A sequel to My Little Dashie by ROBCakeran53.
Haven't you ever wondered how apparently no other people caught on after the sonic rainboom Rainbow Dash achieved above a wretched North American city?
Well, what if they did?
And what if they misinterpreted it at that? In a time of PATRIOT acts and Wars On Terror, would they have not taken a closer look at the occurrences?
This story is set roughly a year or two after Rainbow's departure.
It tells the story of a government agent on his way to investigate into the mystery behind the "2014 Fort Pleasance Bombings" - and how he will find this case to be more than just a routine tailing assignment; that there is something else behind the explosion than just terrorism.
But it also continues the protagonist's - Brian's - tale, and how he had managed to fare without his Dashie - how he went to live the life of a hermit, and only now gets his strength back to face the outside world beyond his dear Dashie's memories.
But will he notice soon enough that his secret was now in the crosshair of the investigators?
Edit: Should one dislike the story and prefer to thumb it down, please leave a reason why. Healthy criticism is always welcome, after all.
And another thing: no, this story is not set in the US. Caught you there, didn't I?
PS: Thank you a lot, guys, thank you for 50 favourites for this humble story!
You rock. Woohoo.
FIRST
Still, this is an interesting take on this story. Mine is moving in the exact opposite direction, nearly. But, good work, sir!
Like the premise.
Don't like how it is going for Brian
Keep it up
He better not take that fucking photo album... Or Brian will go terrorist apeshit insane on his ass. And I will too, fourth wall breaking time. I would like to see where this goes...
352862 Nice, thanks.
And what direction does yours go to?
Hm. This has potential. Tracking.
MOAR. Just, moar.
Ooh, this looks very interesting. Can't wait to see where you go with this.
353015 Look it up.
352966 Easy there, Sportsfreund.
His name is Brian?
353544 Sorry there, I took a liberty for liberty's sake.
I respect the fact that you have made him nameless for a reason. But in order to tell his story from a second perspective, I had to add some things to his character.
ps: Of course, I have acknowledged that the original idea is yours. Certainly, I am not trying to reap any fame here or anything, I just liked the material MLD provided.
So, should you have any complaints, fire away.
353544
I really need to stop commenting on stories at 2 AM... Especially considering am tired at work the next day. Still, I am quite excited about this story, You have successfully penetrated through the morass of my brain and made me remember something from 2 AM, and remember some things about this story. This story is set in america correct? Just asking because TBH I am not sure. Breaking and entering for a Federal agent, not sure how it works there but here in Australia? Well... it wouldn't go well if they got caught and I can tell that he is going to be caught in the act or he is going to be an idiot and take the Photo album, either way it is going to be known about Dashie living with Brian. I can imagine Brian getting quite, quite mad. Maybe he'll just do the intelligence operative thing and just carry a camera and record everything he sees, disturbing as little as possible, so flipping through the album taking pictures of every page and then closing it after and leaving the place as he found it.
Then again he does not seem to be that competent.... Ignore me, I'm tired
354165 1: Breaking and entering for a Federal agent, not sure how it works there but here in Australia? Well... it wouldn't go well if they got caught
Well, from what I have seen in Britz, it is all but impossible. But let's not go... there.
2: I can tell that he is going to be caught in the act or he is going to be an idiot and take the Photo album
Well, I'm really trying to avoid such Fridge Logic to the largest possible extent. He is, after all, not exactly a novice.
3: This story is set in america correct? Just asking because TBH I am not sure.
Quite honestly, I'm not too sure myself. I try to make the setting a bit more ambiguous, 'somewhere in the Northern Americas', so to speak. And, as a large majority of human fics are set in the US, I didn't want to explicitly set it in the US either...
353544 zoom in to the newspaper section
354592 Ohmygod...
Don't tell me I used the wrong surname... 
353691 Lol no no no, I don't have any issues. I just find it funny that suddenly his name is Brian according to multiple fics. I'm gonna try to get to reading this when I'm able.
A misunderstanding of nuclear proportions. This should be very interesting...
HOLY. Listened to the song and read. I have tears. Why? I love this. I don't comment on the first chapter that often but I have to. Reading the second.
