My Little RockStar

Chapters

Chapter One: Good Bye
Chapter 2: The Silver Lining
Chapter 3: The Truth Comes Out
Chapter 4: Time Is Money
Chapter 5: Unknown Enemies
Chapter 6: A Blast From the Past
Chapter 7: Hello Again
Chapter 8: The Mother and Child Reunion
Chapter 9: A Brother's Embrace
Chapter 10: One Last Time

Chapter One: Good Bye

A/N: This is my first fan fic, and I think it went better than I expected. I don’t need to tell you guys the typical newbie speech. Let me know what you think and criticism (don’t make it too harsh) is always welcomed. I hope you enjoy!

Luna’s moon was as beautiful as always. Sitting in the sky, radiating it’s glow to all the inhabitants of Equestria. Ponies could look up at the sky, always knowing that the moon would be there to greet them in the night. It was a constant presence, in a time where risk and uncertainty was the name of the game.

The moon hung over each corner of Equestria, from the royal palace in Canterlot, to the bustling streets of Fillydelphia. On this night there was no pony still awake to gaze up at the Moon. All the Ponies rested their weary heads and let sleep take them through the night. All was peaceful, except for one small town in the heartland of Equestria. A small unknown town by the name of Ponyville, and all of its inhabitants were wide awake, and more than excited. This night was one to remember, and nopony that didn’t want to be ridiculed for the rest of their life was not present at a small bakery in the town square. The infamous Sugar Cube Corner was playing host to yet another party created by Pinkie Pie. And everyone knows that when Pinkie throws a party, there’s got to be a good reason. This night was no exception, because this party was for Equestria’s best young flyer, and tomorrow that cyan Pegasus' dream would finally become a reality. Rainbow Dash was going to be inducted into the Wonderbolts, and everypony in Ponyville wanted to properly see off their long time friend as she left her hometown to tour the world. This was going to be a night to remember.

*----------------*

“Oh come on Dashie, one little sip of the naughty water ain’t going to kill ya!” Rainbow Dash batted the bottle of bright blue liquor aside and shot Pinkie Pie a frustrated look.

“Pinkie, I’ve told you three times tonight, I can’t go to my own induction ceremony with a bucking hangover!” Pinkie whimpered and backed behind Applejack who, like Pinkie appeared to have a strong buzz.

“Agh come on Rainbow,” Applejack giggled. “She’s just trying to be a good hostess, an you've been looking awful grumpy this whole party!” Rainbow sighed and replied,

“I know, I know, but it gets damn aggravating having booze pushed in your face all night when you know you shouldn't have any. I mean, I have to pull off a freaking sonic rainboom tomorrow for the Wonderbolts, and that’s hard enough already. The last thing I need is to try to break the sound barrier with a migraine.”

Rainbow felt a strong bump against her flank and whirled around to see a heavily intoxicated Twilight Sparkle dancing like a fool. Once making eye contact with Dash Twilight burst into laughter and began to have a complete fit.”

“AGH!” shouted Twilight. “Well look who it is....it’s…it’s...agh” Twilight let out a deep sigh. “RAINBOW DASHIE, my good, good friend!” Twilight erupted into another furious storm of laughter and fell over on to Rainbow.

“Whoa, cool it Twilight!” Dash yelled as she shoved the wasted pony off of herself. “Twi, you never drink, why are you making such a fool of yourself?”

Twilight giggled and mumbled. “Well lookie here! Normally I’m the one who usually has to baby-sit you, but now it’s your turn to baby-sit me!” Twilight than went as far as to shove her hoof right in Rainbow’s face to make sure, that Dash knew Twilight was talking about her.

“Agh..... come with me right now Twi!” Twilight was in no position to hold off the athletic, sober pony, so she willingly let Rainbow Dash drag her to the back room of the bakery.

“Twilight, I know that you’re excited and that this is a huge night, but I don’t want my last memory of my time living in Ponyville to be looking after your wasted flank while you make a fool of yourself.” Twilight, obviously feeling awful at the sudden realization of her reckless antics began to cry and grabbed on to Rainbow’s Mane.

