Chapter 3
Chapter 3: The Prolific Problems of Ponyville Pegasi
It was an hour past dawn when Cloud Kicker landed at Ponyville’s old relay practice field to get everything set up for the tornado drill training. Thankfully, the small town took competitions seriously, so the public field wasn’t covered in leaves and branches or anything. However, she did see a problem in the presence of a purple unicorn and her slumbering dragon.
It wasn’t the fact that Cloud Kicker hadn’t been expecting Twilight to show up, more like dreading it really thanks to the activities of what had gone on the night before.
The pegasus gulped, and trotted over to where Twilight was calibrating what looked like a fan with a speed gauge on it. She’d spin it with a hoof, look at a notepad that was floating nearby, then adjust something in the back with a wrench. Supposedly, the thing could measure the force of a pegasus’s wake, and spit out that number in wing power. Twilight had explained it in detail the night before, but the fast paced explanation had left Cloud Kicker in need of a stiff drink to stop her head from hurting.
“Umm, hey Twilight…about last night,” she began with an apologetic smile. The line was always a good way for her apologies to start, although it was the first time in awhile the activities Cloud Kicker was apologizing for didn’t involve rope, cuffs, a crop, and some bridles.
“I’m not talking to you.”
Cloud Kicker winced at the tone of the irate unicorn’s voice and let out a nervous laugh. “Eh-he… Come on, it was just a harmless prank.” And it didn’t even go off before she noticed.
When the unicorn looked up at her, Cloud Kicker winced at the glare. However, as the world didn’t suddenly enlarge in perspective, change into another location entirely, or go completely dark for about one thousand years, she was able to thank Celestia for Twilight not turning her into a toad, banishing her beyond Equestria’s borders, or making a statue out of her.
All Twilight did was talk. Loudly...with some anger in her tone and fire in her eyes. “You tried to get me drunk!”
“It was one drink, in a bar! We thought it would help you loosen up a little,” she tried to defend herself. It had been Rainbow’s idea, and it really had only involved one drink, but Twilight seemed to shift the blame onto the pegasus because Kicker had been the one to suggest the location.
But after the first drink, as in sip, Twilight had noticed the odd taste of the cider in her mug, as well as the fact the ‘Hay Barn’ took down the N on it’s sign after dark and put two and two together.
“I could feel my brain cells dying!” she stressed in a fashion only somepony who had consistently avoided alcohol her entire life could. “Now I’ll need to take an IQ test just to see how much damage I’ve undergone!”
Cloud Kicker could only watch as the unicorn’s eyes widened in horror, and she sat back on her haunches to hold her head for her forelegs. “Oh no! What if I drop below two-hundred and sixty? Princess Celestia won’t want me as her student anymore!”
“Twilight,” the pegasus said while the unicorn kept going.
“And my-my life in Ponyville! The only reason I’m here is because I’m studying the Magic of Friendship! If I’m not her student, then I can’t live at the library! And I’m too old to live with my parents, and-and since I never completed my studies under Princess Celestia, I won’t be able to get a job! I’ll be destitute, living out of a cardboard box and eating grass just to get by! AND IT’S ALL. YOUR. FAULT!” Twilight shouted after rounding on a slightly terrified Cloud Kicker and drawing the attention of some of the early arrivals.
Oh Celestia…where’s an alicorn when you really need one? Kicker thought as Twilight snorted at her in a way that had Kicker wondering if the unicorn would actually charge forward like a bull.
Then, her salvation arrived in the form of a flamboyant orange stallion that zoomed by fast enough to cause Twilight’s air…thingy to spin around before said stallion looped back around to land in a trot that put him next to Twilight. Then Flash Sentry smirked at the both the unicorn and Cloud Kicker before asking the obvious question. “So, how’d I do?”
The whole presentation seemed to shock Twilight out of her rage spiral, and made the unicorn’s whole body jump a bit before becoming all happy as she looked down to check the readout. “Let’s see…Oh! Thirty-um…that’s as high as my meter goes actually,” she mumbled before looking back to the stallion. “That’s…wow, that’s really impressive Flash!”