Awesome! Hope for more. The music makes me more depressed. It fits so well. Hope for more. Godspeed and goodluck!
....When he meets 'em eventually, it's going to BLOW HIS MIND. Also, I possess the First. :P
this is turning bad for brian
Brain is screwed. I fell bad for you son. I got 99 problems but a alien anin't one! Nice chapter and RELASE THE OTHER ONE!
Godspeed and gooduck.
I'm not usually one for the MLD sequels, but this one is very well done and interesting. I'm really liking the way that you have it set up, and for once it's not just focused around Dash.
409677
Thanks.
Although honestly, I was quite scared that I in fact focused too little on ponies and Equestria, so I tried to even it out in some way.
This is actually rather good for a My Little Dashie sequel. A few rough spots, but that's it, really. Nothing that can't be smoothed out easily for the most part. The grammar and spelling are very good, but the one thing that really sticks out is the use of British English by supposedly American characters, which is very jarring. If it were re-written to be set in the UK, with FItz as a MI5 agent or something, then it would make sense. There was also the fact that Fitz broke the glass in the door when he had a lockpick kit. Leaving obvious signs that there's been a break-in is beyond unprofessional. As for collecting evidence without a warrant, that would be beyond pointless. You'd alert your target to the fact that something is up and the evidence you collect would be inadmissible in court, at least in the States. However, the PATRIOT act gives the FBI authority to "sneak and peek" in peoples' homes and not inform them for a few weeks, but they'd still need a warrant to do so.
All-in-all, this is turning out to be a very interesting story that just needs a few tweaks to be at its best.
531806 Well, as I said, I tried to make the setting a bit ambiguous, so it's neither the UK nor the US. I admit, I used vocabulary from both sides of the Atlantic (and as a German, I am just more suited with British grammar).
Also, the agent is probably more interested in covering up who broke in as opposed that there even was a break-in. There are many crazy people who would love to smash your back door.
And then again, God knows how much time would pass until Brain would even notice a single broken window tile on his back entrance...
Now Fitz, I don’t care who you work for, it isn’t nice to lie to Rainbow Dash saying you’re a friend of your dad like that.
Wow, this is incredible!
This is an area for exploration that I had never conceived of before now, and you're doing such a great job at it. Not to mention introducing me to Ludovico Einaudi--thank you very much for that, by the way.
I'm asking...no I'm begging, you not to abandon this story. I have no idea where you're taking this, and I must see it through to the end. Please, please don't let that pesky Real Life (TM) or the comments about aspects of this story not being "American" enough stop you from seeing this through.
622888 No worries, they won't.
I'm just currently working on multiple projects, but I have this one planned in just as well.
This isn’t going to end well.
Still, YAY! An update! I was starting to wonder whether this one was going to be put on hiatus.
Awesome. This is how you write a story. Godspeed and goodluck. For you too, Brian.
Wait. I thought Dash lost all of her memory?
1609645 Actually, it was left in the shadows whether she did or not. It was merely implied she did.
That's why I tried to find out what would have been the dilemma of her keeping them.
Celestia's really left the man in a horrible predicament. There's really nowhere near enough evidence to support in a court of law the laughably impossible claim that the "bomb" was in fact a sonic rainboom produced by an alien hawk-horse lifted straight out of a children's cartoon, and that he'd been raising this creature as a daughter for years. The jury would be thrown out of the courtroom if they went with it. Right now it looks like he's probably facing life in prison, life in an institution, or the death penalty, and it's a bit of a toss-up which one is worst.
Celestia's going to have to be a little more active than this if she doesn't want the blood of an innocent man on her hooves.
Thanks for continuing the story, Dan! I was very happy to see the update in my favorites.
Please continue this, its a very good spin-off
I got lost somewhere in the story....
But okay. It was....a great read in a way?
Yay, it's alive! Love this, I hope Celly and RD show up soon
Poor Fitzgerald looks like he's just a few inches shy of snapping completely. If I were his boss and I saw him starting to go unhinged like that I'd switch him to another case before he does something foolish.
