Rainbow Dash was walking aimlessly through Ponyville. She was dragging her hooves, her head and ears hung low and her eyes were red, because of her crying earlier. The streets were only almost abandoned, so here and there a pony could see her state of misery, but she didn't care.
She dropped on the ground, her eyes looking towards the sky. The wide and limitless sky. Her beloved sky. Some extra-fluffy looking clouds crowded it, as if they wanted to tease her. It would be her task as a member of the weather patrol to remove them from the sky, as it would be her pleasure to take one as a pillow after the work was done. A memory of the softness of clouds came to her mind.
Again she felt the loss. She would never feel them again. She would never be able to buck them away again. She would never fly again. She was now chained to the ground, robbed of what defined her: the wings. She was just a pathetic shadow of her former self. She'd like to hide at home, but as so many things of her former live this was impossible.
She was now, like almost everypony else, who lived in a cloud house, homeless. She would have to ask Applejack if she could sleep in the barn, until she found a new home. But until now, she lacked the drive to even do that.
She heard some rustling from a hedge, but she felt to miserable to care.
“Hello, Rai...” a filly began, but she startled Rainbow Dash so much that she jumped straight upwards. She reached a height of maybe 10 meters. Luckily, Rainbow Dash’s reflexes made sure she landed like a cat on all fours.
“That was totally planned,” she stated, since she surely couldn't be scared by a filly that tried to sneak up on her. She turned to said filly, that was now miraculously standing next to her. She looked strange, but somehow familiar. Her appearance resembled roughly an earth pony mixed with some dragon features. Her fur was orange, her mane was a dark pink and she had purple eyes. But she also had a line of pink scales going from right under her mane to the tip of her muzzle and from there down to the belly. Her ears looked more like Spike's. At least like his, when he still had been a dragon.
That reminded her, that everypony has changed somehow and it became clear to her, who was standing in front of her. “Hey, Scoot. How are you?” Rainbow Dash asked, with a faked smile on her face, trying her best to suppress her self doubts in front of one of her most loyal fans.
“I'm fine, but you seemed so d...” Scootaloo said, but Rainbow Dash stopped her from finishing her sentence, by holding her hoof in front of Scootaloos mouth.
“I feel great,” Rainbow Dash said in a hoarse voice.
“You cried before I talked to you...”
“No, I had something in my eyes,” Rainbow said, while unconsciously bringing a hoof to her eye to get rid of a tear.
“You lied on the ground flailing with your hooves.”
“That was part of my training.”
“And you mumbled 'my wings' again and again.”
“OKAY! OKAY! I AM A LITTLE DOWN! NOW LEAVE ME ALONE!”
Scootaloo curled into a little ball of fur and scales strongly shaking. “I'm sorry, I didn't want to make you angry,” she whimpered.
Rainbow Dash was shocked by what she had done. She took a deep breath. She was never good at diplomatic bubbling, but she couldn't let that poor little one in that state. “I have to be sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at you. You were...” she made her pause, because she had to wrestle down her pride, “You were right. I feel miserable, horrible even.” Again she had to struggle with her pride, she looked away, “It was wrong to take it out on you. Can you forgive me?”
She felt something hard and warm touching her breast, only to be followed by two short hooves surrounding her neck. “Sure.” She turned her head forward, and yes, Scootaloo was hugging her.
This was way too sappy for Rainbow Dash, but she didn't want to scare Scootaloo away again. For no other reason she let her go on with this. She even hugged back, to make the poor filly feel more comfortable.
She didn't know how long this hug went on, but surely several minutes. “Rainbow?” Scootaloo asked. Rainbow Dash looked down and their muzzles booped into each other. “Do you feel better?”
“Yes,” she replied with a warm smile.
“That's great. Now you can be awesome again,” Scootaloo cheered.
The smile fell again, “I'm not awesome anymore. I'm not the fastest flier of Equestria anymore. I can't fly anymore and likely never will.”
“That's not true!” Scootaloo exclaimed, “Okay, the second part maybe, but you are still awesome. I'm totally sure that you are now the fastest runner in Equestria, maybe you can even include some tricks into your running!”
“That's not the same...”
“No it isn't, but is it truly worse? I'm totally sure, that you're still faster than any pegasus could fly and you even leave rainbow colored hoof prints!”
“I do what?”
“Yeah, when you ran to Canterlot, we found some of your hoof prints and they shone in all rainbow colors.”
It was uncommon for a pony to leave much of hoof prints on paved roads, but to leave shining ones sounded very odd to her. But it was probably cool in a way.
“Can you show them to me?”
