//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Mare Do Well: Fallout // by LordBrony2040 //------------------------------// Chapter 4 As she made her way back into Ponyville and the Golden Oaks Library, Twilight Sparkle hurt. She hurt a lot. However, her inability to quantify the level of the pain she was in aside from ‘a lot’ was due to the fact that not all of the pain she was experiencing seemed to be coming from her head. It was a kind of pain she had never really felt before and didn’t seem to have any physical cause. The unicorn felt as if this strange new kind of wound was sapping her strength and putting some invisible weight on her body that made it hard to breathe. On top of which, her eyes were watering. That at least was understandable. After all, she was in a great deal of physical pain, and shedding tears was a natural response to such stimuli. The runny nose was a bit of an oddity since they were in Autumn and thus no Spring allergies were occurring but…Twilight was more preoccupied with just moving forward to have more than two worries on her slightly diminished mental capacity. So the unicorn trudged through Ponyville and thankfully only had to tell Snips and Snails to beat it, not the majority of her other future students. However, before she could make it to the sanctuary that was her library and lay down on the bed to finally release her lachrymal fluids where no one could see, the door opened to reveal a mulberry pony with a pet carrier saddlebag barring Twilight’s way. The local schoolteacher Ms Cheerilee was a pony after Twilight’s own heart…most of the time. While the unicorn loved knowledge for knowledge’s sake, Cheerilee was a more down to earth scholar that focused on the need to know stuff. Still, Twilight respected the woman for her profession. After all, it was one that Princess Celestia Herself held in the highest regard and even engaged in with very lucky ponies. A position that Twilight would soon hold herself in fact. She couldn’t wait to tell Princess Celestia about the first lesson she would be teaching all the young ponies of Ponyville. “Oh Ms Sparkle, hello there,” Cheerilee. “I’m glad I caught you. I…are you okay?” After setting down her basket, Twilight took in a deep breath through her nose and nodded. She didn’t want to air her dirty laundry in public…especially with her headache and the phantom pain in her chest that might have been the onset of a pulmonary disease. “No I’m fine, it’s just a little…hiccup,” she assured the teacher while trying to give herself a boost of confidence and hide the inner turmoil that her body was under. However, the tone of her voice came out flat and empty of any emotion. “I’m sure I’ll feel better by morning. Is there something I can help you with?” “I just stopped by to remind you about thing we arranged for you to teach after school on Monday,” Cheerilee replied. Doing her best to be careful with her head, Twilight slowly nodded. “Right, the after school special class on the magic of…friendship,” the unicorn mumbled after a pause while the pain in her chest doubled in intensity. “I’ll…be there.” The earth pony teacher gave Twilight a measuring look, then shrugged. “Alright then,” she said before turning so Twilight could see the pet carrier she had brought with her. “And do you know where Fluttershy is today? I’m afraid the class pet is acting a little oddly and…well, you know they don’t put any funds in the school’s budget for animal care so I was hoping she could tell me if he’s really sick before I take him to the vet. But…I’ve heard from a dozen ponies that say she’s either in the Everfree to slay a hydra or combating something called the Smooze in another dimension so…” “She’s in her cottage, in her basement where she keeps all her sewing and knitting supplies,” Twilight told her while trying to keep her voice neutral. “Just tell her pets you’ve got an animal for her to look at and don’t let the bunny scare you off.” You know now that I think about it…quickly discarded signs of a mob…stampede of ponies…what the buck did Angel do to run everypony off like that? As she got into the library, Twilight found Spike performing his usual cleanup duties and told him there was a tea mix in the basket she left by the door that needed some hot water before going into her bedroom. Safe and alone, Twilight walked up to her bed and just climbed on top of the covers. She let out a long breath and…started to regret crawling back in bed when her mind became unburdened by activity. “I patted you on the back…” “You caused them, didn‘t you?” “I tried to help ponies.” “You were out of control!” “SMARTY PANTS!” “Self-centered, illiterate, pigheaded…” “You were never my friend!” “And Good Riddance