IV - Preposterous Pegasus Passivity
It wasn’t until Thunderlane came home that Rumble came out of his room. He was calling him from behind the closed door, and he could hear his brother’s muffled voice from the entry saying he had picked up dinner for them on the way home. Rumble crept to the door and inched it open, making sure not to come out until he found Thunderlane was the only pony in the house besides him. Finally, he trotted out.
“Hey there, buddy!” Thunderlane said when he saw Rumble emerge from the hallway. “How’d things go today? Did you turn in your assignment?”
“Yeah,” Rumble said.
Thunderlane pulled out two salads and pushed one over to Rumble, pulling out a small container of hay fries to go with it. “You don’t sound too happy about that,” he said. “What’s up? Cheerilee return it with a bad grade? Do you need a tutor?”
“I might, but that’s not what’s wrong.”
“Rumble,” Thunderlane said, disapproving but gentle. “You can’t say that you got a bad grade on an assignment and need a tutor and tell me that’s not what is wrong.”
“It’s not the fact that I need a tutor. It’s been the fact that I’ve started to notice weird things happening to me every time I’m around a mare.”
Thunderlane smirked. “Do tell.”
“Well, Flitter and Cloudchaser last night were arguing over who was going to tell me what, then invited me out to watch ‘Daring Do and the Sapphire Stone’ with them. When it was time for me to go to bed, Flitter let me lay down in her lap on the couch and I fell asleep there.”
Thunderlane went from a smirk to a frown. “Is that so?”
“Yeah, but they were helping me with the homework.”
Thunderlane’s frown remained, but his voice backed off. “Alright. What else?”
“I go to school today and get into a fight with some bullies, but Miss Cheerilee lets me off without even a warning. Then Apple Bloom starts asking me about trying to get a kissing cutie mark – and that’s after she, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo invited me but no other colts without cutie marks in the class to join their Cutie Mark Crusaders – but she leaves the class feeling sad because I told her no. Then walking outside of Ponyville Archer hugs me and kisses me before I leave, then Miss Dash who you sent to pick me up and bring me home starts saying things about me being cute and how I look and starts acting really creepy.”
Thunderlane’s eyebrow rose. “So… she wasn’t just playing a joke on me when she told me she thought you were cute…” He brought a hoof to his chin. “Either this is an elaborate ruse or something is out of whack.”
“It’s not a ruse!” Rumble said, putting his front hooves on the table.
“Hooves off the table, please,” Thunderlane said quietly.
“It’s not a ruse!” Rumble repeated. “It’s like every mare in Ponyville is getting attracted to me and I don’t even know what I did!”
“I highly doubt that’s the case,” Thunderlane said. “I’ll go down tomorrow after weather patrol and talk with Miss Cheerilee about your math homework.”
“Brother!” Rumble pouted.
“Unless you can give me one good piece of evidence…”
“I got an eighty eight on that math assignment when the highest grade I could have gotten was an eighty-five!”
“And you’re complaining about it?”
“I want to earn the grade! Five points a problem times seventeen problems and the max I could have gotten was eighty five, but she had the paper all marked up so I couldn’t have gotten that.”
Thunderlane scoffed. “I’ll go down and have a talk with Cheerilee tomorrow. That ought to settle things straight about this whole issue.”
* * *
Rumble lay down on the bench just outside the schoolhouse. He had a hoof over the side of the bench and was swinging it back and forth, making a tiny dirt groove below the bench. The schoolyard was mostly empty except for one little filly looking eagerly down the road, but she wasn’t even looking at Rumble.
Eventually, the door of the schoolhouse opened up. Thunderlane came out of it with his eyes almost as tiny pinpricks.
“What’d she say?” Rumble asked.
The bottom of Thunderlane’s eye quivered. “We’re going to see Twilight Sparkle.”
Rumble cocked his head. “…right now?”
“Right now.” Without so much as another word, Thunderlane started walking down the main road towards the great oak tree in the center of town.
“What did Cheerilee say?” Rumble said.
“Enough for me to know you weren’t lying. Study group for a kissing cutie mark… I can’t believe Cheerilee would endorse that sort of thing…” Thunderlane trailed off into mumbles that Rumble couldn’t make out.
“What are you saying?”
“It’s nothing. Just that you need Twilight to help you with your math assignments anyways.”