With her boss’s/deity’s/friend’s crush one step away from going gaga about some stallion she just met, Cloud Kicker quickly decided to step in and save the day in her best ‘rain on your parade’ voice. “And completely irrelevant,” she said with narrowed eyes. “Wing power is measured after a thirty meter dash. That’s real wing power, not something assisted by inertia and wind. Anypony can fly fast when they hit a jet stream, and even Rainbow Dash needs time to build up speed before she blows up the sky. The tornado has a base of thirty meters, so that’s the length everypony has to show their stuff with.
“And aren’t you still calibrating that thing?” she asked Twilight with a raised eyebrow as the unicorn just stared into Flash Sentry’s eyes. “Something like that little stunt probably just messed up all your work.”
That little bit if info snapped Twilight out of her stupor and widened her eyes. “Oh my gosh! You’re right!” she said before whirling around to mess with the twirly-speedometer.
Crises averted, the pegasus told herself as the pretty-colt gave a pensive frown to Twilight Sparkle’s plot while she used her magic to mess with her thingy; probably because she was shaking it in his face a little while humming a tune to herself. Get used to it boy, because that’s all you’ll ever see.
Job done, she turned to go check on the other pegasi who were starting to show up and patted herself on the back. Figuratively speaking of course.
While Cloud Kicker had no idea whatsoever just what Rainbow saw in Twilight, or even what a pony like Dash could see in Sparkle beyond some cute nerdish charm, the pegasus wasn’t about to let some play-colt come and snatch her from the alicorn’s hooves. Friendship aside, which was a good enough reason for Cloud Kicker to help out Rainbow on its own… She didn’t want to see what would happen to the weather around Ponyville if Rainbow Dash got her heart broken.
“Anything I can do to help?”
Kicker stopped and looked back at Flash as Twilight regarded him quizzically for a second before speaking. “Well…I suppose I could use a real pegasus to help me test my readouts with. If you know your actual wing power, that is. I’ve been using mathematical equations to calculate my force and spinning the propeller at a speed of two. At least it should be two.”
A snort came from Flashes mouth. “Sure I know, it’s…fifteen…point…three!”
Cloud Kicker let out a single laugh at the obviously fake score. There was no way Twilight would-
“Great! Let’s get started then!”
As the showoff took to the air again, Cloud Kicker’s eye began to twitch. Now, she needed to come up with a way to disprove the stallion’s claim while trying not to step on the tail of a unicorn who could juggle houses with her mind. The things I do for friends.
Just where the buck was that burning alicorn?
“Okay Fluttershy, what’s wrong?”
The concern in Rainbow’s voice made it easy to ignore the fact that with the added height, Fluttershy’s oldest friend had the tendency to loom over her by just standing next to the shy pegasus. Of course, that by itself didn’t frighten her, but after getting rained on in her house when Rainbow washed off Fluttershy’s fake pony pox, and the sound of a thunderclap scared her into the air when she faked a wing injury, the alicorn’s glowing hair that seemed to twitch on its own made her look kind of…menacing.
“W-Well, um…its just…I can’t go out there and fly!” she exclaimed before sinking down to the ground.
Despite some of the books she had read saying that the first step to fixing your problems was to admit them, the shame Fluttershy felt when she, a pegasus, whose life was supposed to practically revolve around flying, actually spoke those words made her want to cry.
“Fluttershy, what’re you talking about?” the alicorn asked before helping the pegasus up and looking at her in the eyes. “I’ve seen you fly plenty of times. You’ll do fine!”
Rainbow’s words of confidence in her abilities didn’t help at all next to the reality of the situation. “Don’t you remember what happened back in flight camp?” Fluttershy asked while some of her worst memories clawed their way up from the depths of her mind. “I couldn’t gallop hard or fly fast.”
