• Published 3rd Feb 2019
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A Crafter's Dream (Discontinued) - ruthim345



It'd been years. Years since the war. Steve was the only one left. Everyone else was gone. He lived, he fought. Rinse, repeat. All he wants is a second chance. And now, he'll get his chance.

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A Crafter's Dream Ch. 84: Cloudsdale (Part 3)

Now, without further ado, I present,

A Crafter’s Dream

The group finally entered the Cloudsdale weather factory, all six of the mares wearing white lab coats and hard hats. Steve didn’t wear either, as after the brief scuffle he’d had with factory security, he was finally allowed inside without having to wear them. (Not that any fit him, anyways.)

The door in front of them lifted open, allowing them access inside.

“This is where they make the snowflakes.” Rainbow Dash informed. “Each one of them is hoof-made. As you can see, it’s a delicate operation.”

Rarity, using her much coveted wings, flew up to get a closer look at some of the snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. “Oooh! This one looks even better from up here!” Unbeknownst to the flying unicorn, the flapping of her wings was causing the snowflakes to scatter across the room. Several weather ponies let out cries of anger and irritation as they raced around the room with bowls on their heads, trying to catch the runaway snowflakes.

The Mane Six looked at the chaotic scene with jaws open in shock. Steve, on the other hand, stared with a narrowed, slightly irritated gaze at Rarity.

“We better move on before Rarity ruins winter and causes a drought.” Dash spoke with a worried tone, flinching slightly when one of the snowflakes broke on the ground in front of her.

“No kidding.” Steve muttered. Shaking his head, he followed the group as they made their way past the frantic pegasi and towards the next room. The room in question was large and open, with what looked like a stream of pure rainbow poured from onto several shallow bowls, each one lower than the other. Several pegasi held large spoons that were assumedly used for stirring the strange, multi-colored liquid.

“And here’s where they make the rainbows!” Dash exclaimed. Steve’s gaze snapped from the stream of rainbow to stare incredulously at his friend.

Where they make the rainbows.” Steve quietly repeated, shaking his head. “You know what? I’m not even surprised. Of course you guys make the rainbows. Why wouldn’t you?”

As he was speaking, Pinkie Pie dipped a leg into a nearby rainbow pool before licking a bit of the multi-colored liquid off of her hoof. After a moment, her cheeks bulged out and her face turned a light shade of blue. The next moment, she grimaced, and her face changed shades again, this time a lime green color. After that, her head turned red as a little spurt of fire flew from her mouth. The impromptu one-mare light show ended when her face turned yellow and her jaw hung open.

Finally, she turned back to her normal pink color, gasping slightly.

“S-spiccyyyyyyy.” She whispered loudly before turning and running off.

“...Scratch that.” Steve spoke, chuckling along with Twilight and Applejack. “You don’t just make rainbows. You make spicy rainbows.”

“Well, rainbows aren’t exactly known for their flavor.” Dash responded, shrugging.

“I can see why.”

“Whoa!” Came a voice from the other side of the room. The group looked over to see none other than Rarity fluttering towards them, followed by three pegasi, (Who, for some reason, were walking instead of flying.) The voice was coming from a stocky, brown-furred pegasus, with a cream-colored mane that just barely hung over his blue eyes. “Where didja get those amazing wings? I want a pair!”

Rarity put a hoof to her chin as she thought for a moment before responding. “Hmm. Yeah, I guess I could see that.”

The brown pegasus looked away from the flying unicorn for a moment, his gaze wandering for a moment before locking onto Dash.

“Oh, hey look! It’s Rainbow Crash again!”

“Heeheehee, yeah!” One of the other pegasi agreed. His fur was malpe-colored, and he had a dark brown mane that seemingly covered his eyes. “Rainbow, uh… um.” He stopped, thinking for a moment. “...Crash!!: The pegasus finally yelled, looking quite proud of himself. The last pegasus, a slightly chubby stallion with gray fur and a black mane, gave him a little pat on the back.

‘Rainbow Crash?’ Steve thought to himself, furrowing his brow a bit as Rarity flew off towards the group, leaving the three stallions standing close by.

‘Indeed.’ Onyx spoke. ‘It seems that these three pegasi are familiar with Dash, and that they aren’t too fond of her.’

“Rarity!?” Dash cried. “What are you doing talking to these guys?”

‘Clearly, there’s a bit of bad blood between Dash and these three.’ Steve thought, frowning slightly at the angry look on the prismatic mare’s face.