“You’re right, this isn't me at all,” Twilight stuttered between sobs. “I......I.....I just wanted to loosen up a bit considering I’m always the party pooper of the group, and this is our last time together as neighbors in Ponyville.” Rainbow Dash blushed at the sincerity at which Twilight expressed her friendship. Even falling down drunk the violet unicorn had a way with words.

“Don’t worry,” assured Rainbow. “It’s not like we’re never going to see each other again, I’m just going to be a bit more busy and I won’t be around as much.” While this was true to some extent, the real truth was that Rainbow Dash would be lucky if she got to see her friends twice a year, let alone every day like she did now. Both Twilight and Rainbow Dash knew it, which both led to them shedding a few tears while holding each other in the back room of the bakery.

Twilight looked up into Rainbow’s eyes and sniffled, “Dash, you’re one of the greatest friends a pony could ever ask for.” Rainbow smiled and looked back at Twilight.

“So are you, Twi, I couldn't ask for a better friend.” They both smiled at each other and began to stand up.

“Speaking of friends,” Rainbow asked. “We should probably get back out there, it’s not very polite of me to be the guest of honor and not even mingle at my own party.” Twilight nodded and stood up on her own. By the looks of it, the friendly chat sobered her up the tiniest bit.

Just as the two friends walked out of the back room, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie strolled into the room.

“There you two are!” Pinkie Pie shouted. “I was worried that you just called it a night and left!” The other three friends has the same grin plastered on their faces as they walked up to Dash and Twilight holding six glasses of water. Twilight gagged as she eyed the glass of clear liquid and stuttered, “Is...is... That a whole glass of vodka?” Twilight turned pale at the sight of it and her knees gave out.

All the girls laughed as Applejack picked Twilight up and handed her a glass. “This ain’t no vodka, but if you don’t down a good few of these here glasses of water I reckon you’re gonna have a mighty fierce headache tomorrow morning.”

Twilight had some of the purple color re-fill her face as she gratefully took the glass of water from AJ and took a long deep drink. “Ugh.......” Twilight sighed, “I needed that, the last thing I want is to be home sick while my best friend has her dream come true!” Rainbow Dash blushed and smiled back at Twilight.

Rarity stepped forward and put her self at the center of the circle. After clearing her throat, she raised her glass to the sky and said, “I want to propose a toast.” Becoming slightly chocked up she started her speech. “Tomorrow, we lose a neighbor as she goes to fulfill her life long dream.” Now tears flowed freely down Rarity’s cheeks.

“Now we may be losing a neighbor, but we’re also seeing off a friend, who can finally achieve what she has dedicated her life to, and I wish Rainbow Dash the best in her future endeavors as a Wonderbolt......I just hope she remembers the little ponies like us!” With that Rarity burst into tears as the rest of the group, also crying helped her to her feet.

After getting back up Rarity straightened up and flipped her mane out of her eyes as a way to show she had regained her composure.

Rarity lifted her glass once more and cheered, “For Rainbow Dash!” The other four raised their now half empty glasses of water to the air and mimicked what Rarity did.

“For Rainbow Dash!” Even Fluttershy had raised her voice loud enough to be heard by the others.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do without you girls,” Rainbow Dash half chuckled, half sobbed. And with that the six closest friends in all of Equestria bid each other good night, as they rested their weary minds, preparing for the incredible events that would follow the next morning.

*---------------*

Now that Luna’s moon had set, and Celestia’s sun had risen, Ponyville was buzzing with excitement as word of the Wonderbolts arrival had spread through the town like wildfire weeks ago.

Almost all of the mane six had had a deep dream filled sleep the prior night after they left the party, but Rainbow Dash was restless. She knew that is was going to be the last real day she would ever get to spend with her closest friends. Thoughts of denial raced through her head as she put on her new wonder bolts uniform. She quickly pushed those thought out of her head.

“No way,” she said out loud to her self. “This is what I’ve wanted my whole entire life!” Dash walked over to her mirror and looked at her self in her custom, blue and yellow Wonderbolts uniform. Rainbow twisted around to see her name in gold letters stitched into the back.

This was supposed to be the greatest day of her life, why was she having second thoughts now off all times?

“No,” Rainbow yelled to herself. “This is what my friends would want.” With that thought in her mind. Rainbow Dash flew out of her house in the clouds, and locked the door one last time.