“Well yeah,” Rainbow agreed, “you were pretty pathetic back in the day.”
With her friend’s agreement, Fluttershy just felt her whole body want to give out before the tears started to come. Of course Rainbow wasn’t going to argue with her. Princesses had to be honest, right? And the honest truth was that Fluttershy was hardly a pegasus at all! An insult to the entire tribe!
The whole race would just be better off is she put on a cape and spent her whole life covering her wings so that nopony would ever know that there was a pegasus like Fluttershy. She could live in a hole in the ground with that filly Scootaloo. At least until her wings started working better than the ones destiny saw fit to give the shy pegasus, then she’d be making fun of Fluttershy as well, and a new home would have to be found.
It didn’t matter than she’d helped save Equestria from Nightmare Moon!
Discord hadn’t even bothered tricking her when he came around just ‘poof!’ and mean Fluttershy came along.
So what if Rainbow Dash had picked her up and was giving the smaller winged pony a…hug and a nuzzle?
Fluttershy blinked in confusion when she noticed her position. Rainbow Dash was holding the pegasus in her hooves, letting Fluttershy rest in her lap while she cried into the goddesses mane and Rainbow stroked her pink hair. “Rainbow Dash?” she asked before sniffling in some air through her runny nose.
Princess or no, Rainbow Dash was not a hugger. Having her friend act in such a way was a little unsettling. But at the same time… This feels nice, Fluttershy decided as she rested her head on the alicorn’s shoulder.
A few seconds later, Rainbow made Fluttershy pick her head back up and look at her so they could talk face to face. “So, got it out of your system?” the alicorn asked.
When Fluttershy nodded in the affirmative, Rainbow Dash gave her a smile.
“Good,” she said while gently wiping away Fluttershy’s tears with a hoof, then picking up the pegasus to carry her to the full body mirror she had in the corner of her room. After setting Fluttershy down, Rainbow stood next to her and pointed to the mirror. “Now tell me what you see.”
Fluttershy looked in the mirror and let out a whine. “It’s me,” she said. It was the image of a pathetic pegasus who could hardly fly, with red eyes and the worst kind of cutie mark a flying pony could have.
After she tried lowering her head in shame, Rainbow yanked it right back up, and pointed to the mirror before looking back down at Fluttershy. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Adult Fluttershy. Foal-you was a shrimp, with spindly little legs and wings that stopped working when you got all panicked.
“But adult you? Just look at yourself!” Rainbow commanded her with a gentle nudge. “I see an amazing and strong pegasus who can wrestle bears, and fly fast enough to catch up with me of all ponies! So stop remembering the scrawny little foal you were, and start recognizing the beautiful mare that you are.”
Fluttershy blushed at the compliments before looking back into the mirror and seeing…the pegasus who could only teach baby birds how to fly because older ones could outrun her. “I’m sorry Rainbow Dash, I…I just…”
A large foreleg pulled Fluttershy into another hug. “I know that confidence can be hard to come by at all sometimes Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash told her softly. “And believing in yourself when you’ve had problems is hard, but…look…you believe in me, right?”
Thrown off by the question, Fluttershy could only nod. “Yes.”
“And you know I’d never lie to you, right?” she went on.
Fluttershy titled her head, still confused. “Yes?”
Rainbow Dash took to the air and frowned at the shy pegasus. “You don’t exactly sound all that honest yourself there Fluttershy.”
“Oh! I’m sorry,” Fluttershy apologized before taking in a breath. “I know you’d never lie to me Rainbow Dash.” Which was hardly a platitude, the former pegasus had picked up a brutal level of honesty since getting her horn.
The alicorn landed and grabbed Fluttershy’s shoulder. “Good! So if you have problems believing in yourself right now, then believe in me!” Rainbow Dash said as she pulled her hoof away from Fluttershy to pound herself in the chest. “Because I believe in you!”