“Oh, they were just admiring my wings, Rainbow Dash.” Rarity responded, flaring said wings a bit to emphasize her point.

“Yeah.” The brown pegasus spoke. “You should forget the Sonic Rainboom and just get yourself some wings like these!” All three of the pegasi laughed jeeringly at Dash, who simply stood there and took it, eyes downcast. Steve grit his teeth in anger before stomping forward to give them a piece of his mind.

Unfortunately for them, they were too busy laughing to notice the irate Crafter quickly approaching until he’d grabbed the brown pegasus by the collar of his coat and lifted him to eye level.

“Whoa! Wha-?” The words died in his throat as the stallion looked into Steve’s furious gaze. His two friends let out cries of shock before moving towards them, but one look from Steve stopped them in their tracks. After making sure neither of the two pegasi would move, the Crafter trained his gaze back on the stallion in his grasp.

Steve was silent for a few moments before finally speaking.

“What’s your name?” His question seemed to confuse the pegasus, who found it in him to quirk an eyebrow at the Crafter.

“H-huh?”

“What’s your name?”

“Uh, D- Dumbbell.”

“Hmm. Makes sense. Alright then, Dumbbell, let me ask you this. Do you know who I am?”

The stallion nodded.

“So you’ve heard about what I’ve done, and about what I can do?”

Another nod.

“Good. Now, it’s very clear to me that you know Rainbow Dash. But it’s also clear that you probably didn’t know that she is, in fact, my friend.” At this, Dumbbell’s eyes widened in fear. “Ah, I see you’re getting it. However, let me make sure you and your friends understand me correctly.”

D-Pad Up: Sword

Steve threw Dumbbell to the floor before withdrawing his sword and stabbing it into the ground next to him.

“Leave her alone, or I will pluck every feather from your wings and stuff them down your throat. Capisce?”

All three of the stallions hurriedly nodded.

“Uh, y-yeah, we got it.” Dumbbell replied, stuttering a bit.

“Good. Now get the fuck out.”

Without another word, all three of them flew off.

D-Pad Up: Sword

Steve waited until they’d left his sight before nodding to himself and sheathing his blade.

“Assholes.” He muttered, shaking his head. Turning around, he saw that the rest of the group looked at him with shocked expressions. He quirked a brow. “What?”

“Steve, you can’t just threaten somepony like that!” Twilight admonished.

“And what would you rather I’d have done? Steve inquired, one eyebrow raised. “Just sit there and listen to those morons talk shit to Rainbow like you guys?” The rest of the group flinched slightly at Steve’s words. “Besides, I know a bully when I see one. All you gotta do is show that you won’t put up with their shit, and they’ll leave you alone.” Steve thought for a moment. “Well, most of the time.” He shrugged. “Regardless, I’ve never been one to sit and do nothing, so if I see a problem of some kind, at the very least one I can help with, I’ll take action. No one ever got anywhere by doing nothing.”

“True dat!” A random voice yelled. Steve pointed in the direction the shout had come from, though he kept his gaze trained on the mares in front of him.

“See. He gets it.” He narrowed his brows in confusion before looking in the direction he was pointing. “Whoever he is.” Sighing, Steve shook his head as he dropped his arm back down to his side. “Look, I understand that ponies as a whole are kinda adverse to threats and violence, what happened to me notwithstanding. However, as you can probably tell, I’m not like you guys.”

Twilight sighed. “Yes, Steve we know you’re not a pony. However, just because you aren’t one doesn’t mean you have to threaten everypony who slights you in some way. Equestria hasn’t become the nation it has because it fought and defeated other nations, though it has happened a few times. It did so by fostering peace, so that every pony and creature could live in harmony with one another.”

“And that’s all well and good. Honestly, the fact that you guys could talk things over with other nations without coming to blows is awesome. But as you can see, having such a peace as yours doesn’t stop people from being assholes. From my experience, the only thing that puts a stop to people who have nothing better to do than to put others down is a swift kick in the ass. Now sure, talking things out might be the better option, all things considered, but personally, I like to go with what works.”

Twilight huffed, tone sounding mildly irritated. “Steve, I suppose I can understand where you are coming from. Still, violence isn’t the answer.”

“No.” Steve responded, kneeling down slightly so he was at eye level with the mare. “It’s not. Violence is a question. And sometimes, the answer is yes, Twilight. Sometimes it has to be yes. Because sometimes, you don’t get a choice.”

