The Incredibly Embarrassing Parents of Rainbow Dash

by Ponibius

In Which Rainbow Dash Doesn’t Fight a Hydra (Or I Hope I Never Have to Type Cool or Awesome Ever Again)

The Incredibly Embarrassing Parents of Rainbow Dash

Chapter 4: In Which Rainbow Dash Doesn’t Fight a Hydra (Or I Hope I Never Have to Type Cool or Awesome Ever Again)

Pinkie escorted me out of her weird banging room thing the same way she brought me there—with more questions than answers. She ran off to keep preparing for her crazy party, leaving me alone to figure out what I wanted to do next. That left me flying around Ponyville trying to find my parents, or really, anypony I knew. Both of those things sounded a lot easier than they were, as the town was more crowded than I had ever seen it. I really had no idea how I was supposed to find my parents in this mess.

Just as bad, I was in a very pink, very frilly, very frou-frou dress that everypony could see me in. I considered just dumping the monstrosity somewhere, but then I would have to explain to Rarity, Cool-Mom, and Pinkie what I had done with it. I could give them a story about how I had wrestled a hydra to save Ponyville and the dress had been tragically destroyed in the process, but I’m a terrible liar. Though looking at how much I was tearing up the dress with my awesome flying, it wouldn’t be much longer before everypony would buy that I had wrestled something big and nasty.

After flying around a bit and failing to find my parents in the streets, I decided that the best place to go was Carousel Boutique, considering that was the last place I’d seen them. I was on my way there when I heard somepony yelling my way. “Hey, Rainbow Dash!”

I looked around until I spotted a familiar grey mare with a smaller grey filly on her back. Both of them were waving at me. “Hi, Derpy, Dinky!” I called out, flying over the two of them. I could put off giving the dress back to Rarity for a little bit. Not that I was worried about Rarity yelling at me, but I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. Talking to the Doos was always fun anyways.

“So, what are you up to?” Derpy motioned up and down along my body to point out my dress. “You know, with that geddup?” She gave me a pretty evil smirk. I could tell she was getting ready to launch a salvo of teases my way.

“Oooh, pritty!” Dinky gave me that look of childish, wide-eyed amazement. “I rilly like your dress!”

Aaand there's one of the few ponies whose opinion mattered. I mean, really, really mattered. Not that anypony's really didn't, 'cuz I'm me, but ... well, Dinky is a pretty cool, adorable little kiddo in her own right. She’s one of those ponies who can dress me up in tail-bows and a sunhat and still make me look cool. The fact that she's also my goddaughter has nothing to do with that.

Totally. Honest. For serious.

“Err,” I rubbed the back of my neck. “It’s for the party ... Pinkie likes it.”

Derpy cocked an eyebrow at me. “Being a bit hard on it, don’t ya think?” She reached down to the skirt of the dress to show me where I had managed to create a good-sized tear. “When did you get this?”

“Earlier today,” I said defensively. “I’m just breaking it in.”

Derpy scoffed. “I’ll admit you’ve done a good job at that.”

“I think you look pritty in it!” Dinky reached out to stroke the fabric.

I found myself softening a bit. “Yeah, but I would prefer the word ‘awesome.’”

“You can be pritty and awesome at the same time,” Dinky offered happily. It was hard to argue with her child-like logic. Her smile could melt a glacier. “Though you should take better care of your things. Mommy gets all mad if I start playing in the mud when I wear a dress.”

I crossed my forelegs over my chest. “Well, Rarity should have made it a bit tougher if she didn’t want me to mess it all up. She knows I’m always flying around and doing sick stunts.”

Derpy gave me a playful poke to the chest. “In a dress?”

Okay, so maybe my logic for this wasn’t holding up. Like I said, I’m a bad liar. “Whatever.” I waved a hoof to dismiss the subject. I really wasn’t going to hear the end of this dress as long I was wearing it. I decided just to change topics to something that wasn’t going to give everypony ribbing material for the next few years. “So, what’re you two up to?”

Dinky lifted up a rainbow-colored wig and placed it on her head. Had to say, she did look pretty cute and awesome in it. “We’re goin’ to the Rainbow Dash Fanclub meeting!”

Ah, yes, my fanclub. It was pretty cool to have a group of ponies admire how radical I was. I always liked the looks on their faces when I did a bunch of sick tricks for them. Being naturally awesome was one thing, but being awesome with an audience was way cooler. I puffed out my chest. “Oh yeah? What’re you all going to be meeting about this time?”

“Scootaloo called for an emergency meeting.” Dinky straightened her wig. It took a bit of work, considering she had put it on backwards first. “She said your parents were in town, an' they were gonna come over an' tell us how cool you are!”

I couldn’t help but wince at that news. “Oh, did she?” It could only be a complete disaster if my parents told my fans every embarrassing story they could, and my parents would. Dear Celestia, they would. I’d be lucky if my own fans didn’t start calling themselves the ‘Let’s Laugh At Rainbow Dash Fanclub.’

Dinky smiled and nodded enthusiastically. “Yah-huh! I’m really lookin’ forward to meeting your parents! Mommy says they’re great ponies.”

Before I could think how to reply to that, Derpy hovered closer to me. “Hey, Dash. Would you mind taking Dinky to the meeting and staying with her? I want to find Sparkler in this big old mess—” Derpy pointed down at the mass of ponies that now clogged Ponyville’s streets “—before it gets even crazier. It looks like Pinkie has really outdone herself this time.”

I chewed that one over. On one hoof, I wasn’t wild about the idea of taking Dinky to a meeting where my parents were no doubt going to do everything in their power to destroy my reputation. I could probably offer to just take her to someplace for ice cream or something, though that would be a hard pitch. On the other, Derpy was giving me a smile that was one part hope that I would help her and one part expectation I would do the whole godmom thing.

Derpy had met my parents about seven years ago, a little before Dinky was born, but Dinky hadn’t met my parents. That did sound kinda lame to me as I thought about it, especially when I looked into Dinks’ big, round eyes as she smiled at me expectantly. I decided to bite the bullet and go with the option that would at least let me to do some damage control. Hopefully this wouldn’t ruin my rep with my goddaughter.

I gave Derpy and Dinky what I hoped was a confident smile. “Sure, I can take over with the kiddo.” I reached out and carefully picked Dinky up, placing her on my back. “All aboard the Awesome-Train.”

Dinky wrapped her hooves around my neck. “Yay! Let’s go rilly fast, okay? I like to see the ground zoom by.”

Derpy gave me a firm stare and slight shake of her head that promised doom by way of maiming, killing, burning, and destroying if I went as fast as I could with Dinky riding. I winked at her and then craned my neck to smirk at Dinky. “This is me we’re talking ‘bout—you know we’re going to get there in record time.”

Dinky gave me a big, happy grin. “Because you’re cool, an’ awesome, an’ radical, an’ everything, right!”

“You know it.” I gave her a noogie, making her giggle and reach up to keep her wig from falling off.

“Just be careful, you two.” Derpy gave me a stern look. “Keep an eye on her, okay?”

I waved off Derpy’s worries. “Don’t worry, I got this covered. Go ahead and find Sparky before Pinks gets her crazy party started.” I tried not to think too hard about what Pinkie might be planning with her party for my parents. Especially with Awesomom driving her on like she had been. One reputation-destroying crisis at a time.

Derpy put on one of her patented bubbly smiles. “Okay then! You two have fun.”

I saluted and flew off towards the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ tree house and to whatever doom awaited me there.

***

I flew as quickly as I felt was safe with a passenger on my back—which by most ponies’ standards is really quick, though it was pretty casual by mine. Such are the sacrifices of being an awesome godmom. At least Dinky enjoyed the trip as we sped along and I did the occasional (safe) trick to make the journey more fun. My aerial stunts might have given Derpy a heart attack, but I knew what I was doing.

We quickly reached the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ headquarters and, much as I feared would be happening, I heard laughter inside.

Dinky pointed at the tree house. “Hurry up, we’re gonna be late.”

“Hey, you always show up just in time when you’re flying with me.” I hoped that really was the case here. My parents did have the ability to go from zero to humiliating in ten seconds flat. If I didn’t know better, I would say it’s their special talent.

I landed at the entrance of the treehouse. Looking inside, I saw that Scootaloo had dragged out all the ‘me’ posters, plushies, and other stuff she usually had out for the Rainbow Dash Fanclub meetings. I had to admit that it was kinda impressive how much ‘me’ stuff she had managed to collect. The dozen or so fans of mine wearing rainbow colored wigs were testaments to that.

“Rainbow Dash!” I heard the familiar voice of my number one fan yell when I stepped inside the treehouse. Scootaloo pushed her way through her fellow club members and stopped in front of me. “You came to the meeting!”

I stood up straighter and gave a confident smirk. “You know I’ll always make some time for my fans.”

“Well yeah,” she said as though that were the most obvious thing in the world. I saw her look me over. “Um, not that it isn’t cool when you do it, but why’re you wearing—” she pointed at the tattered dress I was wearing, “—that?”

I felt some of the confidence in my stance slowly deflate. Great, no way Scootaloo was going to be able to unsee me in the frilliest thing Rarity could imagine. I sighed. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just ... holding onto it for Rarity until I see her next.”

“Oookay then,” Scootaloo said, her frown seemed to say that she wasn’t exactly convinced by my excuse. “Then why don’t you have it in a bag instead of wearing it?”

Naturally telling her it was because I had a whatever-Twilight-called-it-complex and had panicked when I found out would be totally uncool, so I couldn’t tell my number one fan that. “For reasons,” my sharp wit came up with.

“Uh-huh.” Scootaloo stared at me for a few, long moments before shaking her head and went back to smiling. “Anyways, I wasn’t sure you were coming because I couldn’t find you in time to tell you about the emergency meeting.”

Cool-Mom managed to work her way through the small crowd to me and Scootaloo. “Yes, I’m afraid I managed to confuse this poor darling.” She gave Scootaloo a friendly pat on the head. “She nearly went into a panic when she saw that I didn’t have wings. Another case of mistaken identity, I’m sorry to say.”

“I wasn’t panicking,” Scootaloo protested. “It’s just you really look like Rainbow Dash. You know, minus the wings ... and you’re a lot older.”

Cool-Mom coughed, and her smile grew strained. “Darling, this is something you will understand better when you get older, but it’s not polite to comment about a lady’s age.”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever. But that’s not what’s important.” She looked at me and beamed excitedly. “I just found out your parents are in town, that’s so cool. One of your moms looks just like you, and your other mom was giving everypony a bunch of cookies and stuff, and now she’s doing all sorts of awesome magic tricks for us.”

