The Fluttershy Effect

by banjo2E

Racing in Style

There is a theory put forth in certain circles called the "Butterfly Effect". Put simply, the idea is that a single, seemingly insignificant choice can potentially cause vastly different scenarios to occur. By choosing not to flap its wings, a single butterfly may cause a hurricane to form.

The proponents of this theory, by and large, fail to realize two things. The first thing they do not account for is that a single change can only impact so much; one butterfly might, in theory, create or prevent one hurricane, but it won't prevent the oceanic conditions that propagate hurricanes, and it definitely won't stop Applebuck Season from happening.

The second thing is that, generally speaking, if butterflies really want to change the outcome of an event, they put an entire swarm on the job.

---

That one day at Flight Camp started out just like any other. Rainbow Dash got up early to hit the practice courses as she always did. She'd been pushing the camp records for over a week, and felt confident she'd be able to break them soon.

As she prepared to run the slalom, she heard a certain pair of annoying voices. She looked to the side and saw two colts, one a dark brown and one a lighter tan color, standing in front of a creamy-yellow filly with a pink mane; her friend Fluttershy.

The first voice sounded like it belonged to the brown colt. "Nice going, Klutzershy! They oughtta ground you permanently!"

Rainbow thought she heard Fluttershy mumble something (Fluttershy wasn't easy to hear on the best of days) but the tan colt just laughed. "My baby brother can fly better than you!"

The more Rainbow heard, the angrier she became. Every single day, these jerks would pick on Fluttershy, and as far as she could tell, they just did it for kicks and giggles. She had had enough of this crap.

Rainbow broke off her routine, buzzed the colts' heads, and landed hard in front of her friend. "Okay, I know I've told you to stop bugging Fluttershy. Leave her alone!"

The tan colt snorted. "Ooh, what are you gonna do, Rainbow Crash?"

Rainbow's eyes narrowed. "Keep making fun of her and find out!"

The brown colt smirked. "You think you're such a big shot? Why don't you prove it?"

Well, this was new. They were actually challenging her, instead of backing off or tricking one of the counselors into helping them. "...Whaddya have in mind?"

Brown's smirk widened. He walked over towards the edge of the cloud, and gestured downwards. "Nothing hard, or anything. You just have to beat us in a race through the expert course. If you win, we'll play nice with your little friend here. But if we win..."

"You have to dress like a girl for the rest of camp!" finished Tan.

Brown blinked. "Hey, that's not a bad idea, bro! Well, you gonna race us, Crash? Or are you chicken?"

Rainbow Dash smiled.

---

Word of the race had spread like wildfire amongst the camp's attendees. It seemed as though the entire population of the camp had shown up at the starting line (which, on this course, was also the finish). A few of the braver campers had joined the three contestants in the race; apparently this race was the best opportunity for some unofficial ranking in ages. Fluttershy, oddly enough, was acting as timekeeper, and was sitting on a cloud in front of the line holding the checkered flag. Even Gilda had shown up; she was on the sidelines, surprisingly enough. Being honest with herself, Rainbow felt pretty nervous with all the attention, but refused to show it in front of her opponents.

Rainbow glanced to her left. Noticing her gaze, the tan colt smirked. "You're going down!"

Rainbow laughed. "In history, maybe. I'll see you boys at the finish line!" She looked back at the course just in time to see Fluttershy wave the flag. The race was on.

The first leg of the course wasn't any more difficult than Rainbow's daily practice runs, which meant she would be able to keep track of her opponents without endangering her chances of victory. Looking behind her, she noticed that half of the other racers had already disqualified themselves in one way or another. Brown had managed to get himself halfway stuck in a cloud pillar. Laughing, Rainbow didn't notice the shape coming up beside her until she felt a smack on her flank. "Ow!"

Rainbow whipped her head forward and saw Tan ahead of her, clearing the last few hoops in the first leg. "Later, Rainbow Crash!" he shouted above the wind, flipping her a lazy, sarcastic salute as he dove down.

"Hey!" Rainbow surged forward, blazing through the last few obstacles and turning toward the second half of the course. This was the difficult section; a steep, swift dive through staggered rings with a decent crosswind. Fly too slow, and you'd be blown away by the wind; but if you dove too fast, you'd crash into a ring. If you were really unfortunate or just really dumb, you'd slam into the ground after the last ring, which floated a mere ten meters above the grass.

Fortunately, Rainbow had been focusing on her agility just for this segment. She rocketed through the hoops at top speed, blowing Tan away with her wake. In no time at all, she'd cleared all but the last ring. Rainbow had never felt this great in her life. She felt like she could do anything. She knew she could do anything. It was for this reason she dove at top speed for the last ring. When asked about it later, she swore that not only was she entirely confident that she would have been able to handle a hairpin turn at ten Gs, but that the only things she were aware of were the ring she was aiming for, and a rainbow swirl of colors filling the rest of her vision.

She might have even pulled off that stunt, were it not for the totally unexpected distraction that came entirely out of nowhere.

"...Rainbow Dash?"

Rainbow's head snapped to the side. Somehow, Fluttershy was standing on the ground barely ten meters from that ring, just in front of a patch of trees.