Rainbow was already about to cry and the day had barely even started, and the goodbyes were just going to get harder and harder as the day progressed. Without looking back Rainbow Dash flew down to the town square where a huge congregation of Ponies were long awaiting her arrival.

*--------------*

Rainbow Dash let out a large sigh as her life long hero approached her from behind. Spitfire laid a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder, causing Rainbow to jump in the air.

“Wow,” Spitfire chuckled, “and I thought I was nervous when I did my first performance.” Rainbow Dash gave a very pathetic laugh back, trying to at least look like she was ready to perform.

“ Nervous can’t even begin to describe how I fell right now” Rainbow whispered to her self as she heard the Mayor turn on the microphone.

“Mares and gentlecolts!” The Mayor yelled out to the crowd of hundreds of fans. “It is my greatest pleasure to introduce for only the second time in Ponyville history! The Wonderblots!”

Before Rainbow Dash could even look up the Wonderbolts has shot up miles into the sky. Rainbow felt a rather large lump grow in her throat as she waited for the Mayor to finish her speech and give her the cue to fly up in the air and join the rest of her team.

There was a momentary pause that allowed Rainbow to catch her breath as the Mayor waited for the crowd to cease its cheers for the current Wonderbolts. Rainbow couldn't blame them. She was always the loudest at any Wonderbolt derby that came through town.

After what felt like hours of cheering the crowd finally simmered down enough so the Mayor could finish her speech. With just the slightest touch of annoyance the Mayor continued her introduction.

“We all know that the Wonderbolts don’t just come to our humble town for a simple visit. No, they have come here today for an even bigger reason. A reason that I can’t even begin to explain, so I will just have to let the mare of the hour use her amazing tricks to do the talking!”

The crowd began to become restless for the real star to take the stage. Even being hidden behind the curtain Rainbow Dash could still feel her fans gaze upon her eyes. This was her big moment. The moment she had waited her whole life for!
“Without further a du,” beamed the Mayor. “I give you your new Wonderbolt, Rainbow Dash!”

Hearing her cue, Rainbow burst in to the sky just below the other Wonderbolts. Rainbow felt lucky that the uniform covered most of her face, because after seeing all her adoring fans go crazy for her, her cheeks would have surely been a bright crimson color.

After a quick nod of approval from her fellow Bolts, Rainbow took to the skies to begin her solo act. Although the other Wonderbolts were present, it was a time honor tradition to let the spotlight shine on the new recruit for her first performance.

Everything was going great. The tricks were going off without a hitch, and each new swirl and loop and corkscrew added to the excitement of the crowd.

Rainbow Dash would occasionally fly just over the heads of each fan and shoot them a quick grin. She couldn't help but laugh during her performance as she soared over her close friends and saw them shouting and cheering her name. Well, everyone except Twilight who just wore a wide smile while holding down an ice pack on her horn.

Each passing moment Rainbow Dash intensified her tricks, until it was the moment of truth again. It was time for a sonic rainboom.

Rainbow shot upward and was greeted by the commotion of the crowd. They knew what was coming, and had been waiting the whole show for it.

The cheers were quickly silenced as Rainbow climbed higher and higher. Soon, the only things she could hear were her own thoughts and the wind in her ears. It was time.

Rainbow did a flip and began her rapid descent. The crowd grew closer and closer as the bright yellow cone began to form around her perfectly streamlined body.

There was no doubt now. Rainbow knew that she was going to be able to pull off her sonic rainboom.

While gaining speed Rainbow quickly looked out for her friends. She didn't want to miss their reactions to her incredible trick.

With one final push Rainbow broke through, and just as the first two times she had ever done the sonic rainboom, a wide array of colors exploded around her, and a rainbow trail was left in her wake as she sped through the air.

Rainbow was simply on top of the world. She was performing in a Wonderbolts show, and saw all five of her best friends waving and cheering her on.

Without a care in the world Rainbow smiled back at her friends and shot out her right wing to wave back. Oh, no.

Rainbow immediately knew she made a huge mistake. There was a hollow crack that she heard even with the wind roaring in her ears, and an intense pain shot through her wing.

Rainbow Dash careened out of control speeding faster and faster toward the ground. The pain didn't even phase her at the moment. She knew that she had made the worst decision of her life.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Rainbow Dash kicked herself mentally. “How dare my friends break my concentration!”