I looked up over the other ponies in the treehouse to see Awesomom doing what I guessed was her stage magician routine, given she was pulling a bit out from behind one of my fans—a lanky colt named Snails, I think. She knew a bunch of sleight-of-hoof tricks in addition to using some of her novelty items from her shop back in Cloudsdale. She was always happy to show off a few tricks to make everypony happy, especially kids. With a few balloon animals and a couple coin tricks, she could have a whole room of children wrapped around her hoof.

I internally breathed a sigh of relief as I watched Awesomom tying up a few balloons together to create a draconequus. It looked like everypony was laughing at Awesomom’s antics rather than at me—thus far. I might just be able to make it out of this meeting of my fans without being utterly humiliated.

“Yeah, Awesomom’s pretty good at that type of thing,” I told Scootaloo.

I felt Dinky stand up on my back. I guessed that my passenger was getting a bit impatient to meet my parents. “I got somepony I’d like you to meet, Cool-Mom.”

Dinky put her forelegs on my head to stand up even higher. “Hi, my name’s Dinky Doo! Rainbow Dash is my godmom! Um...” She scrunched up her face in concentration. “I guess that makes you my godgrandmom? Yay, I have more grandparents!”

Cool-Mom walked up to Dinky and gave her a warm nuzzle to the face. “D’aw, aren’t you the most adorable little thing?”

Dinky giggled as Cool-Mom nuzzled her. “Can I get a hug?”

Cool-Mom chuckled. “I don’t see why n—” She was cut off when Dinky leaped off my back and hit the ground with an admittedly cool roll (that I probably taught her at some point), then nuzzled Cool-Mom as she wrapped her forelegs around her neck. My mom staggered a bit from the extra weight that had latched onto her but regained her balance. “Well, aren’t you an enthusiastic little hugger?”

I gave Dinky a light noogie. “She’s pretty hugariffic.”

Cool-Mom sat down so that she could properly hug Dinky back. “You know, your mom and I always have wanted at least one grandfoal.” She gave me a rather pointed look.

“Um, yeah.” I avoided direct eye contact with her. I get a fillyfriend and suddenly talk of having a foal comes up. That on top of my talk with Pinkie earlier about banging. Ugh, this was getting way too complicated way too fast.

Cool-Mom affectionately ran her hoof through Dinky’s mane. “Yes, she’s just like how you were as a little filly. You were always walking around enthusiastically giving other ponies hugs.”

I flinched when she mentioned how I may or may not have been a bit like Dinky at her age. “Gah, Cool-Mom!”

Cool-Mom closed her eyes and seemed to concentrate on enjoying the hug from her grand goddaughter. “Oh hush, you always were a passionate pony. Nothing wrong with hugging somepony you care about. Isn’t that right, Dinky?”

“Yah-huh.” Dinky nuzzled Cool-Mom’s neck. “I’ve rilly, rilly, rilly wanted to meet you.”

“And I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” Cool-Mom craned her head Awesomom’s way. “Surprise, come over here and see your godgranddaughter.”

Awesomom leaped over the other ponies to land next to Dinky and Cool-Mom. “Dinky, is that you? Come here and hug your godgrandmother-thingy.” She pulled Dinky and squeezed Dinky with enough force to make her squeal.

“I need to breathe,” Dinky wheezed. I guessed Awesomom was too much of a hugger even for Dinky. That was a first.

Awesomom relaxed some of the pressure of her hug. “Oops. Sorry.” She chuckled apologetically. “I was just so happy to finally see you! You weren’t even born when we last saw you—you were just a big bump in your mommy’s belly.” She tickled Dinky’s stomach, and my goddaughter let out a high-pitched squeal of delight.

Dinky covered her belly from Awesomom’s tickling assault. “So if Rainbow calls you Awesomom an’ Cool-Mom, can I call you two GrandAwesomom an’ GrandCool-Mom?”

Cool-Mom let out a short, snorted laugh. “I don’t see why not.”

“Only if we get to spoil you like a grandchild.” Awesomom blew a raspberry into Dinky’s stomach, making her laugh even more.

Dinky curled up to try and keep Awesomom from tickling her quite so easily. She looked up at Awesomom and smiled widely. “Does that mean I can get presents from you too?” And there’s Dinky trying to use her cuteness and adorability to extort more presents out of ponies.

Awesomom shook with a big old belly laugh at Dinky’s extortion. “Is that the angle you’re playing?” She leaned in to place her face only a couple of inches from Dinky’s and gave her a stern look. “You know, someday, you’re going to get older, and you’re not going to be able to use that cuteness of yours to get everything you want anymore.” Her sternness disappeared when she smiled a wicked grin. “But that’s not today!” She tossed Dinky into air and caught her when she fell back down.

Dinky laughed and hugged Awesomom. “So that means I will be gettin’ presents?”

A light-hearted chuckled escaped Cool-Mom’s lips. “I don’t see why we can’t find something for you and Sparkler for your birthdays and Hearths Warming Eve.”

Dinky spun around to give Cool-Mom another hug. “Yay! I love you both.” Dinks once again proved that she was a manipulative little ball of huggable cuteness. Celestia and Luna help us all if Dinky ever learned how to use her adorableness for evil. That might very well put Discord and Nightmare Moon to shame with the mischief she could get into.

Cool-Mom lovingly nuzzled Dinky’s face. “We love you too. As I already said, Surprise and I already wanted a grandfoal to cherish.”

I saw Awesomom leaned in to my side to whisper into my ear. “In case your mom’s subtlety isn’t getting through to you, she’s saying she wants you and Pinkie to do the business and make us a grandfoal.”

“Gah! Awesomom!” I jerked away from her.

Awesomom’s mouth curved into a huge smile. “Or you could adopt; we aren’t picky. As long as we get to spoil the kid rotten. That’s all we care about.”

A irritated growl worked its way into my voice. “Could you at least leave that type of thing for when we’re in private?”

“Well yes, I was hoping you two would do that type of thing in private.” Awesomom gave a serious nod. “Don’t want to get arrested by the Guard for public indecency.” I wondered if Awesomom and I even talked on the same wavelengths sometimes.

I was trying to think how to respond when Scootaloo stepped up. “So, Rainbow Dash,” she said, with all the grace and subtlety a child trying to work her way into an adult conversation could bring to bear. Which is to say, none at all. “Isn’t it cool that I managed to get your parents to come to a meeting?” Her strained smile made it pretty obvious that she was trying to get my approval once again. It wouldn’t be the first time she tried that.

I smiled while gritting my teeth. “Yeah, ‘cool,’ that’s the word.” I didn’t want to put down Scoots when she didn’t realize the potential disaster to my reputation she had set up. No way she could’ve known I had the most embarrassing parents ever. “Good job finding my folks.”

Scootaloo hopped in place, her wings buzzing furiously. “Yeah, I can’t wait for them to get around telling everypony the awesome stories they have of when you were a filly. They said they had a bunch of great stories and even a couple photo albums to show everypony.”

Gulp.

“D’aw, isn’t that adorable?” Cool-Mom said, passing Dinky the Huggable back to Awesomom. “I can tell already she’s grown quite attached to you. She just couldn’t stop talking about how great you were the entire way here. She’s almost like a little sister to you.” That comment caused Scootaloo to smile up at me.

Yes, Cool-Mom. Make my relationship with Scootaloo more awkward, why don’t you? Even I could tell that comment lit up a fire behind the squirt’s eyes. It’s not like I didn’t like the kid or anything, I did kinda like Scoots, but I don’t know. Kids aren’t really my thing.

I ruffled Scoot’s wig in a—dare I say it—sisterly manner. “Yeah, Scootaloo is my number one fan after all.” What else could I say? I didn’t want to put down Scootaloo or come across as a big jerk to my parents. I was being boxed into a weird place between ponies thinking I should treat Scootaloo more like a sister and my parents’ oncoming humiliations.

“It would be so cool to be your little sister,” Scootaloo said. “Then we could do all sorts of cool things together.” I could just hear the gears turning in her head.

“Yeah, maybe we can look into doing something together later,” I said before I really thought it through. I wasn’t really sure what else to say.

Cool-Mom ran a hoof through the wig to straighten it. “I really do adore these darling wigs. You never mentioned them in your letters to us.”

Scootaloo proudly patting at her wig. “Rarity was totally cool about helping us get a bunch of them.”

Dinky let go of Awesomom to walk over and join the conversation. “Yeah, they make us look just like Rainbow Dash. And that makes us cool, right?”

I could only say one thing to all the bright and cheerful faces looking at me. “Yeah, you all look way cool wearing those.”

“But not quite as cool as my full-body Rainbow Dash suit.” Awesomom reached back behind her neck and pulled down on a zipper, revealing a costume that looked so much like me that I got creeped out looking at it. She was even wearing an exact copy of the dress I was wearing, wear and tear and all. I felt my jaw drop and all I could do was stare at the not-me facing me. I think she had finally done it; she had finally broken my brain. It had taken a lifetime of work on her part, but she had finally done my brainmatter in.

Dinky looked back and forth between me and Cool-Mom. “Oooh, you look just like her.”

Awesomom puffed out her chest and stood confidently. “Oh yeah, don’t I look super cool, awesome, and radical?” she asked in a pretty convincing copy of my voice. My voice didn’t sound that raspy, did it?

Scootaloo ran around Awesomom to look at the suit. “That’s ... so ... awesome! Can I get one?”

“Oh, oooh!” Dinky started energetically jumping up and down. “Can I get one too!”

“Wait, what, huh?” my mouth stumbled out. My brain hadn’t exactly sorted out the clone I was looking at. Okay, I didn’t like where this was going as I watched one pony after another say they wanted one of the creepy suits also. The idea of a bunch of ponies walking around in one of Awesomom’s me-suits was just way too creepy.

“Hm.” Awesomom rubbed her chin as she considered. “I guess I could make more to sell. Though it might be a bit hard to make look convincing if you have that—” she gave a gentle prod to Dinky’s horn, “—poking out your forehead.”

Dinky looked dejected for a moment as she frowned before she grinned again. “Oh, can I just have a alicorn Rainbow Dash suit instead! That would be really cool, right?”

“What? You can’t just do that, the original is way cooler,” Scootaloo objected. “You can’t improve on perfection.”

Dinky stomped one of her hooves. Admittedly, she was cute even when she was trying to be angry. Though it did make it kinda hard to take her being mad seriously. “Nuh-uh, new alicorn Dash would be cooler.”