* * *
Thunderlane sat down on a cushion in the center of the upstairs study. Rumble sat down in the center while Twilight Sparkle held up a small flashlight in her purple aura and looked around at Rumble, checking his ears, his throat, his eyes, even his nose with the flashlight to make sure nothing was wrong. She also brought out a tiny hammer and knocked all four of Rumble’s knees with it and watched his reaction. She also brought out a stethoscope and listened to his heartbeat.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Twilight,” Thunderlane said, “but I don’t see what is the point of all this when I asked you to check for any magic on him.”
“Sometimes there are outer signs that magic is present,” Twilight said. “Lowered heart rate while maintaining cognitive thought processes, or even speeding up without any visible presence of activity or adrenaline.” Twilight brought her face back to look at Rumble’s eyes, hoof with the stethoscope still pressed against Rumble’s chest; the colt could feel the edges of her hoof against his coat. “Or, even the presence of dilated or diminished pupils.”
“Wouldn’t doing magic just solve the problem quicker?” Thunderlane asked.
“Oh, it would,” Twilight replied, “but first we need to make sure there isn’t any harmful or strange effects on the body. Sometimes magic could hurt someone so young, and we must make sure he’s in top condition.”
“So I could have just taken him to the doctor for a checkup like I did two weeks ago.”
Twilight slowly turned away from Rumble to look at Thunderlane. “You mean to say I’m doing all this just because?”
“N-No,” Thunderlane stammered. “I just k-kind of figured I’d n-n-need to let you know we d-did that already.”
Twilight turned back to Rumble, staring at his eyes again with a small smile on her face. “Now, explain to me what has been going on so far. Let’s start with the beginning.”
Rumble coughed and began. “Two of my brother’s friends from the weather patrol were invited over to help take care of me when he was out late on weather duty. They are friendly normally, but that night they seemed to be fondling over me.”
“How old are they?”
“Around Thunderlane’s age.”
“Alright.” A notebook with a pen appeared at Twilight’s side, but her head didn’t even move to watch it. “What happened next?”
“Well, at school the next day, I had Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom ask me to join their club the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I told them no, but Apple Bloom tried to get me to come over there to help them get a kissing cutie mark.”
“Interesting…” Twilight said. “I see nothing wrong with trying to get a cutie mark.”
“In case you were wondering, it was nothing more than an excuse.”
“Oh, they’re just little fillies that are eager to grow up, is all.”
“Look, Miss Twilight,” Thunderlane stepped in, “I’m all okay with schoolfilly flirting, but that seemed a little forward for somepony as young as Rumble or Apple Bloom.”
Twilight rolled her eyes but didn’t turn to Thunderlane. “Let’s move on, then. What else?”
“I did really bad on a math homework assignment, but Cheerilee gave me an eighty-eight percent on an assignment.”
“How many problems did you get out of how many on the assignment?”
“There were twenty problems and I did seventeen.”
“That is disconcerting…” Twilight said, a tone of worry finally hitting her voice.
The unicorn mare looked off to the side before returning to staring at Rumble’s eyes again. The constant staring of the older unicorn mare was beginning to get uncomfortable, especially since she was rarely blinking. “Miss Twilight?”
“Yes…?”
“Could you please blink? Your constant staring is beginning to unnerve me.”
Twilight blinked. “Better?”
“Not quite.”
“Whatever,” Twilight said. “There’s something more important. Quickly summarize whatever else has happened during that time.”
“A friend of mine named Archer hugged me and gave me a kiss on the forehead, which she’s never done in the time we’ve all gone to school together. On the same day, Thunderlane asked Miss Rainbow Dash to pick me up from school since he was late getting off, but on the way home Miss Dash insisted I call her ‘Dashie’ and continually complemented me on how I looked.”
“I don’t get what’s wrong with being called cute,” Twilight replied.
“From the way I heard it,” Thunderlane butted in, “it sounded like Miss Rainbow Dash was… insinuating things.”
“Okay…” Twilight said uncomfortably. “Have I told you how pretty your eyes look?”
“Miss Twilight…”
“Oh, sorry, Rumble. I didn’t mean for that to come out.”
Finally, Twilight walked away from Rumble and paced around the room as she examined her notes. Rumble, who had been holding in his breath, let out a long sigh.