Fluttershy blushed at the attention, and the faith that the alicorn was showing her. “Rainbow…”
“And it works Fluttershy,” Rainbow said as she lifted the mare’s head to meet her loving gaze. “Because whenever I was scared at flight camp, with all those eyes looking at me, all I had to do was remind myself that you believed in me, and that belief let me know that I could do anything.
“I’m just sorry that it’s taken me so long to see that the pony who lifted me up needed a helping hoof too,” she went on. “Now come on and leave that filly in the past where she belongs, and lets go show everypony the mare that she’s become.”
A tiny spark felt as if it ran through her body, and Fluttershy felt her heart quicken from Rainbow Dash’s words. The terror of performing was still there, but…if her oldest friend thought Fluttershy could do it, then…maybe it wasn’t so hopeless. “Okay,” she breathed out. “I’ll try.”
Rainbow Dash leapt back into the air with a smile. “Great!”
Then, her expression sobered a little as she lowered herself back to the ground. “And I am sorry for not helping you with this sooner Fluttershy,” Rainbow went on. “I remember how you used to do so many amazing things back at camp, like sing the most wonderful songs I’ve ever heard, and I still have that old scarf you knitted for me tucked away in my house. And when I think about how a bunch of bullies made you hide your voice and throw away your needles, it just makes me want to…!”
She took in a deep breath, and let it out through her nose in an angry snort. “Sorry. It’s just makes me want to kick myself when I see the friend who's always support me, never got the help from the mare who should have been giving her the most.”
Fluttershy just gapped at the alicorn’s words. Seeing Rainbow beat herself up like this was terrible! “What are you talking about?” she demanded in a panic. “You’ve always been there for me! I wouldn’t have made it in Ponyville without your help. Rainbow Dash you…you’re the most supportive friend I’ve ever had! And don’t you dare tell yourself otherwise!”
If anything, the fact that Rainbow Dash was here helping her just made Fluttershy feel guilty. “I just hope this doesn’t cut into anything important, like your princess duties.”
Rainbow Dash let out a laugh. “Princess duties…yeah. If you saw what I-oh! Hey there’s an idea! You should come with me when I go to Canterlot tonight!” the alicorn exclaimed. “You can meet my mom, and we can talk about what it was like when we first moved to Ponyville. It’ll be awesome!”
The nonsense Rainbow was spouting threw Fluttershy into confusion again. “Rainbow, your mother has been gone for-wait!” she squeaked as Fluttershy realized just what pony the alicorn was going on about came into her head. “You mean...Princess Celestia?”
“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she looked down at Fluttershy, who was a few trots away from absolute panic, then turned away as she led the pegasus out the door. “Ugh, I talk about you girls so much that she’s probably dying to meet you all. I can’t believe why I didn’t think of this before!” Then she floated back down to the ground and walked a little in front of the. “And I can get Applejack to go next time, I’ve been needing to get that farm pony to do something with me! Rarity will probably want to wear a stupid dress…”
Fluttershy stopped listening to the alicorn as she followed behind her friend and tried not to think how badly her day was going to go when they got to Canterlot…
“You drag my daughter away from her studies for your own selfish, cowardly needs, and DARE to call yourself her friend?” the golden alicorn with eyes as bright as the sun shouted as her hair danced like a wild flame that threatened to consume anything that came too close. “She’s not your friend, she’s your crutch! The pony you drag around to look at butterflies with because you're too scared to do anything on your own! And I’ll make sure she finally sees you for the leech you are!”
All of a sudden, Tornado Day didn’t seem all that scary…in comparison at least.
The murmur of the crowd dragged Twilight attention away from putting the finishing touches on her anemometer to look up and around when Rainbow Dash arrived with Fluttershy next to her and kept up the sky while the pegasus landed. So that’s where she was, the unicorn told herself.
Considering the fact that Rainbow was helping out a friend with something, Twilight decided to forgo the punctuality lecture. Although, she did have to wonder if Fluttershy would be able to overcome her problems in time for Tornado Day.