“I think an earth pony Rainbow Dash would be pretty radical,” I heard a third me from behind me. I span around and saw another pony who looked just like me, worn in dress and all, though minus the wings. I jumped in surprise. But only a little bit, I’m too cool to be surprised too much.

“Pinkie, is that you?” I asked, a little bit more of a growl in my voice then I’d intended.

Pinkie smiled hopped up and down. It was really odd to see myself so ... perky. “Yepper-deppers, how did you know?”

I rolled my eyes. “Because you’re you. You’re pretty much the first pony I would guess would do something like this. Maybe after her.” I pointed at Awesomom.

Pinkie rubbed her chin and did a thoughtful hum. “Yeah, I guess I am pretty crazy, aren’t I?”

I sighed. “That’s putting it mildly. So would you mind taking that geddup off? It’s kinda weirding me out.”

“I’ll get around to it,” Pinkie said dismissively. “The zipper makes this one a little hard to get out of.”

Scootaloo poked at one of Awesomom’s legs experimentally. “Where’re you even getting these?”

“Around,” Pinkie answered with what wasn’t a real answer at all.

“Still think the pegasus version is the best,” Scootaloo said bitterly.

“I think they’re all great,” Awesomom interjected before Dinky and Scootaloo could get into it with one another. I was far from convinced about the suits. The rainbow wigs were pretty cool, but what Awesomom and Pinkie were wearing was just taking it too far.

Cool-Mom nodded. “Quite, but how about we discuss something else?” I guessed that she wanted to keep the kids from fighting too. “Oh, I know! How about we look at some of Dash’s old fillyhood photos?” She pulled out a photo album and placed it on a table in the center of the room.

“Nah, we don’t need to do that.” I ran a hoof through my mane to play it cool. “How about we watch me do some awesome tricks outside instead?” Just about anything would’ve been better than having everypony look at what was in that album.

Scootaloo looked back and forth between the old photo album and me with indecisiveness. “I don’t know. No offense, but we can watch you fly all the time. But this might be a one-time opportunity, and as the club president, it’s my responsibility to offer a variety of programming to my fellow club members.” The other members of the fanclub murmured agreements with her.

“And I wanted to see some photos of when you were a filly, like me,” Dinky pouted. She frowned and looked up at me with sad, pleading eyes. My resolve quickly evaporate to Dinky’s weapon-grade adorableness. I was worried I was becoming soft.

“Come on, Dash.” Cool-Mom opened up the photo album for everypony to see what was inside. “What’s the harm in showing your fans some of your own photos?” I could think of plenty of harm, but I couldn’t think of a way to get out of it without coming across like a complete jerk to everypony.

“Fine,” I grumbled.

Everypony started to crowd around Cool-Mom and the photo album. Dinky pointed at one of the photographs. “Why’s Rainbow’s head stuck in the clouds here?” Looking at the photo, I could see about half my body was stuck in the clouds, my rear legs sticking into the air. I had a pretty good idea when that one had been shot, and I found myself mentally wincing.

“Oh dear.” Cool-Mom did a light hearted chuckle. “I’m afraid that’s from my little Dashie’s first attempt to fly. We had just come from the doctor’s, and she had confirmed that Dash’s wings had developed enough to fly. Which of course, my daughter being the little daredevil she is, she attempted right away. So when Surprise and I weren't looking, she somehow managed to climb onto the roof of our home and jumped off. As you can see here, she didn’t quite get it the first time. Next thing my wife and I knew, we heard our daughter crying for us outside, so we ran out and found her in this predicament. Luckily, given this was Cloudsdale, she just landed on clouds and hadn’t really hurt herself.”

Awesomom wrapped a leg around my shoulders to pull me closer. “Yep, so Rainie took a picture while I went and got my elbow grease to pull her out. Somepony learned not to try flying without her mommy, didn’t she?”

I looked down. “I almost got it the first time. It’s just the wind that threw me off.” The fact I plummeted straight down didn’t have anything to do with my own flying.

Dinky giggled, and she wasn’t the only one. “You look funny.” And so my pride took another serious wound. I was curious if it would just die all at once or from a thousand cuts.

Scootaloo stepped in to defend my pride. “I’m sure Dash picked up flying really super quick.” She looked up to me hopefully. “Right?”

My mouth curved up in an assured grin I didn’t really feel. “You know it, squirt. I was flying like I owned the skies in no time flat.”

Awesomom nodded firmly. “Yep, just like how the ground owned her. Dashie got the whole take off and flying thing down pretty quick. But her landings on the other hoof...” She shook her head and made a series of clicking noises with her tongue.

“I didn’t crash that much,” I said defensively. I noticed that everypony was looking at me. “I didn’t.”

Cool-Mom snickered. “I assume that isn’t why we had to get you all those band-aids to fix you up after you had been playing outside? I don’t think a week passed when we didn’t have to put an icebag on you where you had crashed into something. You were fortunate that Cloudsdale is so crash-friendly for intrepid fillies such as yourself.”

“I wasn’t that bad,” I said. “I only crashed now and then.”

“You kinda were,” Awesomom whispered loudly enough that I’m pretty sure everypony heard.

“And kinda still are,” Pinkie added unhelpfully. “Twilight was wondering if she was going to need to add padding to the library given how often you crash into it.”

I rolled my eyes at that. “She was probably just being sarcastic again. You know how she can be sometimes.” I only crashed into the library now and again, and it usually wasn’t my fault. Applejack had catapulted me into the library that one time. Yeah, so not my fault. I was about to talk about how I needed to push my limits if I was ever going to get into the Wonderbolts when I heard more laughing by the album.

Dinky slowly flipped through the pages, her eyes wide and in rapt attention. “Look at all the pritty dresses!” I craned my head to check out what Dinky was looking at. It was as much as I feared. I saw photos of myself when I was a filly wearing all sorts of dresses and other outfits.

Cool-Mom ran her hoof over one of the pages of the album. “Oh yes, those are our photos of when I had Dash try on some of my children’s clothing line. I must say, she was so photogenic. I did so love to have her trying on my latest designs.”

I sure remembered spending so many boring hours having to try on Cool-Mom’s new outfits. She just loved dressing me up, having me pose, taking pictures, and showing me off to her friends and customers. She was enthusiastic about it, there was no doubt about it. That was just Cool-Mom for you.

“I like that one,” said a pudgy orange-coated colt. He pointed at a photo with me wearing an embarrassing plaid sweater. “Dash sure is dressin’ in style.”

Dinky looked up at Cool-Mom with a big grin on her face. “I wish I could be like my godmom and try on some pritty dresses like these.”

Cool-Mom gave Dinky a quick nuzzle. “That’s so precious of you to say. Oh!” She wrapped a leg around Dinky to squeeze her closer. “We simply must arrange with your mother to have you and your sister come to my shop and dress the two of you up. It would be a simply divine bonding moment between a mare and her godgrandchildren. Don’t you think?”

“Yah-huh!” Dinky nodded enthusiastically. “Will Dash come too?”

“Um,” I started, trying to think what to say to that idea. “I don’t know.” I could think of things I would really prefer doing other than trying on a bunch of dresses for Cool-Mom. Something that didn’t send me into Snoozeville.

Cool-Mom gave me a pouty frown. “Come now, Dash. Don’t you want to bond with your goddaughters and your mother? We could make a weekend of it.”

“Don’t you wanna spend time with me and Sparky?” Dinky looked up at me with her big, sad eyes.

“Course I want to spend time with you two,” I immediately responded. I just wanted to make her stop looking at me like that. Nopony could take the amount of guilt Cool-Mom and Dinky were shooting my way.

Dinky smiled a big, happy grin and started hopping around me. “So you’ll try on pritty dresses with us?!”

I sighed and rubbed my forehead. “Yes.”

“Yay!” Dinky grasped onto my leg in a circulation-cutting hug.

“Oh, that’s absolutely darling.” Cool-Mom nuzzled me in front of everypony. “It will be just like old times.”

Scootaloo stuck her tongue out and made a face that made it look like she was going to be sick. “Ick, count me out. It’s bad enough when Sweetie Belle’s sister tries to get us to all play dress up.” I’m right there with you Scoots.

“But dressin’ up is fun,” Dinky protested.

“Is not,” Scootaloo shot back.

Dinky scowled at Scootaloo. “Is too.”

“Girls, girls.” Pinkie walked up, probably to keep the two fillies from arguing. “Don’t be mad, because you know what time it is?” Both of them shook their heads at Pinkie’s question. Pinkie pulled a small clock out of her mane and showed its hands to the fillies. “It’s Party Time!”

Awesomom gasped and ripped off her me-suit. “Really?! I nearly forgot! There isn’t any time if it’s party time! Quick, everypony to our cart. Nopony wants to be late for this party!”

I looked outside and saw that somehow my parents’ cart had found its way outside of the treehouse despite how I had left it back in town. It also had a bunch of streamers and balloons attached to it now. Go figure.

Everypony filed out of the treehouse quickly. Given that this was a bunch of kids, that meant I had to jump out of the way to keep from being run over by the brightly-colored stampede. I was about to follow after them—nopony beats me in a race after all—but I heard Cool-Mom clear her throat to catch my attention. Some part of my brain reflexively twinged. It was the type of thing she normally did when she wanted me to slow down and talk to her. I waited as everypony else left the treehouse, leaving me and Cool-Mom to talk alone.

“Rainbow Dash, what happened to that dress?” Cool-Mom asked primly, and I felt my heart sink a little bit. It was going to be one of those types of talks.

“Um.” I found myself scraping my hoof on the ground like I was a little filly. I straightened up to quit looking so guilty. “I was just flying around, and it kinda just ... fell apart.”

Cool-Mom stared at me with a deep frown that screamed disappointment. “The dress you didn’t pay for? The dress you put on and then started screaming as you charged right through your friend’s door?”

I looked away from my mom’s piercing gaze. “Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t like I did it on purpose. I just didn’t—”

“Think?” Cool-Mom finished. “You know that is the type of thing that gets you into trouble.”

I sighed, just wanting this talk to end. “I know.”

“Dash, look at me,” Cool-Mom demanded. I did so. “Now your friend Rarity was quite upset by your behavior and the damage you caused to her property, and frankly, she has very good reasons for being so. I can assure you, from a lifetime of sewing, that your friend put a lot of work into that dress for you to destroy it in a couple of hours.”

I strained to speak calmly. “Hey, something just surprised me is all. I just haven’t been able to find Rarity to return the dress yet ... and pay to repair the door.”

