//------------------------------// // Caught with her hoof in the lightning jar/To Catch A Speedster // Story: Adventures in Community Service // by Pigeonsmall //------------------------------// The shroud of sleep still clung thickly to Dumbbell’s mind. He squinted his eyes at Hoops cautiously. “Are you...being serious?” Hoops didn’t reply verbally, opting to jump up and down from his forehooves to his back hooves like a schoolyard foal jumping rope, giggling like one too. “Y-you’re serious.” “Uh huh!” Hoops nodded goofily as Dumbbell desperately wiped sleep crust from his eyes. “Dude, you’re not gonna believe this,” Hoops continued. “But while Merry May was heading the clean up crew she found some of Rainbow Dash’s mane trapped in one of the pipes!” “Her mane...” Dumbbell mused, at least a dozen conflicting thoughts having a punch out in his brain.. “Wait, wait, this doesn’t make any sense! Why would Dash blow up the factory?” “The hell should I know.” Hoops said with a shrug but his smile never left him. “Come on, Merry May and some of the others flew out to Dash’s place just a little while ago. If we hurry we can catch this goin down!” Hoops turned and left, leaving an incredibly vexed and confused Dumbbell to follow after him. A short while later Dumbbell and Hoops landed on the clouds that made up the front “lawn” of Rainbow Dash’s rather illustrious looking home. Dumbbell often wondered how the mare was able to afford something like this, though he remembered her mentioning her dad getting a large inheritance at some point in the past. Merry May was already there, accompanied by April Showers, Rainbowshine, and, to Dumbbell’s surprise, Dandelion Breeze, the weather factories fat, stuffy, and only security guard. “Hey lover colts, I knew you two would show.” Rainbowshine winked, mashing a piece of gum gaudily between her teeth. She nodded her head towards the house. “I think she’s still asleep in there.” “Of course she would be.” Merry May didn’t sound so merry, she looked like she could break a chain between her teeth.”Most if not all weather maintenance work is suspended indefinitely while the higher ups are investigating the explosion.” “So what are we gonna do?” asked April Shower. Like Dumbbell she had been brought along shocked and confused by Rainbowshine, the pony who had told her Merry’s plan. “We’re going to knock on Rainbow Dash’s door and demand that she-” “May...be cool.” April Showers warned. Merry May grunted, though from her it sounded more like a squeak. “Right, calmly...ask that she explain why I found,” she pulled a small baggy from under her wing, “THIS in all the wreckage!” Inside was a long strip of tatty rainbow mane, not just a random assortment of colors that could be found in a rainbow but the exact colors in their exact order. It was very ragged at one end, like it had been violently torn out. “I don’t know about you guys but I don’t know any other pony with a mane like that.” Hoops mused and his smile brightened. I think we have our culprit!” “Shush!” Merry May whispered. “I don’t want her to know we’re out here.” her expression turned devious. “My guess is, if she did pull this awful stunt then she’ll make a run for it.” She held a hoof towards Dandelion. “Give me the net, Dandy.” “This had better be worth it. That mishap in the factory may cost us our jobs, but do you know what else?”  Dandelion Breeze grunted as he pulled a big coiled net from his saddle bag.”Stealing weather factory property certainly will.” “Keep your turbulance to yourself Dandelion,” Merry May stated crossly. “If the culprit isn’t found the fault will be pinned on us. And we’ll all lose our jobs anyway.” Dandelion’s look was sardonic. “I’m not the one who punches calculations into those noisy machines.” “No but it is your job to guard those noisy machines,” Dumbbell had to get a word in. “How much can I bet you weren’t anywhere near the one place you were supposed to be when almost half the factory went nuclear.” Dandelion puffed his feathers in intimidation but all it did was make his fatness more prominent. “Where I was isn’t your business! But I was doing my job regardless of my location!” “Shush!” Merry May whispered. “Again!” “Oops, sorry.” Hoops answered