“Uhm... no, they disappeared after several...” Scootaloo started a bit nervous and paused, before her eyes widened and her head erected a bit more. “Wait, yes I can.” She pointed at a building next to them. “Could you run around that house?”
Rainbow facehoofed, why didn't she thought of this herself. She ran. The world around just shot past her, its direction changing abruptly with the 90°-turns she did. It was quite fun, but it was over far too soon. Moments after the start she already had to stop. Her front hooves touched the ground in unison and she stopped immediately.
Still she was a bit beyond her starting point at the first corner of the house. She heard Scootaloo saying “Weee!” with glee. Rainbow Dash ignored the already dissolving trail in air and turned around. Scootaloo was spinning, likely because of her rushing next to her. Then as the spinning died down, she bounced towards Dash. “Again! Again!” she said happily.
If Rainbow Dash would like cute stuff, she would find this totally adorable and a wide smile would have formed on her face.
Her attention fell to something shining on the ground, at the second corner of the house she had circled. She walked to it, finding two hoof prints close to each other. They were red orange at first, but changed to yellow and switched then through all colors of the rainbow to restart from red in a matter of seconds.
How was this possible? She never heard, that an earth pony left such a trail. She turned around. Scootaloo was still jumping, but Rainbow Dash focus was elsewhere. Behind her were four foot prints. Two at the position where she started and two at the position where she stopped.
She walked around the house. She found another pair of such hoof prints, before she reached the side were her run started.
She was quite sure, that those hoof prints had to be somehow magical. That was wired, since she wasn't a unicorn. So she was quite curious about the how.
This curiosity died with her smile from earlier, when she thought about how finding out something about it. Her first idea was to ask Twilight. A cold shiver run through her spine, while she imagined her egg head friend drown her in magic gobbledygook for minutes or maybe even an hour. She preferred ignorance over such a horrible fate and chose to change the direction of the conversation.
“How do you feel about the Change?” she asked, bracing herself for the sorrow of a young child and do her best to cheer her up.
“Me? I like it so far. I'm bigger and stronger now and I can put a hoof on a hotplate without burning it.”
“Why are you so sure, that you can do that?”
“I tried it?”
“Why would you?”
“I thought, that I look a bit like a dragon. So I should be able to do some stuff that dragons do. At first I wanted to breath fire, what I didn't found out how. Then I wanted to eat gems, but couldn't find any. Then I wanted to bathe in lava. Since I don't know any place with lava, I tried the next best thing,” Scootaloo explained with increasing excitement.
Rainbow Dash blinked. Rapidly. Her mouth was agape, while her mind tried and failed horribly at following the logic of that statement.
“What were you thinking? You could have got hurt.”
“No, I couldn't,” Scootaloo said a bit defensively. With more resolution she added, “As I said, it was totally a piece of cake.”
“But you didn't know that back then.”
“I was sure, what else would be the point in transforming into a dragon-like pony?”
“There was no point in the transformation, but misery!” Rainbow Dash's stomped her fore hooves on the ground, her voice became louder with every word. “It was done by two evil monsters!”
“But,... but I like it,” Scootaloo replied tears filling her eyes.
The anger evaporated, only leaving disgust behind. Disgust of herself. “I'm sorry,” she looked away, “Please leave, I'm a horrible pony to be around.”
“No, you just had a bad day. I'm sure you will feel better soon.”
“If you say so.” She forced her lips to curled upwards, while her eyes didn't move. “Bye,” she said and was gone. She was running at top speed away. Running away from a filly, because she couldn't handle the consequences of her own actions. She blushed in shame.
It took her some time to make herself to slow down. She was now in the park of Ponyville with the statues of the two culprits right in her view, but still a bit away. The cause of this calamity.
Anger gripped her again, she stomped towards the statues. She would give them a piece of her mind. She came to a sudden stop in front of them, when she realized that the ground around the metallic statue was littered with three new corpses of birds. Her determination faltered a bit, but still too much adrenaline rushed through her that she would stop. Only one monster was protected by the evil weapon.
When her hind hooves connected she heard a bloodcurdling howl. No, there was no sound: she felt the howl. She felt the agony she had caused. She turned around to see, that she had shattered the wolf statue. The pieces were lying scattered on the ground up to a distance of 25 meters. The head of the wolf was now looking in her direction. One ear has broken of the head and she could see cracks on its muzzle. She didn't pay it any attention before, but now that she was looking at it she just saw desperation in its face.
She had killed a helpless creature in anger.
The world around her blurred away. She was a horrible pony. She felt wetness on the fur below her eyes. What would her friends think of her? The world darkened around her.
She tried to tell herself, that it was had been an evil mindless beast, but this couldn't sooth her mind.