Cool-Mom tapped her hoof on the floor. “And what else do you think you need to do?”

I thought about it for a moment. I did kinda treat one of my friends pretty badly. I know I wouldn’t like it if somepony just went a punched a hole in my house and messed up my stuff. I let out a long sigh. “I guess I need to apologize too.”

Cool-Mom nodded. “I think that would be for the best.”

My ears flicked in irritation. “Can we just go to the party now? Rarity will probably be there, and I can talk to her then.”

“As long as you promise to apologize, and I mean really apologize.” Cool-Mom made for the door. I guessed she had said all she wanted to say. Jeez, that took a while. I hated apologizing. I was going to do it because Rarity is my friend, but it doesn’t mean I’d have to like it.

“Yeah, I’ll do it,” I said, following her as she stepped outside. I hopped over the treehouse’s railing and glided down to the ground next to my parent’s carriage, the last of the stragglers climbing into it. It was just about as full as it could get, with everypony crammed in and just about on top of one another.

Awesomom was beginning to strap herself to the cart when I walked up to her. “You ready to party my silly-filly?”

I grinned. “Yeah, looking forward to it.” A party was starting to sound real good right about then. Granted, I had no idea what Pinkie was up to for the party itself, but I doubt it could go much worse than the rest of my day. “Why don’t you let me drive the cart, Awesomom? You already flew all the way from Cloudsdale, so let me take care of it. Just enjoy flying next to the cart.” I didn’t want to say it to her face, but she was probably getting to be a bit old to be flying a bunch of kids. She’d probably be okay, but I’d feel a lot better dragging the cart myself.

“Well, if you really want to.” Awesomom slowly stepped away from the cart.

“Sure, this will be great strength training.” I made my way to the front of the cart and started to tie myself to it.

“Sounds good then.” Awesomom flapped her wings and lifted off.

With a powerful downstrike, I lifted the cart off the ground. “Let’s get going then.” I flashed Awesomom a playful smirk. “Think you can keep up?”

“Dash, don’t you turn this into a competition,” I heard Cool-Mom from behind me. “We have children in this cart, and I don’t want you going too fast and risking a crash.”

I groaned deep in my throat. “Fine, Cool-Mom. I won’t race or anything.” Like I was going to do anything reckless. I know better, really, I do.

Awesomom pulled ahead of me. “Come on, Dash. You don’t want to be late.”

Slow down, speed up—I was getting it from both sides by my parents. “Coming.” I grunted with exertion as I pulled the cart forward.

Cool-Mom clapped her forehooves together. “Excellent. Now, who would like to hear a story about how Dash got herself stuck in her grandparents’ closet?”

I facehoofed as everypony in the cart asked Cool-Mom to tell the story. Why me?

***

Pinkie Pie had outdone herself. For Pinkie, that’s saying something. Fireworks were shooting off the entire time we approached Ponyville. The children stared, wide-eyed, at the sparkling explosions. As I looked around, I could see that a sea of ponies covered the ground all around the town. I’d never imagined that there could be that many ponies in a small place like Ponyville.

The closer we got, the more the party looked more like a full-blown county fair, rather than some little friendly get-together that was Pinkie’s usual thing. Stalls serving food and games had been set up all over the place. There were a hooffull of rides, with a ferris wheel being the most prominent of them. But the frosting to this cake of partying extravagance were big clouds shaped like my parents’ heads, with the cloud-banner “Welcome to Ponyville: Bestest Parents Ever” floating under them.

Pinkie leaned over the front of the cart. Thankfully she had taken that suit off by now. “Do you like it? Huh-huh-huh?!”

I tried to keep from getting too distracted by Pinkie as I weaved my way through the pegasi flying about. “Yeah, it’s really something.”

Cool-Mom leaned on the opposite side of the front of the cart as Pinkie. “I think it’s absolutely darling. I can tell from the amount of work you put into this.” A crazy amount of work if you asked me, given everything that had been set up in a single day. Never say Pinkie can’t do something when she puts her mind to it, at least anything relating to parties. She’s pretty awesome that way.

Awesomom rubbed her chin as she gave the party a critical look. “Well, it could have used a few more balloons here and there. Also, I’m not sure I’m wild about how the traffic is going to flow.”

“Ponyville doesn’t really have a huge reserve of balloons,” Pinkie pointed out. “The town isn’t super-huge like Cloudsdale. There’s only so much room I have to work with here.” She was starting to sound increasingly more frantic, and not in the happy-go-lucky type of frantic either. More like the panicked type of frantic. “There’s only so much space in the streets. I mean I can’t just move ponies’ houses around. I could, but they would get really cranky if I did that. Then the mayor and all the ponies would start yelling at me, and start to complain that I’m messing up the local property and tax structure of the town, and how the town looks. Nopony understands when you want to rearrange the town just to make it more party-friendly and—”

“Pinkie!” I yelled trying to get her off the rails of whatever crazy thought process she was on. It’s the only way I could figure out to stop her ramblings without me putting a hoof to her mouth. Not that it ever seemed to bother her. Maybe Pinkie just felt she needed to fill in the silence with somepony speaking and was happy to step aside when somepony interrupted her? I don’t know, trying to apply any logic to Pinkie is a dangerous thing.

Pinkie turned to look at me. “Yes, Dashie?”

My brain tumbled for something to say before Pinkie went off another ramble. “Err .... I’m sure everypony will enjoy the party.” Pinkie gave me an appreciative smile.

Cool-Mom nodded confidently. “Yes, I’m sure the party will be quite enjoyable. Pinkie put a lot of effort into this party for us. Don’t you think, Surprise?” I could hear the extra emphasis she put into that last part. It kinda felt like they were doing that thing where they try to say something without saying it to one another. But I wasn’t sure.

Awesomom hovered over to the cart and rubbed Pinkie’s hoof assuringly. “I’m sure everything will be fine. You did the best you could.”

“Thank you,” Pinkie replied with a lot more strain than I was used to when somepony complimented her parties. She narrowed her eyes at Awesomom in an expression I wasn’t used to seeing on Pinkie. Cool-Mom was also frowning at Awesomom. I couldn’t give my full attention towards figuring out what was going on, considering I was also had to pay attention to where I was flying.

“Um, where are we supposed to land?” I asked Pinkie. Everywhere I looked there were just crowds of ponies clogging up the streets.

“Oh, I setup a designated parking spot for us earlier.” Awesomom pointed down to a roped off spot in the street large enough for the cart. “It’s the little things you need to remember sometimes.”

“I had a lot of things to remember to do to set up this party.” Pinkie pulled out a scroll and unfurled it. It fell and—a few seconds later—hit the ground. Twilight would have been proud. “Look at the list! Look at it!”

“Maybe you should get an understudy or something to help you keep track of all these things,” Awesomom suggested helpfully. “Never hurts to have another pony double check these things.”

“How about we just enjoy the party as it is,” Cool-Mom interjected.

Dinky squirmed her way up to the front of the cart also. “Oooh, are we gonna have a lotta fun?”

“You better believe it, Muffy-duffy!” Pinkie scruffed up Dinky’s mane. “There’s music, and games, and food, and everything else a super-duper fun party is supposed to have.”

I maneuvered through the crowd to land in the parking spot Awesomom had set aside for us. Luckily, nopony had decided to be rude and stand on the parking spot, so I brought the cart in for a landing. I probably could’ve pulled off that landing during a lightning storm with zero visibility. Though I probably wouldn’t try something that reckless pulling a bunch of kids around.

Everypony jumped out of the cart and I worked at untying myself from it. I looked back and saw Dinky looking around in wide-eyed amazement. I felt a pang of worry when other ponies started to block my line of sight to her. “Dinky, stay by me,” I called out. I really didn’t want to lose track of her in this crowd.

Dinky trotted back to stand next to me. “Okay. Can I climb onto your back?”

I shrugged. “Sure, jump on.” I bent down to make it easier for her to get onto my back. It would be simpler to keep track of her if she was riding me. I didn’t even want to think of what Derpy would do to me if I lost her baby daughter in this mess. Even I might not be able to fly fast enough to escape her wrath.

Scootaloo ran up and barely stopped herself from slamming into me. “Hey, can I hang out with you too?”

I considered it a moment as Dinky got herself settled up around my shoulders. “Sure, why not?” It would probably be best if I kept track of Scootaloo too, given how crazy this party was. No sense letting anything happen to the squirt.

“Can I jump onto your back too?” Scoots gave me a hopeful smile as she looked up at me.

“What?! No way!” Dinky objected before I could say anything. She hugged me around the neck. “She’s my godmom, so I get to pegy-back ride with her!”

Scootaloo stared down Dinky with a scowl. “Yeah, well I’m her number one fan! And have been since forever. So I should get some time with Rainbow Dash too!”

“Girls,” Cool-Mom said in that firm voice that always got me to shut my trap whenever I got into an argument with somepony. She was really good at that. It also saved me the trouble of having to try it myself. I was still trying to get the godmom thing down, and as awesome as I was, I didn’t like the idea of trying to get between two arguing fillies. “Don’t you two argue. Pinkie Pie and Surprise put a lot of effort into making a party for everypony to enjoy.”

“Besides.” Awesomom threw a foreleg around my neck and gave me a quick squeeze. “There’s always plenty of Dashie to go around. Can’t we all share?”

Dinky chewed on her lower lip. “Yeah, I guess.” She reach down a hoof to help Scootaloo get onto my back. “Wanna be riding buddies?”

Scootaloo stared at Dinky’s hoof for a long moment. “Sure, Dash is plenty cool to carry the both of us.” She grasped Dinky’s hoof and jumped onto my back behind Dinky. It might have been too much for some ponies to carry two fillies at once, but I was more than strong enough to handle it. I’d carried Rarity and three Wonderbolts at the same time after all. This was nothing in comparison.

Pinkie hopped over to all of us, wearing a party hat with lit sparklers attached to it. “You all ready to have a super-grand-partyriffic time!?” Dinky and Scootaloo both bobbed their heads up and down. “Well let’s get-a-going-ronie! Follow me.” Not seeing anything better to do at the moment, I followed Pinkie as she bounded through the crowd, my parents following just behind me.

Dinky poked her head around mine to get a better view of Pinkie. “What’re we gonna do first, Pinkie?”

Pinkie spun around on one of her rear hooves to come face to face with Dinky, nearly making her fall off of me when she jerked back in surprise. “What would you like to do? Play some games? Eat some sweets? Groove to some tunes?”