Unfortunately, this minor lapse of attention was enough to utterly ruin her record-breaking dive. For just afterwards, before she could touch that last ring, there was an almighty stretch, and an almighty snap.

---

Rainbow was released from the nurse's office the next day, partly out of her own stubbornness but mostly because the nurse just couldn't find anything physically wrong with her beyond a few bruises. She opened the door outside, exposing the camp's air to the tail end of the nurse's ranting. "...And you'd better believe your parents will be hearing about this, young mare!"

Rainbow sighed. "Yeah, yeah, whatever..." She let the door bang shut, and turned towards the small audience at the foot of the stairs, comprised of Fluttershy and... "Oh, it's you two."

Brown chuckled. "Aww, what's the matter, Crash?"

Tan smirked. "You feel like chickening out on our bet?"

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Look, I lost fair and square, all right? I'll wear the stupid outfit, but I'm picking it, all right? Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some...ugh...princess fillies to talk to."

---

Rainbow didn't really like the lavender blonde. Being obsessed with fashion at the cost of everything else was bad enough, but Cloud Kicker's voice was just so shrill. Rainbow took solace in the fact that at least her voice was better than that. "Oh, I'm so glad you're finally entering the world of fashion! I've been waiting for this day for ages! Here, I've got just the perfect outfit for you!"

Cloud Kicker wasted no time in shoving Rainbow in front of a mirror and grabbing a bunch of random pieces of clothing from a box. Rainbow quickly shut her eyes, wincing as she felt Cloud shoving things onto her body "Hey! Watch the mane!"

Cloud just giggled. "Oh, you don't need to worry about that! I wouldn't dream of ruining a mane with such good colors as yours!" Another giggle. "You can open your eyes now, silly!"

Rainbow slowly opened one of her eyes, then paused. A moment later, both eyes shot wide open at the sight in front of her.

She looked good.

She'd never have believed it if anypony had just told her, but the hat matched her face perfectly and the scarf managed to somehow make her long neck look like a good thing. Indigo and beige weren't bad colors, either.

Several moments passed. Cloud Kicker's image in the mirror fidgeted, then sighed. "...You don't like it, do you."

A moment later, Cloud Kicker let out a strangled yelp as Rainbow tackled her. There was a flash of light, and when it cleared, the first thing Cloud noticed was the freshly rainbow-branded flank in her face.

A bit of shoving and some congratulations later, Rainbow finally got around to saying the words she'd meant to say when she first launched herself at Cloud Kicker.

"I wanna keep these."

---

Amusingly enough, Brown and Tan were struck speechless for a full second before they remembered to laugh at her. That pause pretty much ruined the effect of the taunts they attempted to toss at Rainbow. She just stood there, smiling at them, until they trailed off uncertainly.

"Okay, here's the deal, you two. I actually like this hat, which means I'm wearing it on purpose. That means I won the race, and THAT," she jabbed a hoof in Brown's face, "means YOU," she jabbed it at Tan, "are gonna leave Fluttershy and me alone for the rest of camp. Got it?" When the colts didn't react, she clapped their heads together. "I said, GOT IT?"

The colts nodded quickly. Rainbow smiled, and adjusted her new hat. "Good. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go figure out how to keep hats from coming off while you're flying, and after that I've got some friends to hang with. Smell you later, dweebs."

As Rainbow flew off, Hoops murmured, "...She really is hot, isn't she?"

Dumbbell just nodded.

Comments

[archonix]

Mm, nice start!

[Ponydora Prancypants]

And so Rainbow forever after always dressed in style. I'm very excited about this premise and look forward to reading about the other ponies!

[shooting star hunter]

I thoroughly enjoyed that. More please.

Edit: I just realized that cutie mark is from G3 Rainbow dash.

[TimbukTurnip]

This is looking good so far; you have me intrigued.

[Lapison]

I don't usually read AUs, but this one caught my attention with the Butterfly Effect thing. Continue.

[Pvt PartyPooper]

Oh god, rainbow dash is dressing in style.

The horror, THE HORROR!

[notMurphy]

You.. I...
Great story

I was surprised because I've just started work on a "what if the sonic rainboom hadn't given the mane 6 their cutie marks" story and I find your work.
Lucky for me you're going in a different direction than I'm planning, but I'll go back and make sure there's nothing even inadvertently similar.

This really looks like a great story.
...and congrats on getting it out there first

[Crisslunarflame]

This sounds really cool. I am a little confuggled about the dive, tho. So... she just didnt succeed? Is that the jost of it?

[banjo2E]

1137958

Rainbow got KO'd at this point, so she can't really say much about what happened. Fluttershy's standing right there, however; her perspective might help a bit.

[Crisslunarflame]

1137991 Cool, thanx! Cant wait for the next chapter, I think that this is a cool perspective, and I havent really seen anything like this before! I really like what you did there... The Butterfly effect... heh hah HEH HEH HAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA....

Ok... It wasnt THAT funny... But funny enough.

[DaughterScrewball]

In b4 featured. Which this amazing story undoubtably will be.