Rainbow Dash stared. Rainbow Dash gaped. If her mouth could have opened more, it might have been possible to fit her entire Wonderbolts flight jacket into it.
Starlight Glimmer at the plain wood table, calmly watching Rainbow Dash. “Sit down, Rainbow,” was all she said.
The door behind Rainbow Dash swung shut with a click, making the pegasus jump. She half-turned, and saw the door was closed. But locked?
“Rainbow.” Starlight’s voice made Rainbow turn. The unicorn gestured to the other chair. “Sit. You’ve come all this way, so you might as well find out what this all about, right?”
Rainbow Dash stared at Starlight, and then took the chair. She checked to make sure it wasn’t booby-trapped or anything first. With exploding firecrackers or fart pillows or…she wasn’t sure why she was checking the chair when she was in a dark room in a mysterious building, but she checked anyways.
“That’s better,” Starlight said when Rainbow finally sat. “Now, let’s talk. I assume you’ve come all this way with questions. Maybe I can shed light on a few answers.”
Starlight sat back in her chair and placed her hooves together. Rainbow Dash stared at her for five whole seconds before she finally burst out with, “what the hay is going on here!?”
Starlight raised one eyebrow. “Good, speech. For a moment there I thought the famous Rainbow Dash had run out of things to say.”
“Oh, you want me to say something?” Rainbow Dash’s confusion and fear were suddenly ignited into anger. “What the heck are you doing here, Starlight? Is this come kind of trick? Or are you going evil again? How the heck did you know I would be here, and why is there an abandoned building in the middle of Equestria? This place is supposed to deal with trash, but there’s just a long, dark corridor and a weird unicorn in here! What’s going on?”
Starlight calmly wiped a bit of Dash’s spit off her face. “Sit back down, Rainbow Dash.”
Rainbow Dash held her ground. “If you think I’m going to—”
“Sit.” Starlight’s eyes flashed.
Rainbow Dash sat.
“Better.” Starlight nodded in satisfaction. “I understand you’re confused, so I’ll try and be as straightforward and honest as possible. Too bad it’s not my strong suit, but we’ll do the best we can. Now, you came here for a purpose. What was it?”
Rainbow Dash blinked. “I uh, I came here because I was wondering who put the trashcan in my way,” she said, feeling foolish. “It was um—”
“Right when you were about to show off to the other Wonderbolts?” Starlight finished the sentence. “Yes. And when you ran into it, you not only embarrassed yourself in front of all the Wonderbolts, but they started calling you Rainbow Crash, didn’t they?”
Rainbow Dash stared, mouth open. “H-how do you know that? You weren’t there, were you? And—and I know you weren’t even there when I told the others about going to fly with the Wonderbolts, so how—?”
“Oh, but I was there.” Starlight smiled briefly. “I was there right when you crashed into the trashcan. I was there when the others laughed at you and gave you that nickname. And to answer another question I know you must have, yes. I was also there when you crashed into the trash can…for the first time.”
Rainbow Dash stared. Rainbow Dash gaped. And Rainbow Dash would have leapt at Starlight Glimmer if the unicorn weren’t holding her in place with magic.
“Sorry about that,” Starlight said as Rainbow Dash’s eyes rolled in her magical prison. “I know you’re upset, but I wanted to explain things before you went off the hook. Give me a chance to talk, and then you can start screaming, alright?”
Rainbow Dash’s eyes rolled angrily. Starlight smiled. “Good. Glad we’re on the same page.”
She got up from her chair and began walking around Rainbow Dash as the pegasus sat, helpless. A notepad appeared with a slight pop of displaced air and Starlight read from it.
“Flight camp. Rainbow Dash’s first interaction with other ponies in a large group. Her first chance to learn how to fly properly, too. But right as she makes her big introduction, she hits an unusually strong gust of wind. That propels her up until she hits a solidified cloud, bounces off a few more clouds, and lands in a trashcan full of disgusting – not to mention smelly – trash. I’m sure you remember.”
Starlight stopped pacing and eyed Rainbow Dash. “Then, far more recently, Wonderbolts training camp. A similar setup, but this time Rainbow Dash dodges two Wonderbolts coming in to land. She trips, hits another trashcan and ends up ridiculed. Again. In both cases, she earns the nickname ‘Rainbow Crash’, which damages her ego and makes it harder for her to shine in front of her fellow ponies. All according to plan.”
Rainbow Dash twitched. That was all she could do, held in place by the magic. Starlight nodded once.
“Exactly. It was my doing, or should I say, ours. I wasn’t alone back there, although I coordinated the effort. In fact, it took no less than six ponies to set up the initial event. Two ponies to change the air currents at the right time, a pony to maneuver the clouds into place, another two ponies to place the trashcan in the right position, and me, providing the time travelling capability to make it all happen. The second time was easier – we just need to put the trashcan in place and let you do the rest. But we made it happen. My organization.”