She shook her head in hope to clear her mind. After this she saw, that she was surrounded by trees. She was running through a dense forest. She slowed down again and recognized, that she was in the Everfree Forest.
She slumped down. She was scared of the forest, but a thought drained her of any energy to run away, as she has done the whole day. A fitting place for a monster like me.
---.---
Scootaloo walked towards Fluttershy’s cottage, her meeting point with her fellow Cutie Mark Crusaders. They had planned for today to get some animal related cutie marks, although they didn't decided yet which ones they wanted to try. She was still sad, because the talk with Rainbow Dash and her panicked escape. She was truly worried for her idol.
“Hi,” Apple Bloom said coming from the direction, where Rainbow Dash had ran, “You won't believe what I’ve seen.” The Change had given Apple Bloom two curved horns, one on her muzzle and one on her forehead and shortened the tail to a length of maybe 10 cm.
“What happened?”
“Rainbow Dash was so angered at the mean wolf statue, that she bucked it so hard it exploded into pieces!”
“Where is she now?”
“I don't know, she seemed quite panicked after she did it and run away.”
“I hope she is fine,” Scootaloo mumbled, Apple Bloom just raised an eyebrow and wanted to say something, but when she saw Scootaloo's long face she stopped. Instead she tried to change the subject. “Granny is again helping with apple bucking. Although she is doing it with her fire breath.”
“She does what?” Scootaloo stopped and stared at her friend.
“She is a dragon now, but her breath just seem to burn apples, which appear in the bucket next to the tree they came from. Isn't that cool?”
“It's very cool,” although the enthusiasm lacked in her voice.
“Hi.” Sweetie Bell flew towards them with her huge butterfly wings from their meeting point. Her two antennas on her head bounced slightly when she landed in front of them. “Do you know why Rainbow Dash ran into the Everfree Forest?”
“No,” a shocked Scootaloo said. Gaining some resolve she added, “but we have to rescue her.”
“Rescue her?” Apple Bloom exclaimed, “Why should she need our help? She is the fastest pony ‘round and she bucks harder than Applejack!”
Scootaloo looked around if someone was watching them, when she saw nopony around she whispered. “The Change hurt her a lot and she is at the moment not herself. One moment she is shouting and the next she is crying,” raising her voice a bit again she stated with determination “She needs help, I can feel it.”
“But we are not allowed to go into the Everfree.” Sweetie Bell gulped. “There are far to many monsters.”
“A heroine don't know fear if somepony is in danger. Also, nopony but Rainbow Dash will know and she will surely don't tell anypony after we saved her live. We could also get our Cutie Marks rescuing her!” replied Scootaloo. With the most powerful argument for them on her side, every resistance against the idea died almost immediately.
They nodded to each other and with a cheerful “Cutie Mark Crusaders Rescuers, yay!” they run into the dark forest.
---.---
Rainbow heard a scream, no three screams of three fillies she knows well. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were in danger.
She was up in an instant and running in the direction the sound came from.
Her exhaustion, her fears and her self-loathing were gone from her mind as the world blurred around her.
She was needed.
She had reached them in no time. Scootaloo was lying, likely after stumbling, while her friends were running for their dear lives. A pack of five timber wolfs was behind them.
One of them jumped towards Scootaloo. Its mouth was wide open about to rip her into pieces.
The wolf bit the air. It came to a hold, looking around for its pray, that should now be between its wooden teeth.
Rainbow Dash had gripped Scootaloo in her mouth and made an abrupt turn to the left. Coming to a short stop to place Scootaloo, who was shaking with eyes closed, on her back. “You're safe now.”
“Rainbow Dash!”
“Hold on, I'll get the others.”
She was running again this time gripping Apple Bloom and also placing her on her back.
Seconds later Sweetie Bell, with her colorful, but luckily translucent insect wings, was dangling in Rainbow Dash mouth. She struggled, but the time was way to short, that she could really try to free herself.
Moments later Rainbow Dash stopped on a road in Ponyville and placed her on the ground.
“You saved us. Thank you!” Apple Bloom cheered and Rainbow Dash puffed her chest.
Sweetie Bell turned around, jumped towards Rainbow Dash and hugged her, while her wings buzzed to keep her flying. “Thank you. I was so scared,” she said with a slightly hoarse voice. She was shivering and Rainbow Dash felt something wet on her neck right next to Sweetie Bell's head.
“Everything is fine now. I’ll bring you home.”
She brought first Sweetie Belle, than Apple Bloom and as last Scootaloo home, while the fillies praised her the whole way. She felt proud and much better.
Before Scootaloo closed the door behind her she said with a great smile, “I told you, that you're still awesome.”
Maybe she was. She wasn't sure yet, but at least it didn't seem impossible anymore.