Scootaloo and Dinky were discussing what they would like to do first when I heard a familiar rumbling sound above me. I looked up to see the familiar black contrails of the Wonderbolts as they flew over us. They looped around and performed one trick after another in the sky above us. My head snapped back to look at Pinkie. “You got the Wonderbolts to come too?!” The Wonderbolts had a pretty tight schedule with all the shows and other events they had to do, and the idea they would come out to one of Pinkie’s parties was almost crazy.

Pinkie gave me a goofy grin. “Well duh! How many times do I have to tell you? I invited everypony to this party.”

“Everypony indeed,” said Princess Celestia. She and Princess Luna moved through the crowd with ease towards us, as everypony moved out of their way and bowed to the co-rulers of Equestria. I bowed myself, though it was a bit tricky to pull off with two fillies on my back. “Pinkie was quite thorough when she broke into the royal census records and acquired the addresses of all the citizens of Equestria.” My eyebrows raised at that. What type of trouble had Pinkie gotten herself into?

Pinkie giggled uncomfortably and rubbed her forehooves together. “Okay, so I kinda lowered myself from the ceiling by a cable, and bypassed all the security. But I had good reasons for doing so!”

Celestia gave Pinkie a amused smirk. “You do realize that most of those records are available to the public? There wasn’t any reason to break in and have an as-of-yet unidentified pony dressed as myself serve as a distraction.” Awesomom whistled in a way that was one hundred percent inconspicuous.

Pinkie gave Celestia a strained smile. “Well yeah, I saw that on my way out the door, but by then we’d already gone that far.”

Luna stepped up and looked down at Pinkie with a grim faced scowl. “And that is why you were last seen running from the Canterlot Guard?”

Pinkie wilted under Luna’s firm gaze. I didn’t particularly envy her. “I thought we were playing tag.”

Luna cocked an eyebrow at my fillyfriend. “Aye. Perhaps we can see what games you like to play in the palace dungeon?” Pinkie’s smile became very nervous before Luna’s scowl softened and she grinned. “That was a joke.”

Pinkie wiped her brow with a forelegs. “Oh, good.” She chuckled nervously.

Luna grabbed Pinkie with her telekinesis and pranced in a circle, swinging Pinkie around with her. “We would not imprison one of our subjects for inviting us to a festival! Tell us, do you have that wonderful game where we toss the spiders? We had much fun last time with that game last time we graced Ponyille with our presence.”

Pinkie’s ears flattened. “I’m real sorry, but that’s kinda only a Nightmare Night type of thing.” Luna frowned and her shoulders sagged slightly. “But we have plenty of other games where you can throw things at other things!” Pinkie quickly said.

Luna clapped her hooves together. “Excellent! We look forward to hurling projectiles at defenseless targets.”

“That’s the spirit!” Pinkie pointed off in one direction. “All the games are in that direction, Your Highness. Have all the fun you can stand.”

Luna turned to face Celestia. “Sister, may we make our way to where the games are and see what fun can be had?”

Celestia nodded. “I see no reason why not. Let’s see what mischief we can get into.”

“Huzzah!” Luna motioned for her sister and their guards to follow. “Let us proceed then.”

Celestia moved to follow her sister towards where all the games were supposed to be. “Thank you for inviting us to this party. I’m sure it will give the two of us an opportunity to enjoy ourselves.”

Pinkie waved as they left. “Have fun! Don't forget to try some of the food too.”

I turned to Pinkie as they left and whispered sharply to her. “You invited the Princesses too!?” I was more shocked than anything. I mean, I’m not one to get all stuffy about the rules and stuff, but they’re the Princesses for feathers’ sake!

“Well yeah.” Pinkie snorted amusedly. “Celestia and Luna are ponies too. Super big ponies with horns and wings, but still ponies. It would have been super rude not to at least invite them too.”

That did make its own sense as I thought it over. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Pinkie pulled out a couple of party hats to put on Dinky and Scootaloo. “Besides, everypony likes to come to a party and just have some fun now and again.”

“Even a princess should get to have fun, right?” Dinky asked.

Pinkie gently patted Dinky on the head. “Of course they should.”

I remembered what we were talking about before we were interrupted by a measly little thing like the diarchs of Equestria showing up for a short chat. “And you invited the Wonderbolts too?”

Pinkie nodded vigorously. “Yep, I pulled a couple favors to have them do a bit of an impromptu performance. The promise of free food was a deal-maker.” She started tugging on one of my forelegs. “Come on, let’s go talk to them.”

I almost stumbled as Pinkie dragged me along. “What? Right now, just like that?”

“That’s what I’m sayin’.” Pinkie abandoned trying to drag me and moved around to push me with her head.

I felt Dinky kick my sides excitedly. “We’re goin’ to get to see the Wonderbolts!”

Scootaloo hopped up to stand on my back. “This is going to be sooo awesome! Right Dash?”

I nearly facehoofed when I thought of the obvious. Of course I wanted to talk to my idols! “Yeah! Let’s go!” I started walking on my own, so that Pinkie didn’t have to keep pushing me.

Cool-Mom nodded in agreement. “Yes, lead the way, Pinkie.”

I nearly stopped in my tracks when I realized that Cool-Mom was going to be following us. “Heh, you’re coming too, Cool-Mom?” I could feel beads of sweat forming on my brow. I couldn’t see much good come out of Cool-Mom meeting the Wonderbolts with me. There were just way too many ways that could turn into a disaster.

“Why, of course.” Cool-Mom gave me a loving nuzzle. “The entire reason your mother and I came out here was to spend time with you.”

“An’ me too?” Dinky, being the manipulative little ball of cuteness she was, puckered her lips in a pout.

“Perish the thought we would forget you or your sister.” Cool-Mom gave Dinky a nuzzle too, making her giggle. Scootaloo looked liked she was going to gag.

“Are we going or not?” Pinkie asked anxiously. “We don’t have forever ya know! So much partying, so little time.”

This whole day had been completely nuts. My world had been turned upside down and sideways by my parents, they had humiliated me in front of everypony, apparently I had a whatever-Twilight-called-it-complex, I hadn’t had a nap all day, and I was pretty sure Rarity was going to kill me when she caught up to me for tearing up her dress. On top of all that, I had two fillies on my back who wanted to spend time with both the Wonderbolts and my parents. There was no cool way I was going to avoid whatever was to come if we met the Wonderbolts.

I let out a resigned sigh. “Sure, Pinkie.” I tried to put on the most confident smile I could. “Show us where they are.”

“Okie dokie lokie,” Pinkie said and started bouncing away to where I guessed the Wonderbolts were. Cool-Mom and I, Scootaloo and Dinky in tow, followed her through the crowded streets until we reached a brightly colored tent. There were even a pair of guardponies standing outside. “Hiya!” Pinkie greeted them and hopped right on into the tent. I was a bit worried that the Guards would stop me as I walked past them, but they let me and Cool-Mom right on through.

I quickly spotted a couple of Wonderbolts inside. The two of them were still wearing their show uniforms and seemed to be enjoying a spread of food that had been laid out on a couple of tables. Having seen them a few times in the past, I recognized Spitfire and Soarin immediately. Being able to say that was about the most radical thing ever.

Spitfire looked our way and I saw the spark of recognition in her eyes. Her mouth curved into a smirk. “Rainbow Dash, figured you’d be turning up sooner or later.”

“Loving the party, by the way,” Soarin said, taking another bite out of the pie he had claimed for himself.

I snorted. “Well yeah. You think I wouldn’t come to see you when I heard you guys were around?”

Spitfire gave me a friendly punch to the shoulder. “It’s almost like you’re angling to get into the Wonderbolts or something.”

I let out a nervous chuckle. “Well you know, building a rep. Gettin’ to know everypony on the team.”

Spitfire cocked an eyebrow at that comment. “I see how it is.”

Dinky poked out from around my head. “Whoa! The Wonderbolts’re rilly here!”

“This is so cool!” Scootaloo jumped off my back and walked up to stand before Spitfire.

Spitfire smiled down at Scootaloo. “A couple fans, I take it?”

“Well, yeah,” Scootaloo said confidently. “You’re like the super best fliers ever! At least once Rainbow Dash joins you anyways.”

Spitfire snorted. “Is that so?”

Scootaloo’s wings fluttered. “Duh, she’s only the best, fastest, and most awesome flier ever. She’s totally going to get into the Wonderbolts.”

Dinky hugged me around the neck. “Yeah, Dash is the bestest ever!”

Spitfire looked up to grin at me. “We’ll make sure to keep an eye on her.”

I grinned sheepishly. “What can I say, the kids know living awesome when they see it.”

“Uh-huh, is that why you’re wearing that tattered old thing?” Spitfire pointed at what was left of the dress I was wearing. “You just trying to bring a measure of your awesomeness to that dress? Or is that just the latest thing in the fashion world, and I’m just behind the times?”

My ears flattened at the mention of the torn mess of a pink abomination that barely clung to my body. I couldn’t believe I was wearing the thing in front of my idols. “Oh, this thing.” I bent down to let Dinky jump off. “I’m just holding onto it for a friend, and wearing it is just the easiest way to do that.” Seeing that the dress was barely hanging onto me anyways, I took a mouthful of the dress and ripped the tattered thing off of me.

I heard a familiar scream from behind me. “My hard work!”

Cool-Mom placed a hoof over her mouth and gasped. “Her hard work!” Gah! Bad enough I have one mom that's a clone of my friend!

“Oooh, you’re in trooouuuuble!” Dinky smiled at me with the smile of a very devious child who gets to watch one of the adults get in trouble for once.

I turned around to see Rarity standing at the entrance with slack-jawed horror on her face as she looked at the murdered dress in my mouth. Yep, she was probably going to kill me here in about a minute. After tossing what remained of the dress over my shoulders, I gave Rarity a smile that sure as hay didn’t feel genuine. “Um, I tore up the dress fighting a hydra?” I said lamely. Rarity’s eyes narrowed as her glare slowly intensified in my direction. “It was a necessary sacrifice. To defeat the hydra—that I was fighting” My head lowered as my voice lowered to a whisper. “And the ongoing assault against my superawesoradicool image.”

Scootaloo’s eyes widened with amazement. “Whoa, you fought a hydra?”

Cool-Mom cleared her throat to cut off that line of discussion. “Dash, darling, did I just see you rip off that very nice dress your friend made?” If her tone had been anymore icy when she had said that, I might very well have been frozen on the spot.

“Um—” was all I got out before Rarity stomped over to me, grabbed me with her forehooves, and gave me a bone-shaking jerk.