Starlight gestured with her horn and Rainbow Dash felt the magic surrounding her ease, but not completely dissipate. She could move her head and mouth, but no other parts of her body.
“Your thoughts?” Starlight inquired.
It took Rainbow Dash a moment to make her mouth work. When it did, she spat at Starlight Glimmer.
“You—you jerks!” Rainbow Dash shook with rage. “Do you know how much teasing I had to go through back at flight camp? Do you know how much that nickname scarred me, how no pony would ever let me live it down? I had nightmares about crashing every week until I was sixteen! How dare you? How could you? Do you have any idea how much pain you’ve caused me?”
“Yes, actually.” Future Starlight looked down at her notepad. “We calculated the shock of running into a trash can at around 14 Freudums, with a possible plus/minus of 2 points depending on how hard the others laughed. That fell well within our acceptable range of your calculated mental limit.”
“What? What are you talking about?” Rainbow Dash struggled to move. “You planned for me to be laughed at? Why? Is this some kind of evil plan of yours?”
“Evil plan? Oh, please.” Starlight shook her head and laughed softly. “You have no idea. Honestly Rainbow Dash, why would that be my evil plan? If I wanted to be evil, I’d have gone back in time and blasted Celestia when she was just a filly rather than mess with you.”
Rainbow Dash blinked. “Then why—”
“Why do something so mean? Well, why do you think?” Starlight teleported the notepad away and took her seat facing Rainbow Dash again. The pegasus found she was suddenly able to move once more. “You tell me.”
For a millisecond Rainbow Dash considered knocking her chair over and punching Starlight Glimmer in the face, but she refrained from doing so. Not least because Starlight’s raised eyebrow made Rainbow Dash pretty sure what would happen if she tried, and also because this conversation wasn’t going any direction Rainbow Dash had anticipated.
“I—this is so strange.”
“Take your time,” Starlight said calmly. “I know it’s disorienting. It always is, the first time. Focus.”
“So…so you’re saying you and other ponies put a trashcan in my way as a filly and when I joined the Wonderbolts to humiliate me. To mess with me?”
“Correct. And incorrect,” Starlight said. “We certainly wanted to humiliate you, but not out of any hatred for you. It was simply necessary.”
“Why?”
“Well, what would have happened if we hadn’t?” Starlight inquired mildly. “Think about it.”
“Think about what?” Rainbow Dash snapped, getting angry again. “If you hadn’t messed up my life, I would have been the coolest pony in flight camp ever! And I’d have been the best rookie Wonderbolt! They’ve have loved me! I would never have gotten in so many fights as a filly, and—”
Rainbow Dash stopped.
“—And you never would have stuck up for Gilda when she joined flight camp,” Starlight finished. “Neither would you have protected Fluttershy, and in the doing so, learned how to perform a Sonic Rainboom. Instead, you would have been one of the bullies, berating the two for not being a good enough flier rather than helping them and learning valuable lessons about being a friend.”
Rainbow Dash’s mouth open and shut. “Then, when you did the same to me at the Wonderbolts…”
“We helped you learn that working together is better than showing off.” Starlight nodded. “And that humility is better than arrogance. Another important lesson, and without it, you wouldn’t be, or rather, become the cautious flier we need you to be in the future.”
Rainbow Dash sat back in her chair and nearly fell over. Her mind was reeling, but all she could think to say was, “but why? Why do that? Are you from…the future? Is me not learning those lessons really that bad?”
Starlight’s smile faded. “Let’s just say I’m from a future. A future I’d greatly like to avoid happening twice. And yes, those two lessons were very important for you. Would the world change greatly if you didn’t learn them? Well, think about it. What would have happened if you and Fluttershy never made friends, or you never learned the Sonic Rainboom?”
Rainbow Dash thought. Twilight had told her how the timeline had messed up each time she hadn’t performed it when Twilight had been going through the time loops. Every time Rainbow Dash had failed or been distracted, Equestria had suffered some kind of major disaster. And the pony that had been preventing her from performing the Rainbooms was—
Dash looked up. Starlight nodded. “A little bit of indiscretion from my past self,” she said. “I’d apologize to Twilight if I could, but the past me is making amends, and it was another necessary event. It’s just lucky I was such an idiot back then, or we’d have had to intervene to prevent me from destroying the time stream.”
“So you’re time keepers?” Rainbow Dash didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. “You guys control time? You go back and forwards and make everything happen? Just like that?”
“Make everything happen?” Starlight snorted. “No. We’re not gods. No, not even close. We’re not here to dictate every small event. We let things happen, we just prevent the really bad things from happening.”