With that in mind, Rainbow crashed into the town square, surrounded by completely stunned ponies. Everything felt broken, but somehow, it didn’t hurt. A warm rush of relief flowed through Rainbow Dash. The last thing she saw was her five friends running to her.

Her vision turned to pure white, then faded to an ominous black hole.

Chapter 2: The Silver Lining

*All Revised, thanks to MyInnerWeirdo!

The sterile aroma of cotton and latex were the only smells present in the small room that Rainbow Dash was lying in. She didn’t even need to guess where she was. She had been taken to the hospital plenty of times for crashes.

“I’m going to be fine” she thought to herself. “I mean really, I’m Rainbow Dash; the best flyer in all of Equestria! Some dumb little crash isn't going to stop me!” Even as these bold words left her, she knew that she was kidding herself. That crash was unlike any other she had ever experienced. It was defying physics in the first place to break the sound barrier and create a rainbow, so there was no way that crashing into the ground at the speed of sound wasn't going to severely injure her.

Now that she thought about it, Rainbow couldn't really remember much of anything from the previous day. She recapped yesterdays events in her head.

“Lets see, well first I know I was flying with the Wonderbolts.” Her face immediately lost its cyan color. “Why, why in front of the Wonderbolts?” She screamed to herself. It wasn't that she was embarrassed of the crash. It was the fact that she had just had everything she ever wanted right there on the end of her hoof, and than when she crashed, all those dreams flew out the window.

Rainbow sat up and screamed. The sudden motion made her body cry out for her to stop, but she couldn't. Rainbow just continued to scream until her lungs could no longer let out air. Rainbow gasped and fell back on her pillow and looked at the ceiling. She wanted to cry, but the pain was just too much to bear. Rainbow stared at the white ceiling for hours, not knowing what she would ever do with herself.

After hours of self hatred nurse Redheart entered Rainbow’s room and looked stunned. “Doctor, doctor!” The nurse yelled and ran out of the room shortly returning with Doctor Whooves.

“My god!” he yelled. “She’s finally awake. Rainbow looked back at the doctor with a angered face and yelled, “No shit Sherlock! I have been awake for hours just screaming at the ceiling, I thought at least one of you so called doctors would have come to me, but no. I suppose you have other, more important matters to attend to.” Rainbow angrily jerked her head away from the doctor and looked out the window.

Doctor Whooves sat next to Rainbow and looked at her puzzled. Any other pony would have taken great offense to such a rude tone, but Whooves knew that Rainbow was not always the most understanding when it came to injuries.

“Rainbow,” the doctor said in a gentle tone. “You never screamed, the fact your alive right now boggles my mind.”

“What do you mean I didn’t scream?!” Rainbow yelled to the doctor.

“Rainbow, I don't know how to tell you this, but you have been in coma for three months. You even slipped in and out of life multiple times this past week. If it weren't for those five friends of yours we would have pulled the plug weeks ago, but after the purple one wrote a letter to the princess we had to keep you on life support. I thought for sure that you were a goner, but here you sit, breathing next to me.

Rainbow had no clue what to say. She was absolutely outraged that the doctor had the nerve to pull the plug on her, but at the same time, she couldn't believe that her friends kept her alive for so long.

“You really have some great friends you know,” Doctor Whooves said as he rose up off of the bed. “Not many ponies can say that their friends really saved their lives.”

*----------------*

Rainbow awoke to Nurse Redheart trying to quietly switch out Rainbow’s bandages. Rainbow hadn't seen her wings since the crash and was worried, but ready to see how they faired.

The Nurse looked over to see the awakened Pegasus looking back at her. “Oh dear,” she sighed. “I really wanted for you to be asleep for this.” Rainbow smirked back at the Nurse and wheezed,

“I’m Rainbow Dash, I think I can handle seeing some broken bones, even if they are mine.”

The Nurse gulped, and replied, “Rainbow, I’m afraid that its far worse than a few broken bones. I really think you should look away for this.” Rainbow wouldn't hear any of it though. She demanded that she finally saw the true extent of the damage.

After one last failed attempt by the nurse to change Rainbow’s mind Redheart began to unwind the bandage. Once it was finally off Rainbow gasped and burst into tears pushing the nurse back against the wall.