Cloud Kicker had been afraid the yellow pegasus wouldn’t have been able to fly with all the other pegasi. Rainbow had just thought she needed a little self-esteem. Considering all the other things Twilight had seen Fluttershy do since coming to Ponyville, she sided with the alicorn.
“Hey everypony,” Rainbow said from the air as she moved to address the crowd of gathering pegasi. “Sorry I’m a little late, had to help Fluttershy with a little animal emergency. But now that everypony’s…wait…” She looked around and frowned. “Anypony seen the newbie?”
“I’m right here.”
“No, you’re the plebe,” Rainbow corrected Flash Sentry, getting a frown from the pegasus before she went back to addressing the crowd. “Hasn’t anypony seen Starry Night?”
As the crowd of pegasi shook their heads in the negative, a bit of light on the edge of Twilight’s vision caught her attention, and she looked over to see…the pegasus in question stumbling around as if she had just suffered a jarring landing.
“Apologies, apologies I…” the dark coated pegasus stopped to yawn loudly before moving to work a crick out of her neck. “My work lasted late into the evening.”
“Ooooo late night huh? And still up this early? She must have some stamina, or maybe a quick recovery.”
Twilight looked over to frown at the banging golem, then smacked Cloud Kicker in the shoulder while the pegasus was licking her lips. When Kicker looked over at her to frown, Twilight pointed to her freshly awoken reptile standing nearby. “Keep it under your tail around Spike,” the unicorn ordered.
Luckily, the little guy was still looking through her little checklist to mark off Starry Night’s name and then turn the pages on the notepad she had provided him to get to the part that was meant for writing down the wing power of the pegasi. “Still say the first checklist I a waste of time if we can just write absent on the chart.”
Rainbow gave the dark pegasus a blank look. “Oh, I didn’t see you fly in,” she said before shaking off her stupor. “Okay so… Listen up everypony! If you’re ready to do your run now, I want you lined up inside the inner track for the test. Everypony else, head to the outer track and fly a slow lap to get the blood flowing without tiring yourselves out. Then come and wait. If you feel a tingle in your wings while in line, just hover in place till you’ve worked it out.”
As the ponies separated into groups, the alicorn came by Twilight’s anemometer and gave it a quizzical look. “Is that thing working right?”
Happy to show off her accomplishment, the unicorn nodded and spun the propeller at the exact amount of strength she had calculated to produce 2 wing power. “Yep!” Twilight assured her best friend before drawing Rainbow Dash’s attention to the meter. “See it’s…hmm, two-point-five. I must have put a little too much force into that one.”
“Or your setting are off,” Cloud Kicker interjected, getting a glare from Twilight for daring to insinuate her mathematical calculations were wrong! She had tested it with a pegasus who knew his exact wing power. The anemometer spat it out three times in a row during tests. It was fine!
Rainbow let out a chuckle. “Oh please, Twilight messing up on math is like a sign of the end times,” she assured the pegasus as the unicorn looked away in embarrassment.
Still, Twilight managed to catch Cloud Kicker rolling her eyes at the alicorn’s praise, and that got her another frown from the unicorn before Kicker spoke. “Hey Boss, you know your wing power right? Maybe you should take the first run to um…show everypony how its done? I mean, you’ve got a wing power of sixteen something, right?”
“Um…not anymore,” Rainbow said reluctantly before looking back to her wings and flexing them.
Since she doubted the alicorn cared to elaborate, or even knew everything to talk about, Twilight decided to help her out. “Because wing power is measured by the wake a pegasus creates while flying, Rainbow’s extra size and mass gives her a boost, along with the increased size of her wingspan and alicorn magic that adds to the amount of force she used to generate than when she was a pegasus.” Of course the extra size also meant she needed extra power to get off the ground, so mechanics-wise, it kind of balanced out when it came to power for normal pegasi who were a bit heavier than average. Alicorns…not so much.