RAINBOW TRASH!” Twilight cried into her pillow as the memories continued to run through her mind, over and over again. Fluttershy looked up from her knitting as she heard a knock on the door. It wasn’t her front door, the sound of the impact was far too loud and close. It was the door at the top of the stairs leading out of her basement. Worry flooded into her mind for a moment as she realized somepony from last night’s mob that Harry had come back and had managed they were in her house! Needles were dropped as Fluttershy remembered that terrible night. All those ponies carrying her around, touching her, crowding her…some of them had even been so mean they had yanked off a few of her feathers and screamed in joy like they had just gotten a trophy or something! The memories of just being surrounded by so many other strange ponies, being touched and violated like she had been…it was a million times worse than when she had been at flight camp, or a model! At least back then nopony had…assaulted her! And there was what happened before that, which was even worse! She had been so proud of finally being able to do something worthwhile for Rainbow Dash, to help her overcome that flaw of Rainbow’s that Twilight pointed out; much like Fluttershy’s own problems with dragons, crowded places, out of control situations, talking, an over abundance of clouds, a lack of sufficient cloud cover, and all those other things that made her nervous. Fluttershy didn’t really understand what the big deal was with how Rainbow talked about herself all the time, but if Twilight said it was bad for her…well, who was a nopony like Fluttershy to argue with the personal student of Princess Celestia? But then… “If that’s what you call help, then I don’t ever want your help again!” “I just don’t understand,” Fluttershy mumbled to herself. More knocking made Fluttershy flinch, and she looked up at the door for a few seconds before sighing in defeat. If she was lucky, it wouldn’t be as big a crowd that chased her home last night and if it was…she didn’t want to be trapped in a basement. After ascending the stairs, Fluttershy opened the door and blinked at the friendly face. “Oh…hello Cheerilee,” she said before looking past the pony to see if there were any others. Thankfully, she was alone. “Is there something you…need?” Fluttershy blinked as she caught sight of the pet carrier. “Oh my, is there something wrong with your pet, or do you just need me to groom him?” “I’m not really sure,” Cheerilee admitted. “And it’s the class pet. I was wondering if you could…take a look at him?” The pegasus opened the mobile cage to look inside, then turned her attention back to the earth pony. “Well, I’m not really a vet but I do know a lot about animals, so…I guess I could give it a shot.” A second later, the carrier was on the ground, and Cheerilee was nodding to her in thanks. “Great! Just drop him off at the school at the closing bell and tell me if anything’s wrong or if he’s just having one of those moods so I know whether to take him to the vet or not.” “W-What?” Fluttershy asked in a whisper as her mind informed her of all that entailed. She would have to go outside. Into town. Surrounded by all those ponies again! No, I can’t do that, I can’t do that again! When she looked up to tell the earth pony she would need to come and get her pet at the cottage, Fluttershy saw that Cheerilee was already closing the door behind her. “Course Ah knew right then that if Ah didn’t act, all of Equestria was doomed,” Applejack said to the fillies and colts that had gathered around her stand. “So Ah leapt forward an grabbed onto Twilight’s hoof, and saved her from fallin to her death. Then we went an stopped Nightmare Moon.” As the fillies Ahhed and the colts Oooooooed, Applejack pushed her last basket of apples forward for them to reach and collected the bits from all the little foals before she looked around. “Now, which of ya’ll wanna hear bout how I saved them tourists?” One of the fillies in the back raised her foreleg. “I have a question,” she said with an odd lisp. “Ain’t you that filly that played with my sister till you went and got yer cutie mark then ditched her like a rotten tomater?” Applejack asked. “Yep, that’s her alright,” Applebloom agreed in a bored tone as she sat beside her sister’s stand like she had been for the past hour. “Yes,” Twist replied with her odd lisp. “But Applejack…how did you know that the cart was going over the hill? Or with the balloon, and especially the dam? That’s miles out of town. Did you know all that stuff was gong to happen ahead of time and just jumped in at the last second to save the day rather than prevent the disaster in the first place?” Applejack nodded at the intelligence