“So tell me,” Rarity said, she wore a smile that told me she was not the least bit happy with me. “What made you think it was a good idea to steal my dress and destroy my front door? Oh, and tearing up the dress also while you were out gallivanting around the town?”

I squirmed around until I managed to get out of Rarity’s grip. “Hey, it’s not like that!” I felt my anger rise as Spitfire and Soarin tried to keep from laughing out loud.

One of Rarity’s eyebrows raised. “What is it like, pray tell? I hope you know you’re going to be paying for both the door and dress now.” She lifted her nose smugly. “Otherwise I’m not sure I will ever be able to forgive you.”

Words came out of my mouth before my brain could process them. It’s kinda a bad habit for me. “Well sorry if I freaked out over finding out that I was dating my mom!”

Rarity blinked several times after I smacked her with that thought. “Excuse me, could you say that again?”

“Eww, Pinkie’s your mom?” Scootaloo asked in horror. “But ... I thought Mrs. Surprise was your mom?”

I facehoofed. “No, it’s just…” I trailed off with a frustrated growl. Trying to come up with a way to explain the odi-something-complex that didn’t make me sound like a weirdo was hard. This type of thing was a lot easier when Twilight was around to do it for me.

Pinkie wrapped her foreleg around my neck and giggled. “Silly Dashie, I already told you we were only super-duper like one another. Not completely alike.”

Spitfire snicked. “Now what’s this about?”

“This might be gettin’ good,” Soarin piped in.

I put a hoof up to stop my idols from getting the wrong idea. “No! Awesomom and my fillyfriend are only kinda alike.”

Spitfire grinned wickedly. “Ah, you’re one of those types of ponies that likes her mom?”

“No—” I gave Cool-Mom a glance as she frowned at me. “I mean yes, no, let me explain!”

Awesomom popped up from behind me, causing me to jerk in surprise. “Dashie’s just suffering from one of her usual crises of confidence.” She leaned in to whisper to Soarin. “She really does need to have her ego stroked every once in awhile, or she gets really upset.” She frowned at me as she brushed a hoof through my mane. “Isn’t that right?”

“What’s this, Rainbow Dash has confidence issues?” Spitfire gave me a good, long, hard look.

Soarin snorted. “Yeah, can’t have somepony who doesn’t have confidence in herself get into the Wonderbolts.”

My wings flared out and I puffed out my chest. “Hey, I have confidence by the boatload! Just give the word and I’ll do a ton of awesome stunts for you.”

“Calm down there.” Spitfire elbowed me in the chest. “We’re just ribbing you a bit.”

“Oh.” I chuckled unsteadily. “Right, just ribbing. I’m always up for a good prank or ribbing.” That was actually pretty good if they were ribbing me for the fun of it. That meant that they were starting to treat me as one of the gals. Granted, that meant I was going to have to take it for awhile at least, and I prefered to be doing the pranking instead of being on the receiving end.

Spitfire whispered to me. “Though what’s this I’m hearing about you liking your mom?”

“Err.” After a moment of thinking it over, I decided the best way to handle this was to just try and blow the whole matter off. “It’s just my fillyfriend and one of my moms are kinda similar—not in any weird way. They just like some of the same things.”

“I getcha.” Spitfire gave me a conspiratorial wink. “I can get why some ponies might be into that type of thing.” I smiled back at her, hoping she was just still ribbing me.

Soarin walked up to Cool-Mom and rubbed his chin. “Hey, haven’t I met you somewhere before?”

Cool-Mom snapped her head up to make her mane bounce. “I would hope so, darling. I did design those uniforms you’re wearing after all.”

Soarin clapped his hooves together. “That’s where I remember you from!”

“So you’re the one who saved us from those awful, retro uniforms we were wearing a few years ago?” Spitfire asked, approaching Cool-Mom. I remembered what the old uniforms looked like. They had been hideous. I don’t think there was a pony other than the owner at the time who had liked them. “Have to say, the new uniforms are a whole hay of a lot snazzier.”

Soarin spread his wings and flexed. “Fit pretty nicely too.”

“Oh stop.” Cool-Mom waved her hoof stop the compliments, but my finely toned Cool-Mom-senses told me that she wanted them to continue with the flattery. “I was just lucky that I managed to beat all the other contestants.”

Rarity looked Soarin over as she examined his uniform. “They really are quite, if you don’t mind me using such an obvious pun, dashing.”

I looked back and forth between Cool-Mom and the Wonderbolts. “Wait, you designed the uniforms for the Wonderbolts?! You never told me this.”

Cool-Mom frowned at me. “Of course I did. I talked all about it in a letter I sent to you when I won the contest.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her. “I don’t remember getting any letters on that.”

“Hmm, perhaps it got lost in the mail,” Cool-Mom said whimsically. I had a pretty good idea how such a letter might have been lost. It started with D, and ended with -erpy. Or maybe I had just gotten sloppy and lost the letter. It was always a pain when I did that with the bills. So maybe it was fifty-fifty either way. “A shame really. I so do like the idea of you performing in one of my designs in front of everypony.”

“Heh, I guess that would be pretty co—” What I was about to say was cut off when a single, horrible thought crossed my mind like a burning train filled with puppies, kittens, and fireworks heading for a brick wall. “Wait! So even when I get into the Wonderbolts, my mom will still be dressing me!?”

“Why yes, exactly.” Cool-Mom nuzzled me in the face. “Isn’t that wonderful?” I was too horrified by the idea to even think about it. I would never be able to think of that uniform and not think about how my mom had made it. Doomed, doomed to always be dressed by my mom even when I got my dream job.

“GrandCool-Mom is goin’ to be dressin you in pritty things forever an’ ever,” Dinky piped in happily. She looked up at Cool-Mom. “Can you make me a Wonderbolt costume so that I can look just like Dash when she becomes a Wonderbolt?”

Cool-Mom patted Dinky on the head. “I don’t see why not.”

“And me too?” asked Scootaloo.

Cool-Mom smiled down at my number one fan. “Oh, of course. I’m sure you would look absolutely adorable dressed up as a Wonderbolt.”

Scootaloo lowered her stance and pawed at the ground aggressively. “Nah, I would be super awesome. Just like Dash.”

“Seems you’re building quite the fanbase,” Spitfire whispered to me. “They even want to dress like you. That could make some of us jealous.”

I grinned back at her. “Scootaloo and Dinky are cool. They know a radical pony when they see one.” It looked like things were about to get settled and become a pretty awesome conversation with the Wonderbolts, of all ponies. This was totally goin’ to help my rep with them.

Cool-Mom cleared her throat and tapped my shoulder. I turned to her and watched as she pointed towards the entrance to the tent. I looked and saw Rarity stomping her way out of the tent. “I think you might have something to take care of, darling.”

I looked between my mom, Spitfire, and Rarity. Things had been going so well there for a second. I was totally hanging out with my idols here, despite all the problems that had been cramping my style all day. But now Rarity was leaving the tent and she didn’t look happy. She had good reasons not to be. On the other hoof how often was I going to get to hang out with one of my idols? You don’t get to just hang out with celebrities everyday. Rarity could forgive me this once for wanting to shoot the breeze with Spitfire and Soarin just this once, right?

I sighed and rubbed at my face. “Spitfire, look, I have something I need to take care of. You don’t mind, do ya?”

“Nah, go ahead.” Spitfire picked up one of the club sandwiches. “We’ll just be here enjoying the free food. Do what you need to do.”

I nodded. “Okay, cool.” I took off and flew through the tent doorway. Rarity was stomping her way through the crowd, but I was able to catch up pretty quickly by flying over everypony’s head. “Rarity! Wait up, I need to talk to you!” Rarity lifted up her nose and turned away from me. She kept walking as though I wasn't even there. I landed in front of her to stop her. “Can you just stop so we can talk?”

Rarity kept her nose turned up and wasn’t looking at me. “I’m not so sure I want to talk to you right now.”

“And why not?” I asked testily.

Rarity humphed. “Because you all but ignored me in there. You obviously prefer to hang out with your new Wonderbolts friends to your old friends.”

I scowled at her. Why couldn’t she make this easy for me? “It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it?” Rarity asked. “You seemed more concerned with looking good in front of the Wonderbolts and everypony else then apologizing to me.”

“But they’re the Wonderbolts!” Shouldn’t that be explanation enough?

“If that’s how you feel about it...” Rarity moved to walk past me.

I jumped in front of her to stop her. “No! Wait! Please, just give me a minute!”

Rarity stopped and narrowed her eyes at me. “I’m starting to think I’ve given you plenty of opportunities to do the right thing already.”

I facehoofed. I really didn’t want this to turn into one of those types of situations again. That time I’d fumbled apologizing to Cloud Kicker had been more than bad enough. “Okay, look. I’m really bad at this, the whole apologizing thing.” I took a long breath as I collected my thoughts. “I apologize. There, I said it.”

“Apologize for what exactly?” Rarity asked primly.

I bit down on my frustration and anger. This was not the time to let those emotions screw this up. “I apologize for stealing the dress, messing it up, and smashing your door.”

The edge in Rarity’s voice softened. “And?”

I had to think for a moment to try and think what she was getting at. As I said, I’m bad at apologizing. “And for ignoring you earlier. And lying. Okay, for anything I did to you, happy?” I was starting to hit the end of my patience. How much more did she want from me?

Rarity frowned at me. “And how you do plan on correcting this?”

At least I was making progress now. It looked like we were at the doing part of the apology. I was good at doing things. “I’ll pay for the dress and the door. I got that covered.” Rarity just stood there for a moment before making a ‘go on’ motion with her hoof. “Fine, if you need anypony to help try on any of your frilly dresses, I’m there.” She made the motion. “I’ll ... clean your gutters. Alright, I’ll use one of my days off as a you day. I just want to make this right.”

She didn’t respond for a long moment. For a second I worried she wasn’t going to accept my apology when she smiled and nodded. “That will do. Apology accepted.”

I let out a relieved breath. “Okay, good. Want to head back into the tent then?” I smiled at her. “There’s free food and stuff.”

Rarity shrugged. “I don’t see why not. I do enjoy conversing with your mother.”

We started heading back towards the tent and moved to walk past the guard again. “Wait, how did you get past the guard last time?” I asked.

“With style and grace, darling.” And by that, she meant flirt with the guard until he let us pass.

So it finally looked like things were going to turn out great for me. Things were straightened out with Rarity. I was going to get to hang out with the Wonderbolts. And that’s when I saw Awesomom tip-hoofing towards Pinkie.