“So…it’s not just the whole alicorn thing giving her more speed, but her size that also ups the readings?” Cloud Kicker translated. “But…that would still be good for making a tornado, right?”
Rainbow sighed. “If I could participate, yeah. But…no alicorns, remember?”
Getting the alicorn depressed earned Cloud Kicker another scowl from Twilight. Do you have to remind her about that? Twilight mentally shouted at the light purple pony.
“Well, maybe you could…you know…give us a demonstration,” Cloud Kicker suggested. “To…show all the ponies how its done.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Flash has been doing that all morning Cloud Kicker. The pegasi know how close they’re supposed to fly to the anemometer, and what they’re supposed to do.” He had actually been doing it so long, the poor colt needed to rest in the line that was set up to run the anemometer before moving into the rest of the training Rainbow had scheduled. “Now come on, we’re wasting time.”
Thankfully, Rainbow cut the conversation short and told Cloud Kicker to go monitor the pegasi running laps to make sure they didn’t tire themselves out before she looked back around the field for a minute. Her gaze fell on the larger than average pegasus. “Hey Starry Night! Last one to show up, first one to go up! Let’s see what you’ve got!”
As the crowd of pegasi started to cheer their newest mare, Twilight nodded to Rainbow that she was ready and the alicorn gave Night the go signal by clapping her hooves together at the same time she released a lightning charge. The thunderclap that came from the move made the dark pegasus bolt into action.
Starry Night became a blur that zoomed past the anemometer, and actually had Rainbow holding onto Twilight to keep her from being blown over while Spike took shelter behind the pair of ponies. Although, even the strength of an alicorn was unable to save the unicorn’s mane from the wake over the overgrown pegasus.
“Wow, that was…um, Twilight…what was that?” Rainbow asked.
The unicorn looked down at the meter. Its reading caused her eyes to widen. “Wow! Nineteen-point-five! That’s really impressive Starry Night!” Twilight complemented the pegasus as she landed to the cheers of the crowd.
Rainbow did seem very happy about the reading for some reason. If anything, she looked a bit…disturbed.
A little concerned from the odd look she was giving Night, Twilight looked over to examine the pegasus. It didn’t seem like there was anything wrong with her…besides the oddity that Twilight had picked up on last night. She was just a slightly bigger than average pony with a dark, blackish-blue coat and light blue hair with a…normal cutie mark.
Not seeing what Rainbow Dash was so unnerved about, Twilight looked back up to the alicorn’s face. “Something wrong Rainbow?”
“…it’s um…nothing Twilight,” the alicorn mumbled barely loud enough for the unicorn to hear. Then, she looked back to the line. “Okay, next up!”
It didn’t take a genius to see that there was something indeed wrong, but Twilight decided not to press the issue in front of a crowd. Instead, she sighed at the obvious fact Rainbow was holding something out on her, and motioned for the next flier.
As Raindrops walked up to the start point, Night trotted over to the alicorn with a happy smile on her face, and bags under her eyes. “Is there anything else you need me to do, Captain?”
“Um…no Star,” Rainbow told her in an uneasy tone. “You look like you need a nap or something anyway and…you really don’t need to work out so…take five.”
After Rainbow was done speaking. Starry Night’s face became concerned. “Is there something amiss? Did I do something wrong with the exercise? We… I could try again if you so wish it!”
“No, you um…” Rainbow stopped to take in a deep breath. “You did great! Fastest…Fastest pegasus I’ve ever seen. Happy to have you aboard.”
Although her words didn’t help relieve the look of distress on the pegasus’s face, Starry Night bowed her head to Rainbow, which only made the alicorn more uncomfortable. “Understood Captain.”
Despite the fact that time moved at a constant rate, the morning did seem to go by quicker as things fell into the routine Twilight worked to establish from early on as to improve efficiency. More and more pegasi got their speeds, then met up with Cloud Kicker to be placed in whatever exercise was best. Apparently wings weren’t the only thing that needed to be worked on. Some pegasi needed to work on their flank-based wind drag.