even though he hadn’t said anything. “Anyway, I’m glad you two boys showed up. It might make this business a little easier.” Dumbbell felt a frown easing onto his face. “What do ya mean.” “When I confront Rainbow Dash I need you two to be ready with the net if she bolts.” “What?” Hoops looked confused. “So you already assume it was her.” Dumbbell said in disbelief. “There’s just one way to find out,” Merry May insisted. “And if she did do it, she’ll be all the way to Whinneyappolis before we could even call the authorities.” “If she didn’t do it then she has no reason to run.” Rainbowshine interjected. “And then we can laugh about it over some cider.” “I really doubt she’s gonna take this that well.” Dumbbell grumbled. “She’ll take anything with cider.” Rainbowshine deadpanned. “And if we lose our jobs over this, hey, she can pick up the tab, am I right?” “Hide somewhere close by, and if she flies off just nab her in the net!” “You do realize this is Rainbow Dash we’re talking about, right?” Dumbbell asked. “If she wants to get away from us, there's a good chance she will.” “Now you two are good enough flyers,” April Showers piped up. “I’ve seen you two go at it in the cloud ball tourney’s, you’re  both a team all by yourselves!”  The compliment brought a blush out of Hoops. “Aw gee, thanks, April.” Merry May rubbed her chin in deliberation. “Then hide in her floor or wall, that way you’ll be closer.” Hoops looked aghast. “You want us to what?” Dumbbell pressed his ears back in disgust. “Woah, woah, woah!” Dumbbell lifted a hoof, halting the conversation. “Woah, okay, you don’t just hide in some pony’s cloud wall,” he stated so matter of factly that Merry May squirmed. “Yeah,” Hoops agreed. “That’s just wrong. Besides, a lot of pegasus homes don’t use that kind of cloud anymore.” “Who here’s been inside her house?” asked Rainbowshine. A beat of silence, she turned to the brown stallion. “Dumbbell, right?” “Uh well, I mean,” Dumbbell stammered.  He avoided eye contact with the others. “I mean there was that one time, but uh, I didn’t mean to.” “Mmm-hmm,” Rainbowshine nodded thoughtfully. “You’re dating, right?” “No.” Dumbbell said with a dry, cracked patience which came from answering the same question a seemingly countless number of times. “I thought Dumbbell and Hoops were the ones dating.” said April. Dumbbell and Hoops glared silently at the mare. “W-wait,” April Showers looked from one stallion to the next. “You’re not?” Dumbbell rolled his eyes as Hoops stuck his face into some cloud to smother his laughter. “But I mean, it’s just that everytime I see you, you two are always together, and, like, don’t you both share an apartment?” “We’re roommates. And at this rate I would rather live on the streets than suffer anymore of Hoops’ cooking, so hopefully not for much longer.” “I see. Sooo,you’re not? Dumbbell lazily looked sideways. “No...” April Showers coughed and mumbled something incoherent into her hoof. “Anyway, I don’t wanna be caught like some creep hiding in a mare’s wall.” Hoops grimaced. “I have a reputation to maintain!” “I’ll be talking to Dash at her front door, it’s not like you’ll be watching her sleep. I simply want you two on standby in case she freaks out.” said May. “But if you won’t then I’ll have Dandelion do it.” “What?” Dandelion Breeze balked. “Come on, Dumbbell, we’re counting on you,”  April Shower’s bottom lip trembled. “We could all be fired by tomorrow!” A silence hung over the group as they all waited for Dumbbell’s word. “Alright fine,” Dumbbell finally conceded grudgingly more to peer pressure than to reason. “Every single one of you owes me.” Hoops couldn’t be talked into the questionably criminal task of laying in wait so in the end, Dandelion Breeze  was “volunteered” by vote. Hoops hid nearby as his presence would most likely tip Rainbow Dash off. The two remaining stallions flew underneath her house and eased into the cloud. Although passing through clouds was a completely silent action, they had to make sure to not move so much that they could be perceived from above. Crouched low, the two ponies listened as Merry May knocked on the large wooden door. While they couldn’t hear Rainbow Dash walking over to answer it, they could feel hoof steps through the cloud. “Hello? Oh, hey, Merry May!”  