She had no wings. Just two small swollen bumps where each wing used to be attached. “I’m so sorry” the Nurse begged. “There was just no way to save them, the damage was far too great.”

Rainbow was hysterical. She looked at the nurse and shouted, “I would rather be dead!” and continued to cry her eyes out. The nurse knew that there was no way she could re-bandage the wound now, she would just have to try later, and hope that Rainbow didn’t do anything crazy.

Rainbow laid in bed awake all night crying, until she had no more tears. Than she just stared at the ceiling again like she had done in her dream during the coma. She wished that this was all just going to be a dream, and she was still in her previous state, but the pain and emotion was all to real to be that of a dream.

Just when her body had no more energy to loathe, Rainbow fell asleep, just as the sun started to rise over the horizon in the distance.

*-------------*

“She’s awake!” Rainbow Dash was suddenly jolted out of her sleep by a teary eyed Pinkie Pie who refused to let go of her rainbow mane.

Rainbow quickly shoved the pink pony off of herself with a look of disgust. Pinkie once again cowered back behind Applejack as the rest of Rainbow’s friends entered the small room.

Twilight was the first to break the awkward silence by walking up next to Rainbow and smiled, “It’s so good to see your eyes Dashie, we were losing hope each day you were asleep.” The rest of the friends all nodded in agreement.

Rainbow just stared at her friends with a look of pure hatred. “What in Equestria are you so upset about Dashie,” said Rarity as she placed a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. Rainbow quickly pushed the white pony off of her and finally raised her voice.

“You seriously had the nerve to write the princess and make the doctor keep me on life support!” The other ponies all looked back at their friend with total confusion.

Fluttershy at this point had begun to cry and became angered by Rainbow’s attitude. “What did you expect us to do Rainbow?” Fluttershy said in a cowering tone.

“They took my wings!” Rainbow began to bawl. “They just went and hacked them right off!” Rainbow turned her back to her friends to make sure that each could see the fresh wound.

Waiting for sympathy from her friends Rainbow kept her back turned. But the sympathy never came. Applejack stood forward and turned the very shocked Rainbow Dash around. “Rainbow, we know that your one true love was flying, but how do you think we felt.” Rainbow began to see the tears form in Applejack’s eyes. Rainbow was stunned, even in all the years she had been friends with AJ, she had never actually seen the cowpony shed real tears.

Rainbow quickly glared back at Applejack. “Why does it matter how you feel?” Rainbow Dash had finally lost her temper. “You weren't the ones who crashed! You weren’t the ones who were in a coma! You weren't the ones who had their life literally chopped off! You didn’t have to go through anything!”

All of Rainbow’s friends were simply in shock. Fluttershy turned bright red and flew above Rainbow Dash.

“How…” Fluttershy whispered. Suddenly she put her face right against Rainbow’s and screamed at the top of her lungs. “HOW DARE YOU EVEN SAY THAT WE DIDN’T GO THROUGH ANYTHING!!!!”

The room became extremely quiet, and all eyes were on Fluttershy who had backed off to the ground and was breathing heavily. Fluttershy raised her voice again, not to a scream, but loud enough to heard by all in the room.

“For the past three months, your friends and I have come to this hospital everyday to see you. Everyday the doctor would tell us the same dreadful news about your condition and plead with us just to end your life!” Fluttershy took a quick pause to catch her breath.

“We knew that you had it in you and we told the doctors to do anything they had to do to save your life. I guess that meant they had to amputate your wings, and believe me I have cared for enough animals that have lost limbs to know that it’s hard. But they always pull through and live full, rewarding lives. I knew that you would make it, and I knew that even without your wings you would live a great, successful life. Rainbow Dash, I know that this is so hard for you, but everything your friends do is all for you. We love you Dashie.”

With that Flutershy went up and hugged her cyan colored her friend. All of the girls except Rainbow gasped. Rainbow Dash had pushed Flutershy to the ground and looked at her friends.

“ I would rather be dead.”

All of Rainbow’s friends left the small room single file with tears in their eyes. When they had all left even Rainbow Dash herself began to cry.

