Sufficient wings

by ConsciousHaze196

Beginning

It was evening time in the city of Readish. Far above the center of the city, on one of the Sun Slot towers that lit the realm of Ordiane with extremely powerful magical illuminators, now less bright as night time was approaching, between the Slot itself where the lamps were, and the upper mirror reflecting the light back toward the ground, a pony named Rainbow Head was lying on metal ledge stretching around the tower. Clouds were not high up that day and passed below the Slot. The pony was white according to the color of her head, which was shaved from thick brown fur resembling that of a monkey, black on back of her head and tail, that was covering her. Her wings looked like those of an average griffon's. Beside her, two bags were attached to the tower with a hook.

The pony was looking to the side, where the completely unlit areas outside the city border, stood invisible, making the only areas missing city lights that annoyed Rainbow Head. She knew nothing about that dark madness except that there were some mountains that made the curious return. Neither pegasi watching the cloud layer from hanging rooms below, nor pegasi workers flying between factory buildings and the like, worried her as nopony else would see or reach the place where she was.

Occassionally, she would grab the bag and pick a pack of food, usually struggling to eat it with her thick fangs. Living in shadows of tower's framework, she needed nothing else until, once a week, she descended at night when no pieces of the artificial sun were working, to replenish her supplies. Or when she was on mission from ponies who supported her. They were all rather bat ponies.

But one day, after waking up in her usual place, she felt unusual, and found blue feathered stumps growing from her head in front of her ears.

"What in Fourier's name is this? By Euler, this is strange... And it's almost morning. I need to descend until crowds begin to gather in there," - she thought, tied the bags to herself and dove down towards the streets, shaking to wash herself when she passed the cloud.

Then, she arrived to a flat roof of one big building in a usual district with dull alleyways ending with spiky fences, like most others looked like, too.

She opened the roof door and went inside, as usual. Eventually, she met two pegasi she knew near the stairs, Hehehaha and Burp. Not expecting her visit, they got scared that they got in her way, which always led to a short fight. Then they saw her new wings, and one almost laughed. She kicked him in the chest.

"Eat a parallelogram," - she roared. "It's not your business." - she added quieter as they ran away.

She silently went further down, knocking on a specific door and heard low buzz triggering after she knocked. A minute later, a voice rang, "Is that you?"

"Bubble tumbleweed," - Rainbow said sourly.

"Did something happen?" - purple bat pony with ringing, vibrating voice, Cathode Charge, asked, opening the door without worry.

She came in, raising and dropping the odd wings.

"Holy squares, Rainbow, what is that?" - another pony, Awesumbra, blue with red stripes across her face, continuing on her mane, said, expecting trouble with Rainbow and not something this shocking, from her friend's words.

"I wouldn't know, I didn't do this to myself," - growled Rainbow. "They must have appeared while I was sleeping. I hope you had an answer, because I don't know, and would like to have it."

"I promise you I didn't see this anywhere before," - Awesumbra spoke, walking around the room, "not that we see much, we live in the darkness. You live near the Sun. You likely know more. I don't say I can't help, though" - she added, "we could perform a flight to our food source, together, tomorrow night. Do you still have enough?"

"I do." - werepony interrupted. "Do you plan telling me where that is? Not that I wonder, I just have a slight presentiment that it's in Concrete Entertainment's parks."

"Then I would like to know what supernatural trick did you use to guess? Is it the same magic that gave you the crest? Wreath thing?" - Awesumbra grew agitated.

"A gossip from a year ago, where you were seen performing a horror show in there. Your team did never do such loud things without reason."

"That was loud?" - Charge noted, "We just wrecked two unused buildings. Compared to the trick on Braying Mare Street, where we spooked ponies for months to leave us alone and the area is still quarantined for 'banshee moles' - now that was loud".

"Hm, I don't want to know until later." - Rainbow tried to make gestures with blue wings, which were developed completely by now. "I feel that these can just turn their reaction to laugh. And I'm not a comedian. I'll make them pay if they do."

Charge went to gather backpacks. "Harsh. You're too gloomy, and could make it an opportunity."

"To what?"- the beast said, "to become a pegasus? Don't make me laugh. I could cry here with just the same likelihood. Of never."

"We're a community," - Awesumbra said deviously, "devoted to survival of our species. You help us by surviving, to that we'll help you with the shadows, but if it turns out you're a special pony, which you are - just look at yourself," - she placed a whole banana in her mouth, "you could help-"

"Eat a glacier!" - Rainbow said. "We have a troublem! If you think this will help turn us all into... them?! You can't be serious!"

"Let's go already. Investigating why you look ridiculous, nevermind your screaming." - Awesumbra picked a scary pitchfork with her horn and went outside.

"I could swear by Discordiane you look like a chosen one," - Charge exited, leaving Rainbow alone with small candles and shady black cloaks lying around.

"Roar..." - Rainbow growled quietly. She picked a large cloak and a teacher's pointer as a weapon, and went out, leaving the door open.