Silently they listened to the conversation above them. There was a brief pause. “Uh, and April, Rainbowshine. What brings you all here at this hour?” “Good morning, Rainbow Dash, hope we didn’t wake you up.” “Nah, I’m good,” Rainbow Dash looked up at the sky. “It isn’t that early.” She scratched the back of her head as her smile faltered. “Yeah, so, anyway...did you need something?” “We don’t mean to be inconvenient but we do have a question we thought you might have the answer to.” Not just an answer, “the” answer. At some point Rainbow probably realized what was happening since by now her smile was nothing more than a facade. “Okay? What is it?” It was clear by the look on her face that Rainbow Dash was not going to like what she’d hear.   Merry May cleared her throat, her composure turned from friendly to serious. “My colleagues and I found this two days ago at the factory.” she produced the small bag containing the locke of rainbow hair. “And I’m wondering if you could maybe identify it.” Rainbow looked dumbly at it for a few short moments. The gears churning in her head could practically be heard through her ears. “That’s weird,” she said trying to kickstart a chuckle. “Heh, I have no idea why you think that belongs to me.” “Hey Rainy Dash, is that a new mane cut?” Rainbow Shine pointed her hoof in interest and she took a step forward, bolder than Rainbow Dash seemed to have anticipated because she stepped back, allowing the mare to nearly cross the threshold. “Chick, I think you need to go ask for a refund,”. Rainbowshine smacked gum obnoxiously between her teeth. Chew,chew,chew, the bubble grew, exploding with a ‘pop!’, almost sticking to Dash’s nose. “Cause lookie lookie here!” Suddenlyshine lurched forward, getting behind Rainbow Dash, rubbing her hooves invasively through her mane. “Is that a bald spot?” “Ouch! H-hey,that hurts!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “Rainbowshine! Seriously?” April Showers grabbed Rainbowshine by her tail, pulling her back outside and behind herself and Merry May. “Whats her problem?” Rainbow squinted in confusion and turned to Merry May and April for understanding, her ears went back when she registered the cold neutrality and shy guilt on their faces respectively. “I don’t—I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Rainbow grimaced at the sound of Shine’s gross chewing. “I haven’t got a mane cut, and I don’t have any clue what you guys are on about.” Merry May gripped the bag tightly in frustration. “Are you sure, Rainbow Dash?” Rainbow nodded vigorously. “I’m sure that I’m sure! I have no idea what that is or how it got into the snow fa—uh, I mean the weather factory!” “What was that?” Merry leaned forward, her right eye pressed into a hard squint. “What was what?” Dash asked. “Rainbow Dash, I didn’t actually say where I found this.” By now Rainbow Dash was sweating bullets. “I mean—I was just guessing! With the accident, I just thought—” “What are you saying, Rainbow Dash?” April Showers gasped, covering her mouth with her hooves. “That’s a confession!” Rainbowshine pointed her hoof at Dash, leaning so far over April’s shoulder she was mere inches from falling over. “W-wait! I didn’t say anything!” Rainbow Dash sat back on her haunches, her forelegs brought up as if trying to stop the avalanche of truth and blame from inevitably crashing on top of her. “It would be easier for every pony if you were just honest with us, Rainbow Dash.” Dash jumped up and stamped her hoof, though the effect lost its meaning on cloud. “I didn’t do it!” she shouted, but the other mares were already moving in on her. “Rainbow Dash, we found pieces of your mane inside the machine. I have no idea how you survived that but whatever you did, destroyed the entire winter wing of the factory.” Merry May stated coldly. As far as she was concerned there could be no other pony responsible. “Please Dash, just come back to Cloudsdale with us,” April Showers was pleading. “I’m sure it was just a crazy mistake! If we just go there and talk this whole thing out, then I’m sure everything’ll be—” “Sorry, April! I can’t!” Rainbow Dash stammered, backing away, ready to slam