The Crafter kneeled there for a few moments, his hard gaze slightly unfocused, as if he was looking past the mare instead of at her. After a few moments, he blinked a few times and shook his head before standing back up.

“Sorry.” He muttered, turning his back towards the group. He started to walk away, but hesitated for a moment before turning to meet Twilight’s gaze. “Admittedly, I may have been too harsh on them, but, I just, it just pisses me off, you know? I fought so hard and so long for peace, and ended up losing everything as a result. Meanwhile they’ve been living their whole lives in peace, and yet they still choose to be assholes. Just, pisses me off.” He sighed, his brow furrowed in irritation. “Look, we can argue about this all we want when we get back to Ponyville. For right now, can we just agree to disagree and continue? I’m sure Dash still has some stuff for us to see.” Steve glanced over the prismatic mare, who hesitated for a few moments before nodding.

“U-uh, yeah, totally.” She replied, a small, somewhat forced smile making its way onto her face. “You guys still haven’t seen how they make the clouds yet. Come on.” She began walking away, the rest of the group following close behind.

* * * * *

Steve repressed the urge to roll his eyes, trying his best to ignore all of the ponies fawning over Rarity's wings nearby, their jobs making clouds momentarily forgotten.

“Oh, these old things?” She inquired, showing off her wings. Her words made Steve want to hurl, like he’d just eaten some rotten flesh. “Go ahead everypony. Photos are encouraged.”

Fluttershy, Twilight and Applejack stood nearby, glaring at their boastful friend for a moment before glancing at Dash, Steve doing the same. The prismatic mare looked at the gathered pegasi with a look of disbelief on her face.

Twilight started towards the flying unicorn, but Steve got there first.

“Rarity, what the Nether are you doing?” He asked, expression hard as stone. “I was under the impression you came here to help Rainbow Dash in the race and so far, that’s the exact opposite of what you’ve been doing. Just put the damn wings away.”

Rarity scoffed, brushing off the Crafter’s words as she flew upwards a short distance with a few flaps of her wings. “How could you possibly ask me to put away perfection, you who can’t seem to even appreciate their beauty in the first place.” She flared her wings, the light from the sun shining down through them onto the ponies and Crafter below. Many of the ponies cheered with glee, while Steve, Twilight and Applejack did not. Rarity looked down at the cheering ponies before letting out a gleeful laugh.

“Hahahaha!”

Twilight turned to look at Dash, who was laying on the floor with her head in her forehooves.

“Dash, are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

“O-of course! Why wouldn’t I be okay?” She looked away and scowled. “Everyone’s so in love with Rarity’s wings that they won’t even notice when I totally blow it in the Best Young Flyers Competition.”

A random pegasus mare with light-purple fur and a pink mane gasped. “There’s an idea! You should enter the competition!”

“Yeah!” A rather old, white mare exclaimed. “I could watch you fly all day long!!”

Steve grit his teeth, shaking his head slightly. ‘No. Don’t do it Rarity. Please, don’t do it.’

The unicorn mare thought for a second before responding. “Well, there really isn’t anypony who uses their wings quite like me.” She said, putting a hoof to her chest. “Perhaps I should compete.”

“What!?” Dash cried out, jumping to her hooves. Steve scowled angrily. Rarity began to flutter off, leaving the rest of the group in her wake as all of the pegasi workers followed after her.

Dash looked at the unicorn for a few moments before looking around frantically at her friends. “Girls, what am I gonna do?!”

“...Leave it to me.” Steve quietly responded. All five of the mares glanced at him before taking a step back at the furious gaze on his face.

“Steve?” Rainbow Dash asked, slowly approaching him.

“Let me take care of it.” With that, he began walking away, moving towards the large group of pegasi that were following Rarity.

“Wait, Steve!” Dash called after him, causing him to stop in his tracks. “Look, I know that she’s been bragging a lot, and stuff, but she’s my friend! Don’t-!”

“Really?” Steve interrupted, stopping for a moment to glance back at the mare. “She came here with the purpose of helping you out. However, she hasn’t helped you at all. All she’s done is brag about those stupid wings, and ignore you guys completely. In fact, she’s gone so far as to race in the very same race that she knows is very, very important to you. Maybe it’s just me, maybe my views on friendship are skewed a bit, but she doesn’t sound like a very good friend, does she?”

Steve walked away.

Author's Note:

Ugh! I hate authoring conversations. They really aren't my forte.

Still, least I managed to get a half-way decent chapter out!

Thank you all for reading and be sure to let me know what you all think in the comments.

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