“Like what?” Rainbow Dash challenged Starlight. “We’ve had some bad things happen, and I didn’t see you guys then. We’ve fought off a changeling invasion, defeated Sombra and Tirek—”
“Please.” Starlight rolled her eyes. “I’m not talking about second-stringers and posers with a few spells. I’m talking about the death of nations and the destruction of all life – or worse. You though Chrysalis was bad in your time? You never saw what she might become if left to be truly evil. Believe me, putting a bunch of ponies in a cocoon is nothing compared to laying eggs in their brains and eating fillies for breakfast.”
Rainbow Dash gulped. “She does that?”
“Not in this timeline, thank Twilight.” Starlight shook her head. “But in other times, when we haven’t intervened or somepony does something that changes things? Sombra’s a lot more dangerous when he starts bringing back the dead, and as for Tirek, be glad he never learned what pony flesh tastes like.”
Rainbow Dash’s stomach roiled, but she tried to keep a straight face. “Okay,” she said, “okay. I get it. You guys make the bad events go away by making us learn lessons. So me not learning to be humble as a Wonderbolt…”
“…Is bad thing,” Starlight said. “Yes.”
Rainbow Dash waited, but Starlight didn’t seem inclined to comment. “Mind telling me what goes wrong?”
“You don’t want to know.” Starlight said, and then sighed. “And saying that means you’ll want to know even more. Fine. But I warn you, you really don’t want to hear it.”
“Tell me,” Rainbow Dash challenged her. “I can take it.”
Starlight hesitated, but then seemed to make up her mind. “Your first flight goes well. Too well, as without any distractions you really do master the flight performance the Wonderbolts perform in one day. You’re confident – overconfident – and that leads to a disaster at the performance. Scootaloo is so impressed by your performance that she tries to do her own stunts afterwards. She tries to do a quadruple back-flip off that hill and makes a mistake. You’re so caught up in congratulating yourself that you don’t notice in time, and the other Wonderbolts are too slow. She doesn’t make it, and you blame yourself until the day you die.”
Rainbow Dash sat in her chair, stunned. Starlight’s voice continued speaking, piercing her soul.
“Haunted by her death, you quit the Wonderbolts that day, despite it being ruled as an accident. You leave Ponyville, abandon your friends…and that’s all I need to say about it. Without the Element of Loyalty, the others cannot overcome the obstacles that face them, and Equestria is lost.”
Starlight finished speaking and looked at Dash’s face with sympathy. “I’m sorry. I did warn you.”
Rainbow had to fight to speak normally. “And that’s…what happens every time you don’t intervene?”
“Not always.” Starlight shrugged. “But in all honesty? Yes. Small events can lead to big events if left unchecked, but we also manufacture misfortune sometimes, if a pony needs to learn a lesson or take a certain course of action. What do you think? Are you mad that’s what we do?”
She had to ponder that question for a long moment, but at last Rainbow Dash looked up and said, “what, are you crazy? If that’s the future that happens if I don’t get called Rainbow Crash, I’d be happy if I had to roll in a thousand trashcans! It’s fine if that happens to me – I can take it.” Starlight nodded in satisfaction, and Rainbow added, “but it was still pretty cruel to do that to a filly, you know. Wasn’t there some nicer way to teach me back then?”
You think you’ve had it bad?” Starlight shook her head slowly. “Believe me, you got off lightly. Just think about your other friends and all the bad experiences they had. Transformative events, the lot of them but it wasn’t fun, was it? We gave you a 14 to 16 Freudum traumatic event, not even close to the worst we’ve done.”
“Freudum?” Rainbow Dash wrinkled her nose. “What’s that?”
“Our unit of measurement for how painful, humiliating, and potentially scarring something is,” Starlight explained. “As I said, we evaluate each pony to see how much they can take before it starts to alter their personality. You can take almost twice as much humiliation if you have to – and you will – so consider yourself lucky so far. To make Pinkie calm down even a bit we had to put her in a rock farm for her early life. That’s at least 60 Freudums of repressed trauma right there, but she bounced out of it with a smile and a giggle.”
“Wow.” Rainbow Dash stared at Starlight. “Does it…does it hurt to do stuff like that?”
Starlight flinched a bit. “Slightly. But it has to be done. And it’s not easy, either. Do you know how hard it is to repress Twilight’s magic when she’s doing her best during her magic exams? Or Fluttershy – it is not fun trying to train butterflies to catch a filly falling at over eighty miles per hour and not let her splat into the ground. And let’s not even get started on finding enough diamond to cram them into a boulder.”
“And you’re doing this by yourself? No, wait. You said you had others.” Rainbow Dash looked around the empty room. “You’re part of an…organization? Where are they?”