“Hey, guess what I got us?” Awesomom eyes looked back and forth across the room.

“Oooh, I love guessing games!” Pinkie scratched the top of her head. “A purple polka-dotted accordion that sounds like a full symphony orchestra?”

Awesomom giggled. “No, guess again.” Pinkie was about to give another guess when Awesomom interrupted her. “I can’t wait! Let me show you!” She pulled out a pair of cups of what looked like steaming black liquid. Pinkie squealed in delight and jumped up and down in place. My heart sunk at what I thought I was seeing as Awesomom gave Pinkie one of the cups.

“Pinkie,” I growled a warning. “That isn’t what I think it is, is it?”

Pinkie avoided eye contact with me. “Maaaybe.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Is it something everypony has told you you shouldn’t have?”

“Um, nooo?” Pinkie’s poker face could have given Applejack’s a run for its money—for how bad it was. I started to consider if I could close the distance between Pinkie and I fast enough to get the cup away from her. I could probably catch her, but getting the coffee away when Pinkie could be Pinkie...

Rarity chewed her lower lip. “Pinkie, please put the cup down. You know what happened last time.”

Pinkie sniffed at the aroma of her coffee. “That was just the last time ... and the time before that ... and that time none of you know about. I can handle coffee, really.” I don’t think any of us who knew Pinkie were convinced for a second. Not even a fraction of a second.

Cool-Mom noticed that something was up. She glanced at the cup Awesomom was holding and started to glare at her. “Dear, you aren’t about to drink that, are you?”

Awesomom looked back and forth between the cup and Cool-Mom. “What? No, nooo, no, maybeprobablyyes.”

“You know I don’t like it when you drink coffee,” Cool-Mom warned in a tone she usually reserved for me when I was about to do something I wasn’t supposed to do when I was a filly.

Dinky looked up at me with pleading eyes. A hint of fear worked into her voice. “Dash, Pinkie doesn’t have a cup of coffee, does she?”

“Everything’s going to be okay,” I assured her, feeling none too confident myself.

“Can I hug you?” Dinky asked.

“Yeah, go ahead kiddo,” I told her. She wrapped her legs around one of my own and squeezed tight.

Scootaloo put on a mask of cool confidence that her quivering voice betrayed. “I’m not scared or anything, but—”

“Just go ahead and hug my leg too, Squirt.” She did so. No sense beating around the bush.

Soarin raised an eyebrow at the suddenly tense scene. Then something flashed behind his eyes when he looked at Awesomom. “Hey Spitfire, does she look familiar to you?”

Spitfire gave Awesomom a good, long look before nodding. “The Caffeine Fiend of Cloudsdale? The mare who it took all the Wonderbolts and the Cloudsdale Gendarme to finally catch a few years ago?”

“The one and only, if I’m not missing my guess.” Soarin spread his wings and entered a combat stance, and Spitfire did the same after him. “Ma’am, put down the cup and step away. No reason this needs to go bad.”

“It’s just a cup of coffee,” Awesomom protested sourly.

Spitfire scraped her hoof on the ground. “Not in your hooves.”

“It’s fine.” Pinkie slowly moved to drink from her cup. “Nothing super-ultra-bad will happen this time. I promise.”

“Pinkie, don’t you dare,” I warned her.

“Aw, you’re a bunch of grumpy pants.” Awesomom was slowly backing away from Spitfire and Soarin while slowly bringing the coffee cup to her mouth. “It’ll be fine.”

“Surprise, I’m warning you.” Cool-Mom gave Awesomom a fierce glare. “You’re looking at couch time the way you’re going.”

Pinkie and Awesomom looked each other in the eyes and nodded. They grinned at us and brought the coffee cups to their lips.

“Nooo!”

***

I woke up sometime later. I rubbed at my eyes, the taste of too many sweets and strong drinks creating an odd aftertaste in my mouth. It was night now, or at least I was going to guess so, given the moon was out. Of course that was assuming Luna and Celestia hadn’t gone crazy over the course of the party. Vague, blurry memories came back slowly. Things had gone wild after Awesomom and Pinkie had drank that coffee. All the crashed tents around me showed that clearly enough. Everypony looked like they had enough and were working at picking themselves up and going home. I stood up slowly, an unfamiliar weight on my back. I looked and saw Dinky and Scootaloo sprawled there. They both moaned from my movements. I guess the double sundaes had been a bit much for them after everything else.

There was movement besides me, and I turned to see Derpy slowly walking my way, fatigue obvious from her slouched shoulders and hanging head. “Hey, Dash. I think I’ll be taking my Muffin now.”

Dinky groaned loudly. “Mommy, I’m tired an’ wanna go home. Pinkie and GrandAwesomom are too hyper.”

Derpy snorted. “They actually managed to wear you out? I’m impressed.” I helped Derpy slide Dinky onto her back.

Sparkler walked up to stand besides Derpy. She blinked in a way that spoke of how tired she probably was too. “Hey, Mom.” She nuzzled Derpy.

“And where have you been?” Derpy asked. Now that I thought about it, I didn’t even remember seeing her all day. I wondered what she had been up to all day.

Sparkler smiled lazily. “Oh, just hanging out with some friends. Enjoying the party. You know.”

Derpy stared at her older daughter for a moment before shaking her head. “Let’s just head home. Your sister needs to go to bed—and I do too, for that matter.” She nodded to me. “Thanks for watching over my Muffin in this mess.”

I stretched my shoulder, causing them to pop in response. The party had taken a lot out of me. “Yeah, sure thing. Ya know you can always count on me.”

We made our final goodbyes right as Applejack walked over to me with her own little sister on her back. Apple Bloom seemed content to sleep right there, and AJ had even draped her hat on her sister’s head. “Hiya, RD. Holdin’ up there?”

I gave her a confident smirk. “Pff, please, I’m a veteran at Pinkie’s and my mom’s parties.”

Applejack shrugged. “If ya say so. We’re headin’ home ‘bout now.”

I stretched my wings, being careful not to cause Scootaloo to fall off. “Hey, have ya seen Scoot’s parents anywhere? I didn’t see them at the party, and this filly looks like she needs a bed.” I honestly had no idea what Scootaloo’s parents looked like or where she lived now that I thought about it. It made it a bit awkward now that it was probably time for her to head home and turn in for the night.

AJ walked up to stand next to me. “If ya want, I can drop Scoot there back home considerin’ it’s on the way. Wouldn’t be the first time Ah’ve taken her home.”

After thinking about it for a moment, I nodded. AJ would take care of the squirt. Besides, I had something else I wanted to take care of. “Thanks, you’re a pal.”

Applejack took Scootaloo from my back. “Gotta keep my reputation as the most reliable pony in Ponyville somehow. Ya goin’ to be alright headin’ home yourself?”

I let out a big old yawn. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just need to find my parents and Pinkie. Ya know, the usual post-party clean up kind of stuff.”

“Don’t Ah know it.” AJ nodded to me and moved to leave. “See ya later, RD.”

“You too.” I took to the sky as AJ walked off to take care of her sister and Scootaloo, flying around the town for a bit before I found the ponies I was looking for. I glided down and landed back in the street. Pinkie and Awesomom were asleep, leaning against each other back-to-back in the street. Awesomom had a lampshade on her head while Pinkie looked like somepony had gone to town on her face with a permanent marker. I may or may not have known who had done that, and that’s all I’m saying about it.

“Are you doing alright, dear?” Cool-Mom asked. She was sipping on something in a mug while sitting near my fillyfriend and other mom.

I plopped down next to her. “I’m doing good. Holding up better then those two.” I pointed at our sleeping company. “How about you? Been a long day for you and all.”

Cool-Mom waved a hoof to dismiss my worries. “Oh, I’m doing fine. I’m a bit used to all this, you know.” She let out a long sigh. “Though I do have to admit I am getting a bit old to be going to parties quite this wild. Especially when your mother is all wired up on coffee. She is so impossible at times.” She poked me in the foreleg. “And I don’t want to hear any comments about my age, young lady.”

I wrapped my hooves around the back of my neck and leaned up against a post that had somehow survived the party. “Hey, you said it, not me.” I took in a long breath as I thought about the topic I needed to bring up with her. “Cool-Mom, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”

Cool-Mom’s ears swerved my direction. “Oh?”

“Yeah, um.” I closed my eyes as I thought through about how I wanted to say it. “Ya know how I got banged up at Flight Camp?”

“I do,” Cool-Mom said simply, giving me room to explain things.

“Yeah, and...” I had to take another long breath to steady myself. “My right eye was a bit more hurt then the doctors originally thought. Um, it’s been getting slowly worse. Over time.”

I felt Cool-Mom’s forelegs slowly wrap around me in a hug. I leaned into her, I’m sure it made her feel better. “How bad is it?”

I looked away from her. “I’m kinda partially blind in it.”

A pair of white legs hugged me from the other side. I guess she had gotten over her caffeine binge quicker than Pinkie. “Oh, Dashie,” Awesomom said. I could see tears dripping down her cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

I moved a hoof slowly through the dirt under one of hooves. “I ... I don’t know. I didn’t want you two getting all worried about me. I thought I could just work through it. Didn’t want to get banned from being in the Wonderbolts because I had eye problems. But then a lot of stuff happened, and ... Pinkie and I talked about it. Talked to some doctors about it. I’m planning on getting surgery. Should fix the eye. But the docs said—” My throat seized up as I thought about it.

I felt a tremble work its way through my body as I thought about what the doctors had told me. It took me awhile to bring myself to continue. “They said I could go blind too.”

My parents hugged me more firmly from each side. Cool-Mom nuzzled my cheek. “Oh, Dash. You should’ve come to us sooner. We’re your parents.”

“I know, it’s just...” I trailed off. I hated talking about stuff like this. It was so much easier being awesome and making everypony proud of you. This? This sucked.

Awesomom pulled the lamp shade off her head to better look at me. “Don’t worry, we still love you. No matter what, we’ll always love you.”

Cool-Mom rubbed one of my forelegs. “And whatever happens, know that we are and always will be proud of you.”

“Thanks, that means a lot to me.” I took a moment to just let the two of them hug me. They were always good at the hugging thing. “So, I’m not scared or anything, but it would be nice if you two were at the hospital when—you know—I would just like...” I rubbed at the stinging sensation in my eyes. It was making my eyes all watery.

Cool-Mom gently shushed me and ran a hoof through my mane. “Don’t worry, we understand. We’ll be there for you, like we always have been.”

