//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 // Story: Tell the Tooth // by The Lord Thunder //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash allowed her nerves to relax a bit. Zecora's painkiller really hit the spot after that apple pie. She held the flask between her teeth, trying to think of some excuse she could give Applejack for her hasty departure. The sight of the Wonderbolts streaking through the sky made Rainbow Dash gape in awe for only a second as she crossed the road in front of Sugarcube Corner. That was all the time needed for the flask to slide out from between her teeth and fall victim to gravity. Dash heard the sound of glass shattering at her hooves and froze. Somepony please tell me that wasn't what I think it is... An ever-growing puddle escaped from the pile of broken glass, creating several oddly-shaped fingers that oozed down the sidewalk. Yup, it's what I thought it was. “Gee, that's too bad, Rainbow Dash,” came a voice from above. A blond, wall-eyed pony was hovering just over her head, observing the accident. “You should learn to be more careful, like me!” She flew backwards, ramming flank-first into a tree and cracking it completely loose from its trunk, threatening to squash a stallion pulling a wooden cart full of bowling balls. He sped up and the falling lumber missed him, but smashed his cart into splinters, scattering bowling balls everywhere. As the cart driver toppled over from the momentum, a ball knocked a pony's door off its hinges followed by a mare's scream, one crushed a cherry vendor's cart and sent the fruit sailing through the air, one swept a mare's hooves out from under her, and down the road, another rolled under the hitch of a stallion's cart, forcing it into a wide arc that swept away more food stands. Derpy watched the chain of destruction for a few moments before letting out an embarrassed “oops! My bad!” An angry, intangible chorus ensued as each of the ponies affected by the carnage gathered in an enraged mob, hooves pointing to one another in blame. One mare's eyes burned with fury, for she had crushed cherries all over her face. Derpy, sensing their justified rage, used this distraction to sneak away inconspicuously. Rainbow Dash dropped to her haunches, still staring at the mess of broken glass and spilled medicine. Now what was she supposed to do? The only thing that had been keeping her sane the last few days was that painkiller. Now it was shattered, possibly to reflect her hopes of ever getting rid of that toothache. No, there was still one option left. She'd have to find a way to remove the tooth herself, and soon. For a few seconds, she rubbed her chin with hoof in thought. Then her eyes lit up as an idea came to mind. Rainbow stood up and headed to Tool Chest, the hardware store. Staple Hardware, the store's owner, looked up at his customer when the bells above the door chimed. He was an old stallion with graying hair in the familiar shape of colt-pattern baldness. He grumbled something Rainbow couldn't understand as she pressed on past the hammers and tacks and into the rope and wire aisle. The problem was finding wire thin enough to fit between her teeth. She tugged on one spool of wire. It wouldn't do, it was way too thick. I want to pull out a tooth, not my entire jaw! Rainbow Dash moved on to the spool beside it and instantly shivered, since this spool was wrapped with barbed wire. A sign on the wheel of the spool said, “caution! Please ask for assistance!” Ya think? Rainbow said to herself. She walked towards the next spool and smiled. It was wrapped with thin threads of metal wire, but were they thin enough? Only one way to find out. The spool creaked as Rainbow Dash tugged on the leading thread and pressed the wire between her teeth. “Hey, young lady!” a gravelly voice yelled from across the store. Wire still in her mouth, Rainbow Dash turned around to see that Staple Hardware was glaring at her from behind the pay counter. “What?” “I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to pay for that, seeing as you put it in your mouth.” Staple's voice was hard as rock. “Oh, thure.” Rainbow pulled the wire from her teeth so she could speak normal. “Give me about ten yards of this stuff.” Grumbling again, Staple stood up and walked over to Rainbow Dash with a pair of wire cutters. He nearly knocked her aside as he grabbed the spool and yanked off a good distance, then snipped the metal. “You didn't even measure it,” Rainbow Dash said as the old stallion thrust the length of wire into her waiting hooves. “Look, kid, I've been doin' this all my life. Don't tell me how to do my job. If you don't like it, go someplace else.” Rainbow hesitated, unsure what to make of Staple's grumpy outburst. “No, this should be fine.” She took the metal thread in her teeth and followed Staple up to the counter. He punched some numbers in on his cash register. “Three bits a yard, that'll be thirty bits.” Rainbow Dash tossed thirty coins onto the counter, which Staples scooped up and deposited into his drawer. Wire in tow, she headed for the door as Staples grumbled out loud. “Young ponies these days, I tell ya.” An irritated sigh burst from Rainbow Dash's nostrils. Staple really HAD earned his reputation as a crotchety old grouch. Sheesh. I'd hate to have HIM as my dentist. If I didn't need this wire so bad I would have told him off big-time. Now she needed a place where she wouldn't be seen. Rainbow took to the sky and flew into a meadow dotted with trees that afforded her some privacy. She tied one end of the wire to the trunk of a elm tree, and the other end to her tooth. With a deep breath to brace herself, she shot forward as fast as her wings could carry her. The twine tensed for a split second before it snapped in two with no resistance whatsoever. “Oh, come on!” Rainbow Dash slowed down and lifted the end of the wire still tied to her tooth, eying it with disgust. “Ugh. What did I expect for three bits a yard? I'm gonna need something stronger.” The only question was, what would be both thin enough to fit between her teeth AND strong enough to endure her weight? She pounded her hooves together at the formation of an idea. “I got it! Rarity! She works with all kinds of thread. I'll bet she has something I could use.” After pulling the