“Somewhere else. Not geographically, but chronologically.” Starlight shook her head. “They’re all on assignment, but believe me, we keep Equestria safe, and we have to fight battles on scales you can’t even fathom to do so. Every time a villain gets ahold of time travel magic, or a portal opens up into another world…it’s a fight Rainbow Dash, and one we’ve got to win or everypony dies.”
“Then why tell me?” Rainbow Dash stood up from her chair and paced around the room. “Is it because you need me? Is this some sort of recruitment? Am I going to be a special agent or something?”
“No, no, and no. Sit back down.” Starlight waited until Rainbow Dash was seated again. “…Well actually, that first part is a yes. We do need you, but not to work for us like I do.”
“But why?” Rainbow Dash asked. “We’re both the same age – okay, you’re a bit older than I am but—”
Starlight laughed again. “You really need to start thinking outside the box, Rainbow Dash. I may look like Starlight from your time, but that’s only because all our agents drink immortality potions whenever we get recruited. In truth, I make Celestia look like a filly. No, you’re brave, but you need to fulfill your role in your timeline. Believe me; you’ll have plenty to do. We just need you to do something special for us while you go about your daily life.”
“What?” Rainbow Dash said excitedly. “I’m ready, what is it?”
“Watch this, and you’ll understand.” Starlight moved slightly, and suddenly the entire wall behind her lit up. Rainbow Dash was nearly blinded by a flash of light, and then a familiar face appeared.
“Hello Rainbow Dash.” An older Rainbow Dash looked at the seated Rainbow Dash without smiling or blinking. Her face was the same, but there were scars above her left eye, and her wings…
“Pay attention!” Future Rainbow snapped at herself and Rainbow Dash sat straight in her chair. “I’m only going to tell you this once…”
…
Rainbow Dash jerked upright in her seat and Starlight caught her. “Easy, easy,” the unicorn said.
“Huh? Who, what, where—” Rainbow looked around frantically. “I-I was staring at myself, and I was saying stuff, and then—”
“Memory spell,” Starlight explained. “You’ll know what to do when the time comes. But until then you won’t remember. I’ll drop you off back at Ponyville and cast another spell, and it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”
“That’s it?” Rainbow Dash stared at Starlight incredulously. “After all this, after everything I’ve learned – you’re just going to wipe me and put me back?”
“Afraid so.” Starlight patted Rainbow on the shoulders. “It’ll all make sense someday, but for now, I’m sorry. Just know that what you’re doing is essential.”
Starlight stood up and motioned Rainbow to her hooves. Together, the two ponies began walking down the dark corridor, only this time, Starlight’s horn illuminated their way. As they walked, Rainbow noticed the dark walls weren’t really plain stone as she’d thought. The light shone into them and…through them?
Rainbow Dash could see darkness past the wall, but interspersed in the darkness were more corridors, and sometimes in them she could see ponies walking to and fro, and in the distance, a large series of rooms, filled with strange machinery and ponies walking backwards, sidewards, interwards and…Rainbow had to look away.
“I still don’t know anything,” she complained to Starlight. “Come on, you can tell me a bit more, can’t you? If you’re going to mind-wipe me, what’s the problem?”
“It’s not an exact science,” Starlight said. “It’s not science at all, in point of fact. That would be far easier. No, you’ll remember bits and pieces, so it’s important to keep some secrets secret.”
Rainbow Dash sighed, and Starlight relented. “ I guess I can tell you a few things. What do you want to know?”
“Well…what are you guys called?”
“We have many names, but we call ourselves the Watchers. We’re sort of like your Wonderbolts, I guess.”
“Do you have a motto?” Rainbow Dash said excitedly. “Ours is Altius volantis!”
“Ours is Stercus accidit,” Starlight said mildly. “We live by it.”
They were coming to the end of the hallway. Rainbow Dash searched for something else to ask.
“Who’s your leader? Is it Twilight? Or Princess Celestia?”
“It’s Derpy.”
“Derpy!?”
“Don’t underestimate Dr. Hooves’ inventions, or the power of muffins.”
“And…and…there’s just so much I want to ask!” Rainbow Dash grabbed Starlight’s hooves. “Oh come on, please don’t mind wipe me!”
“Sorry, it’s for the best.” Starlight ineffectually tried to shake Rainbow Dash off. “Look, we can’t have you remember everything. You’d be way too insufferable if you remembered stuff like you and Daring Doo hooking up those times—aw ponyfeathers.”
“What!?”
And then the light flashed and Rainbow Dash forgot. She woke up an hour later, outside of Ponyville and severely disoriented. As she stumbled, Rainbow Dash’s hoof caught a loose stone and she tripped – right into a waiting trashcan full of smelling garbage.
“Aw, no!” Rainbow Dash said in disgust, pulling a moldy banana peel off of her head. “Who keeps putting these things here, anyways?”