Awesomom placed a hoof on mine. “We love you, Dashie.”

I nearly choked up. “I love you too.”

Author's Note:

I would like to give a big thanks to my always faithful helpers, Chengar Qordath and Comma-Kazie.

I would also like to thank my prereader staff Incidental Pegasus No. 5, Infinion, droplet739, fizzlefist, notMurphy, Garbo802, mrjerrio, q97randomguy, Pav Fiera, roflkneif, Vhett, and Swiftest Shadow for all the great work the do.

Comments

[Comma-Kazie]

Hey Poni?

Cool, cool, awesome, awesome, cool awesome cool awesomecool adinkable cool awesomecool.

Tht is all.

(Also, excellent chapter, as always.)

[Chengar Qordath]

[chono]

Awesome and cool.

[mrjerrio]

This was a nice chapter, good old fashioned Winningverse character building. I especially liked the part where Rainbow Dash didn’t make a fool of herself. I don't remember where it is. It's hard to find something that rare.

[Aurora Dimmet]

Dash went through the day being embarrassed by her mothers, while wearing a frilly pink dress. ... And at the end of the day she was STILL awesome. Feather DUST me, that's amazing.

[FanOfMostEverything]

I'm not sure who was the more adorable pony, Dinky or Luna. It's a good thing they didn't team up...

Also, why do I get the feeling that Surprise may need to stay with Dash until the statute of limitations expires?

[Avid Reader]

Commence cool and awesomeness read.

Because it is awesome and cool.

[Bookmark88]

the ending... so beautiful
Damn winningverse making me tear up
Also, Dinky made my heart explode.

[Bookmark88]

wait, unless I am miss remembering, this was supposed to be the last chapter. so did you forget to change the status, or did you change your mind?
Just asking

[Themaskedferret]

I confess parts of this chapter made me want to rant and chew on the drywall but it was still fantastic. Part of my frustration just comes from the characters of her Mom's. In some spots they were amazingly perceptive and other times seemed almost aggressively ignorant.

Can't wait to see more.

[Swiftest]

Now that is one long chapter name.

[Kail]

Nice chapter. The influx of feels at the end was well done.

[nemryn]

2338070
You forgot coolawesome.

[Forevermore]

I'm mildly surprised Celestia and Luna don't show up at Pinkie's parties more often.

[Tarox]

This chapter is literary gold 120% from start to finish. I really think you've outdone yourself Ponibus, awesome chapter is awesome. Don't know what else to say really. Can't wait to see what else you have planned out.

[cs95]

heh that was good

[Ponibius]

2339179

This is the next to last chapter. There is still the epilogue to finish things up, and my prereaders are chewing though that right now.

2339510

Finally figured out how to fix that. Now it's all consistent.

[Crimson Dawn]

Fun chapter as always.

It is too bad that the season 3 episodes won't likely be joining the Winnningverse soon as they provide a lot of fodder for these stories. Obviously stories like the Wonderbolt Academy, Too Many Pinkie Pies (think if they all get a crush on Dashie at the same time), and other moments would make for great chapters. In addition I could see in this chapter material that would line up very well with Scoots episode in season 3 so that would be perfect as well.

Speaking of the Wonderbolts academy I think this would have been an interesting place to put a metion to said academy. It would continue the Winningverse filling in background details from the show and provides even more reason for Pinkie to be concerned about Dash getting in. In addition to the obvious (Dash wants to go and she cares about that) she also was now directly involved in getting the ball rolling which I can see driving somebody to concern.

Obviously it isn't necessary but it would be possibly interesting.

I love Pinkie in this and Dash's parents they are all a real treat and I like the competitive angle you have going for Surprise and Pinkie. That is very believable and gives us a hint of the standard inlaws vs significant others that works so well (but it is still friendly so it is not bad).

[The Kobold Necromancer]

Most bestest chapter yet ever to date!

Cool! Awesome! Cawesool! Awesoolme! Coolawesome awesomecool!

*gonna explode*

Gods I love this story! :D

[Seether00]

Meh... Not much of a party if nopony got arrested. Just saying.

[emrlddrgn]

Awwwwwwwwwww...... feels.

[Blue_Paladin42]

“Aye. Perhaps we can see what games you like to play in the palace dungeon?”

images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100802022516/masseffect/images/c/cc/EDI_Character_Box.png
Am I really the only one who thought of this?

2343376
Oh, I'm sure the police tried. But between Pinkie, Surprise, Cloud Kicker, and Princess Celestia's antics, they were just spread too thin.

[Nostromo_Crew]

Wow, went from being an in depth character developing story to a Mexican stand off ... didn't see that coming. Love the stories you guys in the Winningverse come up with, makes me damn jealous that I haven't any marketable skills for the fandom. Keep up the great work ya'll, I'm more than a little curious where Kicker and Blossom were in this whole mess.

[demanji]

“Pinkie!” I yelled trying to get her off the rails of whatever crazy thought process she was on.

as soon as i read that i thought
~im goin off the rails on a crazy train~
no idea why though

I stretched my shouldereder,

my shouldereder,

shouldereder

what?

[Ayin Apholion]

I nearly choked on my pizza when reading "straitened".
Otherwise, very good chapter, lots of fun, as usual

[DerRotSpassvogel]

Double shot of Pinkie on coffie? And there are survivors?

[dmgtitan]

“That was a joke.”
Luna is channeling Eve!

[Mally]

Hmm. There are a couple of perfect adjectives to describe this chapter, but I cannot for the life of me think of them.

They're on the tip of my fingers, as it were, and yet refuse to come to me. Any ideas?

[Borg]

Aaand there's one of the few ponies whose opinion mattered. I mean, really, really mattered. Not that anypony's really didn't, 'cuz I'm me, but ... well, Dinky is a pretty cool, adorable little kiddo in her own right. She’s one of those ponies who can dress me up in tail-bows and a sunhat and still make me look cool. The fact that she's also my goddaughter has nothing to do with that.

Aww, Dinky trumps image. That's sweet.

I couldn’t help but wince at that news. “Oh, did she?” It could only be a complete disaster if my parents told my fans every embarrassing story they could, and my parents would. Dear Celestia, they would. I’d be lucky if my own fans didn’t start calling themselves the ‘Let’s Laugh At Rainbow Dash Fanclub.’

Don't be silly. Your fans will eat that stuff up, and soon they'll be repeating it to all who will listen as more demonstration of how amazing you are. All the while it will never even occur to them that you might be embarrassed by those stories they're spreading around.
But, I mean, really, how could anypony not d'aww at things like the time you got stuck in a cloud? You must admit it sounds adorable.

I looked outside and saw that somehow my parents’ cart had found its way outside of the treehouse despite how I had left it back in town. It also had a bunch of streamers and balloons attached to it now. Go figure.

Here's a question: What happens if Pinkie and Surprise want contradictory things at the same time?
Another question: If I have an object, and Pinkie and Surprise both want that object, how far can the copies get from them without disappearing, and is that a smaller distance than if only one of them at a time clones my object?

“Ponyville doesn’t really have a huge reserve of balloons,” Pinkie pointed out. “The town isn’t super-huge like Cloudsdale. There’s only so much room I have to work with here.” She was starting to sound increasingly more frantic, and not in the happy-go-lucky type of frantic either. More like the panicked type of frantic. “There’s only so much space in the streets. I mean I can’t just move ponies’ houses around. I could, but they would get really cranky if I did that. Then the mayor and all the ponies would start yelling at me, and start to complain that I’m messing up the local property and tax structure of the town, and how the town looks. Nopony understands when you want to rearrange the town just to make it more party-friendly and—”

Surprise, stop making Pinkie feel insecure about her parties. Trust me, there are many reasons that is bad.

“Oh, I setup a designated parking spot for us earlier.” Awesomom pointed down to a roped off spot in the street large enough for the cart. “It’s the little things you need to remember sometimes.”

Didn't you promise not to disapprove of Pinkie? Get off her case!

Awesomom giggled. “No, guess again.” Pinkie was about to give another guess when Awesomom interrupted her. “I can’t wait! Let me show you!” She pulled out a pair of cups of what looked like steaming black liquid. Pinkie squealed in delight and jumped up and down in place. My heart sunk at what I thought I was seeing as Awesomom gave Pinkie one of the cups.

RUN

“Surprise, I’m warning you.” Cool-Mom gave Awesomom a fierce glare. “You’re looking at couch time the way you’re going.”

Pinkie and Awesomom looked each other in the eyes and nodded. They grinned at us and brought the coffee cups to their lips.

“Nooo!”

I hope it was worth it. And I hope to find out how Dash punishes Pinkie. "If you drink that coffee, I'll stay uncomfortable with the concept of banging for an extra month! I'm warning you!"

Awesomom had a lampshade on her head while Pinkie looked like somepony had gone to town on her face with a permanent marker. I may or may not have known who had done that, and that’s all I’m saying about it.

Well, somepony had to do it. Might as well be you.

2358166 You just had to point it out, so it would get fixed and nobody else would be able to enjoy it. Thanks a lot.

[ShadowLDrago]

Am I the only one who thinks that Luna used to be Laughter Pre Nightmare Moon? I realy liked this, funny and heartwarming.

[4morian5]

4408425 My headcanon is that Luna was Laughter, Honesty, and Loyalty, and Celestia was Magic, Kindness, and Generosity.

[WanderingPony]

>She looked up at Cool-Mom. “Can you make me a Wonderbolt costume so that I can look just like Dash when she becomes a Wonderbolt?”
>Cool-Mom patted Dinky on the head. “I don’t see why not.”
>“And me too?” asked Scootaloo.
>Cool-Mom smiled down at my number one fan. “Oh, of course. I’m sure you would look absolutely adorable dressed up as a Wonderbolt.”
>Scootaloo lowered her stance and pawed at the ground aggressively. “Nah, I would be super awesome. Just like Dash.”

And then it happened. Er, is happening.

derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/9/24/986639__safe_clothes_screencap_scootaloo_sweetie+belle_apple+bloom_cutie+mark+crusaders_costume_snails_snips.jpg

[Smoker]

... where's the kaboom?

There was supposed to be a massive, rage - filled kaboom!

[Atom Smash]

“But not quite as cool as my full-body Rainbow Dash suit.” Awesomom reached back behind her neck and pulled down on a zipper, revealing a costume that looked so much like me that I got creeped out looking at it. She was even wearing an exact copy of the dress I was wearing, wear and tear and all.

Are we sure Surprise and Pinkie doesn't posess changeling magic?