*-------------*

A week had passed and Rainbow still had not received a single visitor. Although Rainbow knew well that she shouldn't expect to see her five friends, she grew lonely. Nurse Redheart was good company, but the two ponies had absolutely nothing in common. Rainbow longed for someone to come, just to hear a voice. Spike would cheer her up! No way, Twilight would never allow Spike to visit Rainbow for fear that Rainbow would just step all over Spike’s feelings like she had done to Twilight. Rainbow was so desperate that even hearing an, “Eyuup” from Big Mac would make her day. Hospital life sucked.....

There was only half an hour left in the day for visiting hours at the hospital and Rainbow came to the same conclusion that no pony was going to come.

Nurse Redheart entered Rainbow’s room with a large smile on her face. Rainbow also got excited, for the extra unusual look of happiness plastered on the normally boring nurse’s face meant that something was up.

“You have a very special visitor Dashie!” The nurse told Rainbow as she opened the door for the unknown guest to enter the room. Rainbow couldn't imagine who was standing next to her bed.

“Spitfire!” Rainbow yelled jumping up to give the orange pegasus a hug. Rainbow was starting to get stronger each day.

“Hey there kiddo!” Spitfire replied suddenly turning very pale putting her fore legs back on the ground.

“Oh, Rainbow......I...I don’t know what to say” Spitfire must have felt, or more so not felt the wings on Rainbow Dash’s back.

“I know,” Rainbow Dash sighed. “Life can be unfair, and it was really hard to deal with at first, but I’m starting to accept that this is the way that I’m going to have to live my life.” Spitfire looked absolutely amazed by the way Rainbow had handled the situation.

“Wow Rainbow,” Spitfire shrugged. “You really are quite the pony you know.” Rainbow Dash blushed at the compliment but was slightly confused at what Spitfire meant.

“How am I quite the pony?” Rainbow sighed. “Your a bucking idol for every filly in Equestria. All I am is a broken down pegasus who had her dreams come down and crush her.”

“I may an idol for my tricks and skills,” Spitfire paused to make sure she was going to get this compliment right and not just add insult to injury. “But your the one who should be the idol Dash. Any pony who can stay so positive after such an ordeal is the real hero in my eyes.” Spitfire nodded to herself seeming pleased with what she had just said to her friend.

Rainbow Dash suddenly realized what Spitfire had said was a complete lie. Rainbow looked up to her idol and spat, “I’m no hero, I’m a no good lousy pony who pushed away the ones I really care about, just because they saved my life.” After saying it out loud Rainbow knew how extremely foolish she had been.

“I’m so sorry to leave like this Spitfire, but I have to go turn something I made so wrong, back into something right.” Spitfire was slightly confused but was not going to hold the pony back.

“Here I come girls!” Rainbow yelled as she ran out of the hospital and toward Ponyville.

Chapter 3: The Truth Comes Out

*Thanks again to all you readers as well as my editor MyInnerWeirdo!*

Rainbow Dash frantically ran out of the hospital, with a remarkably large pack of angry nurses hot on her tail. Fortunately, it was all just a game to Rainbow. Those stuffy doctors had nothing on her amazing speed, even if she was running and not flying. Rainbow continued to let the hospital staff gain on her only to sprint ahead a few meters and let them catch back up. With one last laugh Rainbow turned around only to get slammed to the ground by a less than amused Doctor Whooves.

“Agh.....um....you win.” Rainbow looked up at her doctor with a wide forgiving grin trying to make herself look as innocent as possible.

Doctor Whooves was beyond upset. He picked Rainbow up and yelled. “Cut the crap and for gods sake wipe that shit eating grin off you face. Do you have any idea how reckless you just acted!?” Rainbow was shocked, she had never seen the normally easy going doctor look so angry. Rainbow wouldn't admit, but she was scared. Really scared.

“Um....um.....Doctor, please I can explain.” Rainbow pleaded with tears in her eyes. Doctor Whooves looked down at Rainbow with fire still in his eyes. Just as Rainbow thought she was about to get torn to pieces Doctor Whooves fell on his back and burst into a fit of hysterical laughter.

Rainbow was torn, she didn’t know if he was pulling some horrible joke, or if he had gone crazy with power. “Um…Doctor,” Rainbow asked with hesitation. “Are you feeling ok?”