“Okay Fluttershy, you’re up!” Rainbow called out enthusiastically.
Then, her expression changed and she motioned one of the pegasi, a yellow pony with light lime hair that Twilight had only seen flying around Ponyville a few times during the rainy season to come over. “Hey Raindrops, we went to flight camp together, right?” she asked.
Raindrops raised a quizzical eyebrow at the alicorn. “Um…yeah?” she said while turning her head to view Rainbow with only one eye. “So what?”
“And you used to pick on Fluttershy, right?” she got out through gritted teeth.
The pegasus’s eyes widened, and she held up a hoof. “What? Whoa, time out Boss. That was years ago!” she said before her expression turned into a frown. “I’m not the nicest pegasus around, but I don’t pick on other ponies. You know that.”
Rainbow’s expression softened a little, but their was still an edge to her voice when she spoke. “Just making sure. Took me forever into talking Fluttershy into coming out here. It’ll crush her if somepony laughs at her score.”
The unicorn looked over to her friend, and smiled when she saw Rainbow Dash wasn’t looking Twilight’s way. Rainbow’s horn and memories hadn’t been the only thing she had gained since becoming a princess. Twilight was finding layers under the alicorn’s usually hard shell that she didn’t even knew existed all those months ago. It was…well, she didn’t quite know what to call it.
Then, Fluttershy got the signal to begin, and flew as fast as she could along the track at a leisurely pace. At least, until she got towards the end, then…something seemed to distract the pegasus, and she slowed to a floating crawl that barely turned the anemometer.
Twilight looked to the readout of .6, and gulped. Oh…that’s not good.
Then she noticed Raindrops took a look at the speedometer, and gulped. “Whelp…back to doing laps for me!” she said before speeding off.
Rainbow Dash just looked devastated. “Oh no.”
“So, how’d I do?”
A chill ran up Twilight’s spine, and Rainbow didn’t fair much better.
“Tell her,” the alicorn ordered out of the side of her mouth.
“No, you tell her,” the alicorn’s teacher commanded. Sorry Rainbow, but you got the horn and the wings, so you get the hard jobs.
Rainbow Dash gave Twilight a pleading look, then gulped and looked back to the pink-maned pegasus with the yellow coat. “So um…great job Fluttershy! You got a whole point six!”
While the somewhat dirty tactic of fudging the announcement of Fluttershy’s numbers seemed to pay off, Spike spoke up as he wrote down her score. “Wait, did you say point six, as in…less than one?”
Twilight didn’t bother to fight the urge to smack the dragon upside his head, and Spike was forced to chase the quill that slipped out from behind one of his ear-fins. Then, she could only watch as Fluttershy showed all the familiar signs of an onset of panic, and turned to run away.
Rainbow Dash flew up to talk to her, but it didn’t seem to help much because she actually managed to stop the alicorn from chasing after her with a few words and tears.
Then, the alicorn whirled around to zoom back to the middle of the training grounds, and Twilight could feel the air around her become charged with magical energy. Blue skies turned to dark clouds within seconds, and a thunderous boom rattled Twilight’s brain with the sheer force the thunderclap caused. Unfortunately, as loud as that was, Rainbow’s mana-infused voice was even worse as its magic caused the sound to practically swim through her whole body.
“OKAY WHICH ONE OF YOU IDIOTS LAUGHED AT HER?”
As pretty much all the pegasi on the field fell from the sky to cower at the appearance of the irate alicorn, Twilight felt a feather poke her in the shoulder. The wing it belonged to was Cloud Kicker’s. “Sparkle. Please tell me you have some kind of contingency plan for stuff like this.”
“Aside from the usual duck and cover?” Twilight replied before trying to think if she really did have something. But…nothing came to mind. “Nope.”