On the other side of the table, Celestia et al. owe Brian a bit of help here, certainly more than what Celly's given thus far. After all, the ponies are at least somewhat responsible for putting him in this bind to begin with.
Lastly, good to see this story back in action. I'd thought it had withered away. I hope this is a sign of things to come, as I'd like to see how Dan the Man plans to wrap this tale up.
3158326 Ya know.... if ol' Sunny Butt were to show up, just outta the blue... and hoof-slap Fitzgerald... I would not feel robbed.
(Sniff) Oh god...the feels....they hurt....
If only you could make a follow-up...
3220031 If only...
3223161 You should show the meeting, or maybe Dashie can visit from time to time
First of all, I'd like to thank you for seeing this story through. Of all of the incomplete stories I was following, this was the one I was most afraid was going to be abandoned, because of the huge scope of the ideas you were pursuing.
Now as for a critique? Overall, I am satisfied with the work, and I think you more or less succeeded at what you set out to do: explore the philosophical consequences of these two worlds meeting in this way. Despite that, I was more impressed with the scenes before the big confrontation than those following. The tension of the scenes, the way that the investigation unfolded, and the way the agents danced around Brian as they drew their net ever tighter around him--these were my favorite parts of the story. The discussion in Chapter 7 was obviously the core of the story for you, but for whatever reason it didn't impress me that much--I wish I could give you a more useful explanation than that.
As for Brian, the scene with Ingrid was the best. Otherwise, he seemed a bit too mopey, like his life had stopped after Dashie's departure. Which of course it had. I think that subtracts a bit from the ending, that all he has left is hope of reuniting with his daughter. That he still has no life other than her--even if she does come to visit for a day, what's going to happen to him the day after that? If he couldn't get closure from her letter, what exactly is it going to take? Plenty of authors think he needs to move to Equestria, but I think that it's possible for him to move on despite them permanently living on different worlds--I was hoping that you could have at least hinted that such an ending was possible for him. I think at least one more scene with Ingrid would have helped.
This isn't the sort of story that I would ever write, but if I did, I might have gone in a few different directions than you. I probably wouldn't have done any of it in first person, and if I had, then I would have stuck with just one character, preferably Fitzgerald. Switching back and forth as you did got rather confusing after awhile.
I think you had a few wasted opportunities that you could have pursued. For instance: what about those eight people who died? Who were they? How did their friends and family move on from that day? That would have come up in the trial, which I was rather disappointed that you skipped over. Not the prosecution's arguments (those would have been redundant), but the stories of those victims. Fort Pleasance was a dead-end town--were any of the victims deadbeats themselves? Were any of them poets or artists? Was it possible that the death of at least one of them led to a positive good, motivating the survivors to bring meaning to their lives and the lives of others?
On the Equestrian side of things, I had hoped that the focus would not entirely be on Rainbow Dash and Princess Celestia. After all, the accident that caused this mess was Twilight's fault, and surely you know how obsessed she gets with responsibility. I can imagine her seeing Rainbow Dash getting more and more introspective, and blaming herself for bringing unhappiness into her life. (Typical of Twilight Sparkle, she fails to notice that RD had an introspective side even before the accident.) She tries and fails to find a way to use time travel to prevent the accident. And then when that fails, she turns her frustrations against Earth. She uses research to try and resolve her emotional issues, and this would be how Princess Celestia would learn of the current state of affairs on Earth. Plus of course this would bring up the issues of surveillance and control that are at the core of this story.
At least, that's the way I would have done it.
Let me reiterate, though: I do like this story. I clicked the "thumbs up" button when I read the first chapter, and that thumb (and favorite) are not going away. I'm just haunted by the specter of what could have been. As, it appears, you are as well.
I wish you the best of luck with your future endeavors, whatever they may be.
P.S. Even if you decide that you do not wish to write a sequel to this story, you haven't really finished it, at least in my opinion. What you need is a proper open ending, with Dashie flying around Brian's house, landing at the front porch, and knocking. Leave it up to the reader to imagine what happens after that. "We're ready" is sequel bait, pure and simple.