the door in their faces. “I gotta...I gotta go!” Then she did slam the door on them. “Oh no, I am so dead, I am so so so totally dead!” It felt as if her whole house was closing in on her! Rainbow Dash looked around desperately, like an answer to her problem would suddenly jump out of the walls and grab her. I’ll just fly, she thought. Nopony would be able to catch her then. She’d find someplace to hide, maybe at the library, or the farm or— She could hear Merry May banging on the door and shouting at her from the other side of the door but couldn’t understand what she was saying. Not that it mattered, as far as Dash was concerned she was already gone. As quick as a flash, she opened her wings to take off. Unfortunately her floor had other plans. Dumbbell wasn't surprised when he heard Merry May screaming from his hiding place in Rainbow Dash’s floor, piercing with even a bit of base to it, and he could hear her clearly through a level of thick clouds. “She actually did it?” Dumbbell murmured. “Somehow I’m not surprised.” “I don’t want to do this!” Dandelion Breeze whined in a panic with the cloud net shoved between his teeth. “This could get me fired!” “And if we don’t, we’ll get fired anyway, so buck up.” He could see Dandelion’s face twist up in an attempt to dredge some kind of courage but it was taking too long. “Now!” Dumbbell yelled before flying through the cloud floor with a corner of the net clutched between his hooves. If he had waited a moment longer for Dandelion to get himself together, he would have collided headlong into a very quickly accelerating Rainbow Dash. Out of basically every pegasus in Equestria, she was the best at going from zero to one hundred in mere seconds, and that probably would have been enough to put his lights out. She saw him but her reflexes were too slow, Rainbow sailed into the net and out the back side of her living room wall. If there was one thing four years of flight school hoofball had taught Dumbbell, when you catch the ball, you clung to it savagely, like the damn thing is your only lifeline. That memory came back to him as he felt his forelegs yank violently in front of him, and suddenly he didn’t have control of his flight path anymore. Dumbbell was pulled out of Rainbow Dash’s house when he heard shattered glass and Dandelion Breeze screaming, he glanced back to see the yellow stallion hollering and clinging to the net, or more accurately, tangled horribly in the coils. In his peripheral he saw smudges of purple, green, and lime appear from around Dash’s house, but at this rate they may as well not bother, even weighed down Rainbow Dash could outfly them all. “Hey Dande!” Dumbbell yelled at the other stallion. “Flap your wings!” “I c-can’t!” Dandelion yelled back in anguish. “G-glass!” Dumbbell grimaced and turned to Rainbow Dash. “Hey, Crash!” Dumbbell opened his wings to try and slow the mare down, which worked only by a little. He tried to yell down at her but his words were pushed back into his face by the wind. “Why’d you do it?” “I didn’t do anything!” Dumbbell could just hear over the wind racing around his ears, and the broken warbles of Dandelion Breeze screaming in pain and terror. “Then why are you running?” In an effort to slow them down, Dumbbell flapped his own wings rapidly enough to create drag, if Dandelion were able to do the same it might have been enough to stop her, but at least his dead weight made him a little bit useful. Just then Dumbbell saw a streak of orange flash past his vision. It was Hoops, Dumbbell’s best friend and one of the very very few pegasi who were not Wonderbolts that could keep up with Rainbow Dash in any remote sense, such as, being able to keep her in sight of the horizon line. Though Hoops was flying just behind the mare, the extra weight of two stallions and the net itself helped, Dash was still moving somewhere along the low end of the ‘breakneck’ spectrum. Hoops looped around the mare twice before settling just off to her left. “Wow, Dash. Why are you flying in this net? You know that's gonna leave one heck of a mark.” She ignored him and Hoops spoke again. “What’s even the rush? We just wanted to chat! Isn’t there something you need to get off your chest?” Rainbow