wire from her teeth, Rainbow turned around midair and headed for Carousel Boutique. Upon reaching the fancy house, Rainbow dropped onto the yard and invited herself in. Rarity looked up from stocking newly made dresses onto her display racks and smiled at the new arrival. “Good afternoon, Rainbow Dash. How can I help you?” She approached Rainbow, abandoning her work for the moment. “Hey, Rarity. I need about ten yards of the strongest thread you've got.” “Strongest, you say?” Rarity rubbed her chin. “Well, I do enchant a lot of my thread to be resistant to all forms of wear and tear. A dragon's bite couldn't rip it!” Something didn't quite make sense, Rainbow realized. “Wait, if it doesn't tear no matter what, then how do you cut it so you can make stuff with it?” “I use specially enchanted scissors. It's the only thing that'll snip this thread.” Ah, silly magic. I should have known. “Do you have any?” “Of course, darling. I keep plenty of it in stock. May I ask what you need it for?” Rainbow's eyes darted. “I need to... pull something. Something really heavy. I tried that cheapo wire from the hardware store, but it just snapped in half on me.” “Yes, I would never rely on hardware store wire,” Rarity replied. She paused, seeming to want to ask more, then she gasped. “Oh dear, I forgot all about my appointment at the spa! I'm nearly late. The thread you want is in my sewing cabinet, second drawer to the right. You'll need to use the specialized scissors in that drawer to cut it.” In a blur she ran outside, leaving Rainbow Dash to collect her thread. Second drawer to the right. Rainbow Dash recalled those instructions and pulled the cabinet open. There were countless spools of thread inside, with more colors than were in Rainbow's mane! Color didn't matter for this job, though, so Rainbow selected a random spool, drew several yards from it and cut the thread with the special scissors. Okay, let's try this again Rainbow thought when she returned to her tree. She tied her new thread around the bark and to her tooth. Confident that this new ploy would see an end to her suffering, Rainbow Dash beat her wings and took off as fast as she could. She braced herself for the pain only to be snapped back to reality when the thread tensed and held tight. Rainbow jolted and felt herself being twisted around in midair, and the thread cutting into her gum. She smacked the ground back first with a grunt. However, that tooth was still firmly rooted in her jaw. “Oh for the love of Celestia!” Rainbow Dash shouted. Now her molar AND her gum was aching. She shook off the pain and stood up. “Stupid tooth! You think I'm giving up that easy?” For good distance, Rainbow Dash galloped farther behind the tree and launched herself forward. The thread held taut and Rainbow snapped backward. Growling, she beat her wings with all her might and desperation, but snapped back again. Her tooth hadn't budged in the slightest. Beaten, Rainbow Dash sat on her haunches and hung her head in pain and despair. “What's it gonna take?!” “Silly Dashie!” a familiar voice called, “that's a funny way to try and take down a tree!” Rainbow Dash rubbed her cheek and turned her head to face the unseen spectator. “Pinkie? What are you doing here?” “Oh, I just came by to see if you wanted to try some of my new quadruple-chocolicious ice cream!” Rainbow stood up and drew back from Pinkie, who was carrying a carton of ice cream. Rainbow did an equation in her head: bad tooth + cold = pain. First the apple pie and now THIS? Were her friends TRYING to get her to reveal her embarrassing secret through torture? “Uh, not now. I've got to--to get rid of this tree! See, it's not in the right place and it's making shade where it shouldn't.” “Well then you should DEFINITELY have some of my quadruple-chocolicious ice cream! It'll give you lots of sugary chocolatey energy so you can pull that tree out super-duper easy!” Pinkie Pie held dug a spoon deep into the carton and pulled out a whopping heap of the delectable dessert. Any other time, Rainbow Dash would've gladly dove in, but now her eyes reflected the utter terror at the idea of sampling the sugary, icy sweet. “Oh no, can't do that now. No sweets on the job. Thanks for offering, though. Uh, you'd better run along. The sun'll melt that ice cream pretty fast.” “Are you suuuuure? It's chocolate ice cream drizzled with chocolate syrup, topped with chocolate cake and chocolate chunks throw in for four layers of super chocolatey goodness!” “Sorry, gotta dash!” Rainbow Dash zoomed up into the sky. The wire held firm as it sliced through the tree, cutting it in half. Rainbow Dash's world twisted and turned as she vaulted through the air, the wire still in her teeth. She landed on a slight hill some distance away. For the moment, she sighed. At least she was safe from Pinkie Pie. There's no way she would find Rainbow way out-- “Ok, you cut the tree down! Now will you try some?” Somehow, someway, the pink pony popped out from behind a nearby boulder, still holding the box of ice cream. By this time, Dash knew that trying to hide from an insistent Pinkie was futile. She indicated her cheek with a hoof. “Look, it's my tooth okay? It hurts so I can't eat cold stuff like ice cream.” The words fell on deaf ears, as Pinkie Pie unceremoniously shoved a spoonful of the icy treat into Rainbow's open mouth. More specifically, right on top of her infected tooth. Rainbow threw her head backwards and screamed at the sky. “AAARGH! The PAIN!!!!” She writhed around as she struggled to swallow the ice cream, trembling, waiting for the shockwave of agony to subside "Are you happy now?!" Rainbow spat, rubbing her mouth. “I don't understand.” Pinkie Pie tilted her head confusedly. “Was the ice cream too cold? Was it past its due date?” “I told you have a bad tooth! Don't you know that bad teeth and cold don't mix?” Dash reared up on her hind hooves and spread her forelegs wide in irritation. “If you're TRYING to torture me, then mission accomplished!” With an angry growl, Rainbow Dash shot into the sky, leaving a blur of colors behind her. “Oh, I didn't think the ice cream was that cold. Maybe it's too much fudge in the recipe. Hang on, I'll be back later!” Seemingly thinking nothing of the pain she'd inflicted, Pinkie bounced away humming a merry tune.