A few minutes later, Twilight turned back to Rumble. She closed her eyes and her horn began to be surrounded in a purple aura. A short while later, Rumble himself was surrounded in the purple aura. Rumble felt himself be lifted a few inches off the ground, unable to control his own movements and unable to escape from the purple glow. Rumble gradually let himself relax as the magic poked and prodded him everywhere from his head to his wings to his tail to his hooves. After some time spent poking and prodding him almost everywhere on his body, Rumble felt the magic gently set him down on the table and Twilight’s eyes opened.
“Strange…” Twilight said. “This is unheard of…”
Thunderlane jumped off his cushion and ran over to Twilight. “What!? What is it? What’s going on with my little bro, huh!?”
“Calm down, Thunderlane,” Twilight said. “It’s nothing detrimental.”
“I don’t know what’s detrimental and what’s not in the realm of magic,” Thunderlane snorted as his tail flicked. “Just tell me straight out what’s going on?”
“Alright, alright!” Twilight said defensively. “Just calm down a moment! Your little brother has a strange type of innate magic not normally found in pegasi.”
“What is it?”
“Well, it has to do with being able to attra—”
“I meant innate magic. What is it?”
“Oh. Well, there are certain types of things that come easily to certain races. Earth ponies have innate magic that makes them able to grow crops and shape the land better than other races. Pegasi have innate magic that allows them to treat clouds as solid objects and walk on and kick them. Unicorns have the ability to wield and use certain objects that are powered by magic even if they don’t know any they can cast themselves.”
“Alright. So what’s going on with my brother?”
“His innate magic is quite silly and not often found in pegasi. It’s a rare breed of magic that simply increases others attraction towards him.”
“Is it general or specific?”
“It seems to be specific. Rumble’s magic, from his own testimony, only works on mares. I’ve heard of it attracting stallions before, but it won’t if the owner is not interested.”
“How is it not found in pegasi?”
“Research shows pegasi don’t need it. They’re rate of breeding is about average. Earth ponies have a slightly higher than average rate of breeding, and unicorns have a slightly lower than average rate. This sort of magic would normally be found more in unicorns for the purpose of attracting mates.”
“That sounds like it’d be something left over from a long time ago,” Rumble said.
“It is,” Twilight said, smiling towards Rumble. “This sort of innate magic is one of the rarest there is. Since times have advanced and we live in societies where it’s easier to communicate, this magic is nearly lost; only one out of every one million ponies has it, and there are millions of ponies in Equestria alone.”
“Is there anything we can do about it to bring sense back into these mares?” Thunderlane asked, sufficiently calmed down from earlier. “I hate to think what would happen if Rumble were to have an encounter with Miss Dash again…”
“There is a spell to turn it off,” Twilight said. “However, I think I have to ask Princess Celestia to send me the book that has it.”
“How long will that take?”
“Oh, I’d say two days at the most if I send a letter off to her today.”
“Please, could you do that?”
“Of course. Now, when did you want tutoring to start?”
“Two days from now,” Thunderlane said quickly.
Twilight looked from Rumble, who showed no signs of protest, back to Thunderlane. “Are you sure?”
“Two days.”
Twilight nodded sheepishly. “Gotcha.”
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Rumble's DAMN adorable, even if he hates it.
3639015 He needs to stop hating it and start milking it.
Probably just lock the kid up in his room for two days just to be safe.
3639129 ....just fyi, It sucks to have a fanclub. It's a long story, and I don't feel like explaining how much is WRONG with the fact that I have one.
3639176
Pretty much everyone that has a fanclub notes that there's one or two crazies in there somewhere.
3639184 There's 9 members, 3 of which are convicted felons. One of which is a Pansexual Rapist.
3639194
3639200 Yeah, You see? Fanclubs may only have a few crazies, but these crazies are TOTALLY FUCKED UP.
Last I checked, it was Flitter who let him lay in her lap.
3639869
Thank you for the catch; it has now been changed.
3639897 Your welcome.
Who's the smexiest Pegasus around?
Rumble!
Shut yo' mouth!
Then we can dig it.
Who's the flying love machine?
That Rumble's a bad mutha...
I'm just talkin' about Rumble.
Some guys have all the luck. This story keeps getting better. I'm looking forward to the next chapter.
3639129 milk it like a cow!