Doctor Whooves got back off of the ground and began to simmer down his laughter attack. “Yes Rainbow, I am more than fine, I just figured that after you gave my nurses and I so much trouble the least I could do is poke a little fun back.” Rainbow couldn't help smile. She loved a good practical joke as much as the next pony.

“Yeah you really got me,” Rainbow chuckled. “Sorry doc, but I’m really in a rush, I have to fix something. Can you please me release me from the hospital?”

Doctor Whooves smiled and replied, “After that little stunt, I suppose your healthy enough to be released.” Rainbow shrieked and gave her doctor a hug. After hearing Doctor Whooves laugh at Rainbow’s sudden burst of affection she immediately broke the embrace with the doctor.

“Thanks again, doc,” Rainbow smiled, “and if you ever tell a single pony about that hug I gave you, you’re going to need a doctor!” Whooves just laughed and waved as his former patient run off toward Ponyville.

*-----------------*

Rainbow Dash stood in front of the Ponyville library debating how she would apologize to her friends. “Man,” Rainbow thought to herself. “You would have thought that I would have a better idea of what to say to my friends after thinking about them for the past month.” Rainbow shrugged and knocked on the door.

“Just one moment!” Twilight yelled from the far end of the library. Just hearing her friends voice again made Rainbow Dash take a huge sigh of relief. Twilight opened the door and froze on the spot. Rainbow didn’t even hesitate. She threw herself on top of Twilight and hugged so tight that Twilight had to beg for her to let go.

“Rainbow, what the hay is wrong with you!?” Rainbow was on her knees crying like a baby looking up at Twilight.

“I’m just so sorry Twilight!” the crying just got worse and worse as Rainbow continued her apology, Twilight on the other hoof just looking back at her rainbow maned friend with a very somber face.

“I still am, and forever will be kicking myself for how I treated you girls that day in the hospital. I just had so much emotion built up inside of me that I had to get it out. Sadly you were the closest thing to vent on. You know that I would never prefer to be dead over a pair of measly wings.”

Twilight’s poker face began to crack as even she had tears flowing down her face. Twilight picked Rainbow up and returned the vice grip of a hug that she had received moments ago.

“I forgive you Dashie, there is nothing, no matter how awful that you could do that would completely drive your friends away forever. Rainbow sniffled and continued to hug Twilight as she heard a quick laugh from behind the bookcases.

“What the hay was that?” Rainbow looked at Twilight. “Oh shucks Twilight laughed, so much for the surprise. Come on out girls.”

Rainbow looked up to her other four friends as they came out behind from behind the shelves of books, each one with tears in their eyes. Applejack was the first one to give Rainbow Dash a hug.

“Good to have you back Sugarcube, I was starting to get worried that I had lost my best friend.” Rainbow smiled back and with the most sincerity that any of the five girls have ever, heard Rainbow began to speak.

“My actions were inexcusable, and I know that if I had said those awful things to anypony other than you girls, that I would have driven them off forever. You girls are the only thing that are keeping me attached to the single shred of insanity I still have. If it weren't for you, I would be dead, and I plan on repaying that debt in full.”

Rainbow ended her speech with one large group hug with all of her friends. Pinkie Pie was the first to break the pleasant embrace and jumped on top of Twilights desk.

“Well a moment like this can only have one outcome!” Pinkie Pie shouted to her friends.

Rarity laughed and replied, “um, a party?”

“Nope,” Pinkie Pie replied. The girls all gasped. Pinkie not throwing a party? It was absolutely unheard of.

“A great moment like this one calls for something much more special than a simple party,” Pinkie announced.

“Well, what do you got then?” Applejack asked in a slightly frightened tone.

Pinkie Pie shot up in the air and screamed “SLUMBER PARTY!” The girls all just laughed at Pinkie as she crashed on the floor on the library.

“Slumber party it is then!” Rainbow laughed. “Uh, oh, um girls, there’s a slight problem. All of my stuff including my sleeping bag is at my house, and that’s sort of on a could, and I can’t really fly anymore.” Rainbow sighed.

Not wanting the party to die before it even started Twilight walked up to Rainbow Dash and said, “Don’t worry about anything, Dash, you can use one of my bags.”

“Thanks Twi, I really appreciate it,” Rainbow replied. “Um, where is it exactly?” Twi pointed a hoof toward her upstairs closet, and Rainbow Dash nodded to show that she understood.