of the filly’s questions while resisting the urge to frown at the hidden accusation. “Whelp…ya see, we started this Mare Do Well thing as a way to teach Rainbow Dash a lesson cause she was getting so outta hand. Ah couldn’t stand the way she went on and on about herself no more. So, me and Twilight or Twilight an Pinkie would wait up in the Ponyville clock tower where we could see her, and whenever she swooped down, Twilight would teleport one of us down to show her what fer. Then all of ya’ll were lookin to a real hero like me stead of that pegasus.” “Feh! Twilight’s a better hero than you, she saved the whole town from that flood when Rainbow Dash broke the dam!” one of them two unicorn colts that used to follow Trixie around cried out. “You wouldn’t have been able to do anything!” Taking a moment to remind herself she was talking to a youngin, Applejack took a deep breath… …and had to hold it when Cloud Kicker’s little sister started talking. “Feh! Some of the water still made it into town. If it had been Fluttershy, she would have pulled down a huge cloud from the sky and let it soak up all the water before it could even get that far!” “Clouds can’t do that!” “Yes they can! In fact, Fluttershy would have packed them soooooooo tight, she could have made a whole new dam out of clouds!” “Nuh-uh!” “Yeah-huh!” “Nuh-uh!” “Yeah-huh!” “Nuh-uh!” “Yeah-huh!” Applebloom stood up and glared at the two fighting foals. “Oh yeah, well Applejack would have kicked the canyon walls and caused a rockslide and stopped the water that way!” Before her sister could get fully involved in the argument, Applejack kicked her stand to quickly collapse it most of the way back into a cart, then looked over to Bloom. “Gimme a hoof with the wheels and the hitchen, then we can get goin back to the farm.” With their hero’s stock dry for the third time that day, the foals had learned when it was time to pick up and leave, and they took their conversations elsewhere. “Nuh-uh!” “Yeah-huh!” “Nuh-uh!” “Yeah-huh!” “Nuh-uh!” “Yeah-huh!” As the sisters made their way home, Applebloom looked up to Applejack. “So…you and yer friends were doin all that stuff just to teach Rainbow Dash a lesson?” “Yep,” Applejack said before Rainbow’s reaction to their reveal ran through her mind, and the farm pony frowned at the memory. “Don’t you be like her Applebloom. She’s just a conceited blowhard that don’t care about nothin but herself, always goin on about how great she was…well me and the other girls showed her different. And remember, a good pony let’s her actions speak fer themselves, they don’t need to go yammerin on about how great they think are when nopony wants to hear it. Specially when it ain’t true!” “Um-” And a good pony sticks close to her family,” Applejack said as she continued to impart her wisdom to her little sister. “Why, that lousy braggart came to Ponyville when she was eighteen years old, on her birthday! Just up and left her folks when she was finally old enough to start contibutin and payin em back fer all the hard work they put into raisin her!” “Okay but-”  And fer what? Feedin her own ego, that’s what! Only thing that mare ever cared about was getting cheered about by other ponies, and look where that got er,” Applejack finished. “So…a good pony let her actions speak for themselves?” Applebloom asked. Applejack blinked, and then looked back at her sister’s thoughtful face and smiled. It was good she seemed to be really putting to memory her big sister’s words. Then, she looked back up at the older pony. “Hey Applejack, can you come and pick me up from school tomorrow?” The absurdity of the question threw Applejack’s train of thought completely off the tracks and into the water below. “What? Now why would you be needin me to walk ya home?” Ponyville was about as safe as Equestria could get…long as ya stayed away from the Everfree. “Um…you have been seeing what’s been going on around town since the start of this Mare Do Well thing, right?” Applebloom deadpanned. “…good point,” Applejack agreed as she remembered all the occurrences for the past week. All things considered, it was probably best to be prepared. Despite the oddity of her eyes, Derpy was able to see her partner in the moonlight just fine as the other pegasus continued to pack the clouds together…or pound them… “Stupid…bucking…Twilight…Sparkle!