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I was eagerly awaiting this update
The pacing and grammar seem to be more well done than in the preceding story and I think there is more to Starry Night than being another cover up for Princess Luna
I have to admit, I am kind of glad that you are casting Flash Sentry as a bit of a douche, since I've many others I find him to be a silly romantic interest shoehorned into the atrocity that was EqG.
Great story so far, looking forward to the rest.
Woahh awesome chapter, dude! Really, i love your story
So auto conjecture.....Starry Night is
A. Andromeda
B. Associated with Andromeda
C. Princess Luna
Is this fic dead?
This fic is dead isn't it?
4666376 of course its Luna its simple.
I was uhh....Just wondering, Is this fic ever going to be updated again?
5382446
It better be. If not, LordBrony will have to deal with me. and believe me, angry baby monsters made out of skittles are... Unpleasant to deal with, to say the least.
And hi again, fellow AC conspiracy theorist.
5383573 she could turn into a block of Tungsten
PLEASE MAKE MORE!! I need my fix of awesome pone wordz!
I really like this story so far hope to read more soon
Is this story dead?
I get the distinct feeling that Starry Night is a shape shifting Princess Luna in disguise.
PLEASE!!! THIS STORY CANT BE DEAD!!! TOO MUCH AWESOME!!!
Look, if this story is dead, then put up a 'canceled' or 'hiatus' tag, damnit!
Fluttershy just gapped at the alicorn’s words
best remove that extra p.
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it looks like you stalled because the story became bogged down in daily minutiae and you noticed to many parallels with Winning Pony. The addition of Flankhead Sentry and Definitely-Not-Luna doesn't sufficiently differentiate the tornado arc and with the sudden influx of attention on Cloud Kicker it feels like Dash has less presence in her own story as a result. It's unfortunate: everything prior was good.
I know it's painful, but if and when you come back to this saga, I'd encourage you to scrap most of the close-in details about the tornado preparation (if not the whole thing) to focus on Dash and Twilight and their perspectives, rather than how they appear to others. After all, as readers, we don't need a peek at Cloud Kicker's inner monologue to understand that she's running wingmare interference for RD.
This incarnation of Rainbow Dash has an especially interesting head space to observe: the juxtaposition of her ancient self, her old self, and her current self makes for an unusual and entertaining view of the events we're privy to, and I think you could get a lot more mileage out of her leveraging her past experience to solve current problems than you do now that she's had half a year to accept and integrate them.
On the other hoof, the ever-scintillating Twilight Sparkle is a scholarly dynamo with a bunch of hangups that make attempts to examine her state of mind an adventure in their own right. Her misadventures in education are probably what carried this sequel for me so far.
Oh come on. Incomplete, always right at moment when the separate threads started to come together.
Hear my plea, guardian of lore, be not displeased with my humble request.
Seriously though, your take on alicorn ascension, that is, based on empathy, is incredibly entertaining and makes me want to see twilight ascend, and this is after I rage quit the show over twilycorn, but the ride never ends.
The only thing dreaded about this story is that it might never be finished.
Unless Treehugger makes an appearance; then there will be two things that are dreaded.
7823261 ba-dum tish!
8187090 Once in a while, I manage to make a joke that doesn't fall flat. I might just be slightly funnier than Twilight Sparkle, on a good day. :D
Aww! I just finished the prequel and loved it, then joyously noticed that there was a sequel.......then found it was cancelled :( boo!
I'm guessing that you had your reasons for cancelling this and your other epic stories mean that I can't be mad at you, but I would still love to know how this would have ended.
Poke. Uncancel, please!
POKE!
...I'll have to stop after this, I guess, but I was really enjoying this story.
It's truly disappointing to see this cancelled. I thoroughly enjoyed Not Another Alicorn and was looking forward to seeing the conclusion to the story. Alas, we can't always get what we want.
I was really looking forward to reading this after Not Another Alicorn, so to notice it was cancelled is a hell of a bummer. Is there any chance you might restart it?
Darn. This is cancelled.
Please bring this story back.
6698503
Nah, they meant manic.