbow's mane. "There's no indigo in your mane. It just goes from blue to...well...purple. I mean, this isn't even violet. It's just...purple."
"Actually I'm pretty sure it's violet," Rainbow insisted. "Anyway, that whole indigo thing is just something some egghead unicorn came up with a long time ago. Real, Cloudsdale-approved rainbows are, well..." She gestured at herself with her hooves. "What you see here. Red, orange, yellow, green, sky blue, blue, and violet." She paused. "And yeah, the sky blue is my coat, not in my mane."
Rarity blinked. "I...see," she said.
"Anyway, none of those are indigo," Rainbow said with a shrug. "Half of them are phthalo blue, and the other half are persian blue."
Rarity blinked. "Are...are you sure? Because I'm quite certain my supplier said he used the highest quality indigo dye—"
"Yeah, indigo dye won't give you a dark blue like that," Rainbow said. At Rarity's skeptical eyebrow, she rolled her eyes. "Rarity, I shoot rainbows outta my butt! You think I don't know which color's which?" She chuckled at Rarity's faintly nauseated expression. "Anyway, just pick the one you like best, and don't worry about what you should call it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a nap to get back to. Laters!"
* * * * *
Rainbow awoke from her nap to find the sun had already set. The sky was a beautiful, deep violet, with the stars just beginning to come out. Her stomach rumbled, and she decided to hit Hay Burger before heading home.
She arrived to find Twilight, Princess Bubblegum, and Grape chowing down. Twilight had so much ketchup smeared on her face, her tray, and everywhere else, it looked like she'd mauled some poor creature. Grape looked somewhat disturbed by her co-mother's horrible table manners. Snickering, Rainbow trotted up to the counter to order.
Just as Rainbow received her food, Bubblegum noticed Rainbow and waved to her. "Rainbow Dash, come join us!"
Rainbow balanced her tray on her back and trotted over, perching on a seat next to Grape. She slid her tray onto the table with a wing and began unwrapping a burger. "So uh, hey guys," she said. She looked up at Twilight. "Are you still—"
Twilight shook her head (sending droplets of ketchup splashing to the floor). "I'm not mad. Besides, I pretty much set myself up for it."
"Yeah you did!" Princess Bubblegum said, laughing. "Magic wiener..." She shook her head and munched on an onion ring. "You really are a wiener, Twilight," she said.
"Well...! You're a double wiener!" Twilight huffed, chomping a burger and spraying ketchup all over the place.
"A wiener is you!" Bubblegum said dramatically, pointing at Twilight.
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Hey kid, you totally embarrassed yet?" she asked Grape.
"All the time," Grape said with a giggle. "All the time."