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed as the cloud beneath her became the correct shape and she flapped her wings to get off it, then looked around for something else to…well, she probably wanted to punch something. As the pegasus’s head swerved from side to side, Derpy noticed an odd glimmer in her eye. “Are you okay Rainbow Dash?” “I’m fine!” she snapped. The reply made Derpy cock her head in confusion. “You don’t sound fine, and…are you crying?” Rainbow Dash looked away from the other pegasus for a second and brought a foreleg up to wipe her brow or something, then turned around to face Derpy. “No!” “It looked like you were crying,” she told her partner. For a moment, Derpy saw Rainbow Dash’s face contort into an angry frown, and then she looked down at the cumulonimbus beneath them. “It’s these stupid clouds! They’re defective,” she explained. “They rain up when you pack them in.” Derpy looked down at the clouds beneath her in confusion. “Really? I haven’t seen them do that,” she said. Although, Derpy had to admit that her eyesight wasn’t the best. Rainbow Dash’s bright colors stood out in the night with the help of Luna’s moon. Water droplets…not so much. The pair of pegasi were silent as they moved towards the next patch of clouds that needed packing. “Hey Derpy, have you ever…done something that made you feel bad? Even if you needed to do it?” “Well…I do need to punish Dinky every now and then,” Derpy replied. “I didn’t do it enough with Sparkler and… oh pony is she a loudmouth these days. Sometimes, I think I go too far with Dinky because of that though.” Rainbow Dash let out a groan that sounded pretty frustrated. “Yeah well…she deserved it!” They landed on the area of the storm cloud that was sticking up a little more than the rest, and Derpy spoke while Rainbow Dash began to hammer it down. “I dunno, Dinky may have been playing with her doll in the house, but I don’t think she meant to break the vase. Maybe I should give her the toy back.” “Wait, what?” Rainbow asked. “What the hay does Dinky have to do with all that crap Twilight and the rest of them did?” Derpy sat down on the cloud, and winced when she heard the lightning go off from the impact. Thankfully, they had been in an empty field with nopony around instead of inside the city limits like the last three times she had caused an accidental strike…earlier tonight. “Um…what does Twilight have to do with anything?” “MARE DO WELL!” Rainbow exclaimed as she threw up in a fit before leaning over to face Derpy. “They were behind it, all of it! Then they show up with their stupid smug faces thinking they’re all anything but a bunch of backstabbing jerks! then they’re all ‘you’re bragging and bragging is wrong, and having fans is wrong, and being cool is wrong, and we’re so much better than you because weeeeeeeeee lie through our teeth, and cheat, and wear a costume and sign autographs without trying to share the spotlight with Applejack like you did Rainbow Trash’!” As the other mare paused for breath, Derpy raised a hoof to bring up a point. “Okay but, I thought you guys were best friends, can’t you just forgive them?” Rainbow Dash froze in the air for a second and dropped to the ground before wiping more of the accidental upside down water discharge that got released when she packed the cloud. “I could forgive the back stabbing, and the name calling, and the cheating, and how Twilight nearly destroyed the town with her stupid stunt at the dam, and even their stupid smug smiles as they just spit out load after load of hypocrisy,” the pegasus grumbled. “But after what they did, what they really did…no, I can’t forgive them for that. Ever.” “What’d they do?” Derpy asked. For a few seconds, Rainbow Dash just looked at Derpy like the gray mare was either crazy, or insanely stupid, then let out a long sigh before they started talking. “I’m going to join the Wonderbolts one day. Do you know what they do? They do stunts and save ponies when nopony else is around to do it, and they sign autographs, and go on tours where they hold press conferences to talk about how awesome they are and let all these other ponies make money by selling posters, and T-shirts, and costumes. “It’s my dream, my entire life…and they-they pissed on it!” Derpy backed away from the enraged pegasus that was shouting at the sky and let out a nervous laugh, then gulped when Rainbow Dash turned her attention towards the gray mare. A few seconds later, after the moment of anger had passed, Derpy thought a change of topic in order. She decided to bring up something she had wanted to since Rainbow stopped by her house at the start of their shift. “Hey Rainbow, you like Dinky, right?” The residual traces of fury on the pegasus’s face melted away and became confusion. “Your filly? Yeah. Why?” “Oh I can’t pick her up when I’m supposed to tomorrow because of my job,” Derpy explained. Apparently she was staying after school for some kind of special class, and it let out at the same time as her mail route. “Can you go get her for me? She really took a liking to you yesterday.”     Rainbow shrugged. “Sure.”