Ok, here it is: Chapter Two. I’m trying to get these out as quickly as possible, but with school it’s been hard to find a lot of time to write. Again, please post your comments and let me know what I should work on or what you’d like to see. It may give me some ideas. I’ve also been thinking about longer chapters. If you’d like the chapters to be, say, another 500-100 words longer, just comment and let me know and I will post longer updates. Bear in mind that longer chapters will take me longer to write with my current schedule.
--X.F.
Deluge
The heavens were torn asunder, and the rain was pelting down in torrents. Rainbow Dash huddled beneath her wings as she tried to fight the frigid, biting water cascading down from above. It was cold.
So, so cold…
She bit her lip in agony as yet another sheet of icy water crashed down upon her from the angry sky. She sneezed for the hundredth time, sending her into a fit of coughing which racked every fiber of her being.
I… am truly dying….
She was shivering uncontrollably now, unable to think of anything but this accursed downpour draining the blood from her limbs and freezing her very marrow.
“Hey, RD, what’s up?” a pegasus said, shifting aside the rain cloud and flying over to her.
“Oh… hehe. Didn’t think of that.”
Rainbow Dash fumbled her mental football, and then regained her composure speedily. “And that’s General Dash to you, Private Cloudburst,” she added, half severely and half as an afterthought. “Can’t you see I’m busy doing important (cough)? So why are you bothering me? Go play with sharp objects or something.”
“Yes sir… uh, General.” The private flew off, leaving Rainbow to her thoughts.
Had it been over a week since the gryphons started wreaking havoc in Ponyville? She was loath to believe it… Loath to believe… yeah, it has been a week. I’m starting to sound like Twilight. A sure sign of insanity. The war had changed everypony in Ponyville. Hay, it had even changed Ponyville.
The town had never been the same since Spike coughed up a copy of the declaration of hostility from the Kingdom. The conflict was now foremost on everypony’s mind. There were no more parties. No more races against Applejack or against other Pegasi. The town seemed dead. Everypony not on active duty stayed indoors as much as they could. Most of the shops were closed, the windows of houses and businesses alike boarded up in case of shelling.
The blue pegasus sighed. Commanders sigh a lot- it makes them more realistic and central characters to the plot. So Rainbow sighed again.
It didn’t help.
This whole tactics and strategy game was really not her idea of Getting Anything Done. Twilight could have all the knowledge and genius… Just give me a good clean air battle- now THAT’S more my speed. More her speed… she decided to discard the phrase in lieu of keeping it for future puns.
Rainbow had begged for permission to bomb out the opposing troops, but Twilight, who was her superior officer, had banned the pegasi from attempting air raids until Intelligence had found out the strength and extent of the gryphon’s Archie. Which could take forever… Deep down inside, Rainbow Dash had a growing suspicion that all the Agency ever did was drink coffee and eat muffins. Under their collective breath, nearly every fighting pony in Equestria, and certainly everypony in Ponyville, referred to Intel Ops as “Unintelligence”. It seemed to be totally lacking any sense of urgency, so much so that there were times when Rainbow Dash wondered if the EIA even knew there was a war on.
Cummon, shake the mood, shake the mood, she thought, trying to focus. The middle of a war is not the time or place for foaly fits. The winged General had long since learned that complaining is useless when there is nothing you can do to fix the problem. You just have to make the best of a bad job.
Even so, it’s hard to concentrate when you’re a from-the-cradle-adrenaline-fueled-athletic-generously-supplied-in-the-strength-and-speed-department-not-so-generously-supplied-in-the-gray-matter-department pegasus who hadn’t given a haystack for serious thought until just recently. Not to mention a tired one at that. She knew now that organizing ponies is very hard work. Singlehoofedly pulling together every pegasus available and trying keeping some semblance of harmony among them twenty-four-seven was just inviting Hades to your front door. Fly here, don’t fly there, fix it, build it, move it, MOVE IT, that’s restricted, No, there will not be a muffin break, get back to your route…. Taking into consideration that pegasi tend to move at roughly three or four times normal speed, it was a wonder she hadn’t dropped already. This is insane…I need a break.
She paused, stunned.
“I need a break.”
“I. Need. A. Break.”
“IIIIII NEEEEEEED A BREEEEEAAAAAK!!!”
Three hundred pegasi dropped whatever they were holding and turned to stare at her.
“Oh hoof. That was out loud, wasn’t it.”
***
Rainbow Dash trotted up the road to Pinkie Pie’s new quarters. The walk had done her good- she felt better already. She followed the instructions she had been given by Pinkie, and soon she was rounding the corner to…
Nowhere.
There was a path going up to where the house should have been, but… no house. She stood there gaping for a while, and then decided to walk around the property a little, try to figure out what was going on. Most likely, she’d been given the wrong address, but best check it out anyway.
She ran along the walk up to the yard and bashed her face on thin air.
OUCH.
Oh Celestia-
Oh that hurts.
“KRRKVAMNTXZQQVYblastitMMMMMPFFF!!!”
Suddenly, a wall appeared out of nowhere, materializing right before her startled eyes. More walls and decorations joined the first until she was standing by the front door of a very secure, very high-tech, very pink mini mansion. Rainbow heard a smothered giggle from inside, and a voice called out:
“Oops, sorry about that! Be right there!”
In a few seconds the door swung open and Pinkie Pie stepped out.
“New camouflage. Twilight did that for me. Extra precautions. I just love the way my house looks when it’s invisible, don’t you?” she said, her voice at its usual rapid-fire setting.
“Yeah. Love it.” Rainbow Dash muttered, rubbing her nose meaningfully. A random thought occurred to her. “If the house is invisible most of the time, how do you see where you’re going? Or do you just use your Pinkie sense to echolocate your way around?” She felt proud of herself. She had finally found a way to incorporate the word “echolocate” into a conversation.
“Oh, it’s not invisible from the inside,” Pinkie Pie reassured her. “ It only looks invisible from the outside. Come on in. You look about ready to drop- and you’re not even MADE of gum.” Confronted by her friend’s blank stare, she decided the pun was not as good as she originally thought. She wisely shelved the topic, choosing instead to simply turn around and walk inside, motioning Rainbow to follow her. “Auntie Pinkie knows just the thing to cheer you up,” she said happily, commencing her odd hopskip as she went.
“I’m two years older than her.” the pegasus muttered under her breath, shaking her head in total confusion, a common side effect Pinkie seemed to have on ponies. She followed her friend inside.