growled continuing to heave against the weight and the net. “There's nothing to talk about so buzz off!” Hoops shrugged and fell back to Dumbbell and Dandelion, grabbing onto the net. “Suit yourself!” He shouted. With a yell, Dumbbell and Hoops yanked the net violently, like they were trying to wrangle a large torpedoing shark. Against all odds Rainbow Dash’s speed greatly decreased, unable to flex her wings to their fullest, she became dead in the air as the two stallions threw her into a nearby bank of clouds. Dash and the net disappeared inside it with a soft “fwoof”. The stallions landed and proceeded to dig through the cloud for their catch. “The jig is up, Dash. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.” Dumbbell said in a low even tone. “Dude, you think she’s still gonna fight us?” Hoops asked under his breath. “This is Rainbow Dash we’re talking about, when has she ever not wanted to fight us?” Dumbbell answered. Together they dug through the cloud until they found a pair of cyan back hooves sticking up, tangled almost untenably in the dark thunder cloud web. “Yo, Crash. Having a nice nap?” Rainbow’s back legs kicked out helpless yet defiant, they could hear her mumbling at them from below, probably something foul. Just then a strikingly high pitched yowl shot up from somewhere near by. “Shit, it’s Dande.” Dumbbell said, looking for the source of the third stallions crying. “I think he flew through a window back there.” “Yikes! I’ll get him.” Hoops said, leaving Dumbbell’s side to hunt for the injured stallion. “Well...nothing left to do I guess but get you out of there.” Dumbbell said more to himself than the flailing cyan legs in front of him. Dash couldn’t free herself but it was easy enough for Dumbbell to pull her out. Still under the net, she stared up at him, her brows creased sharply and her back arched, as if she would spring away at any moment. But it was easy to tell the fight was out of her. Dumbbell smiled ruefully. “So...decided to start the holiday off with a bang, huh?” It took a few minutes for April, Shine, and Merry May to finally catch up, just long enough for Rainbow to stew under the sounds of Dandelion Breeze’s pathetic wailing with Hoops trying uselessly to calm him down. “What happened to him?” April asked after a shocked double- take. “Uh, he’s actually bleeding pretty bad you guys. I think he’s gonna need to go to the hospital.” “Is it bad?” April cringed. “Not too bad but I mean,come on, can you hear him?” Dandelion’s pained moan suddenly hitched, causing the group to flinch. Merry May turned to Hoops. “Hoops please, go get Life Flight.” she said. “Back in a flash!” Hoops flew off in the direction of Cloudsdale while April took his place keeping the whimpering Dandelion company. She was better at it than Hoops as he quieted a little. When some amount of silence covered them Rainbowshine choked out an overly loud cough. “So now that we have your attention, Dashy. Can you just be straight with us now?” Rainbow Dash could have killed a flower with the look she gave. “Oh Dash,” April whimpered. “Did you really do it?” “Well I thought you all had that figured out by now, bright eyes.” “You’re really not in the position to sass us.” Merry May stood squarely in front of the trapped mare,though any trace of hard anger seemed to have faded. “Do you have even the slightest clue the amount of trouble you’ve caused us?” “I didn’t do it, you can’t prove anything!” Rainbow Dash stared up at her with vehemence, April and Dumbbell exchanged a hesitant glance before the stallion took a step forward. “Listen, Dash, we found pieces of your mane all through the pipes-” “ Did you fall in?” April Showers whined. “W-was it an accident?” Rainbow’s back stiffened but she didn’t seem willing to admit anything, nor deny anything. Merry let out a long sigh. “This is getting us nowhere.” It didn’t take long for Life Flight to arrive. They got Dandelion Breeze onto a stretcher and flew him off to the nearest hospital. April went along with them for his sake. “So what do we do now,” Hoops asked once he’d rejoined the group. “About her?” “Well in light of recent events there's only one thing we can do.” Merry said, “Take Rainbow Dash to the magistrate.”