The party had already gotten underway as Rainbow dug through Twilight’s massive pile of crap. “Agh, finally! Here it is,” Rainbow sighed grabbing the purple bag from the corner of the closet.

She froze in place in front of the door looking down at something in Twi’s closet that was unmistakable. A small cheap Purple nylon acoustic guitar. Rainbow took a few steps back. She hadn't seen a guitar since that fateful day over a decade ago.

Grabbing the small instrument Rainbow sat down on Twilight’s bed and strummed a quick chord. The poor thing was horribly out of tune. Rainbow smiled as she twisted each knob at the head of the guitar plucking each string one by one. It had been twelve years but she still knew the exact tone of each note by heart.

After the guitar was tuned, Rainbow began to play. Not a specific song, just random notes that began to flow through her heart and into her hoofs, then into the small instrument. The beat was slow and very relaxing. Before she knew it Rainbow had begun to cry as she played. Each strum felt like it released a heavy burden off of her chest.

Rainbow didn’t know it but she had been playing for over forty five minutes alone in Twilight’s room. Each of her friends were standing on the stairs spying on their cyan friend as she poured her heart and soul into that tiny little guitar.

Pinkie Pie couldn't stand it anymore, she walked up to Rainbow Dash and just sat down beside the former pegasus. Pinkie’s hair was still poofey, but there was no bouncing. No screaming. No poking. Pinkie just rocked back and fourth on the bed as Rainbow continued to play. The other four girls also walked up with mouths agape, but no words were spoken. The five girls just sat in awe as Rainbow played away.

After what felt like hours of peace and tranquility Rainbow stopped to rest. She set the guitar down on the ground and let out a giant sigh. Releasing the last bit of energy that she had in her body.

Pinkie approached Rainbow and asked in a very mellow tone. “I have never heard that kind of music before, why did it sound so…sad?”

Rainbow smiled back at the tamed pink pony, “It’s called the Blues, Pinkie, and I actually have never been a fan of it, but holding that guitar in my hands again, I just felt like the music came to me and my heart told my hoofs what to do.”

All of Rainbow’s friends had begun to shed some tears, but they were tears of happiness. It was nice to see their cyan friend who was normally so wound up to look so tranquil.

Twilight walked up next. “Wow, I have never heard anypony play the guitar so well in my whole life. To be honest I had forgotten that I even owned that little thing.” Rainbow grinned back looking at the purple guitar lying on the floor.

“Twilight,” Rainbow asked. “How come you never told me you played guitar?”

“That’s the thing,” Twilight replied. “I don’t, I always wanted to, but my life was just so busy being Celestia’s pupil, that I never had the time to learn. Now that I think about it, the fact I’m no longer in school would actually give me some time to learn how to play, I just forgot that I owned it.” Twilight paused and looked back to Dash. With a grin, she asked, “The better question Dashie, is when did YOU learn to play the guitar, and why did you never tell us?”

The rest of the girls nodded agreeing with what Twilight had asked. Rainbow sighed and looked at all of her friends. “I have never told anypony this before.”

Applejack smiled back at Rainbow Dash and told her, “You don’t have nothing to hide darlin, just get everything off of your chest.” Rainbow looked back at her friends and took a deep breath.

“Ok, get ready this might take a while.”

*-----------------*

“When I was a filly, my parents left me. Just got up and left, I don’t even know their names, but I hate them. If I could go back in time and tell them anything…“ She paused to think what she would really tell them. “I would say don’t change a thing, because their awful choices made my life so much better. At least I think so. Anyway, when they left they dumped my on the doorstep of the Cloudsdale flight school. It took a few hours but finally sompony came and got me. The instructors showed a lot of interest in me at first. All in all I think it was all because of my unique colors. They thought I was going to be a natural talent. To some extent they were right, but I had one big problem growing up.” Rainbow gulped, this next part of her story was something she had never told a single soul.

“The truth is, that while most pegasus can fly at birth, my wings were different, they were fragile, therefore I couldn't fly until I was ten. In an all pegasus city, not being able to fly was extremely frowned upon. My adopted parents, bless their souls, even got death threats from some of the other pegasus. They realized that this was no safe environment for a mere filly, so we moved. We moved the last place you girls would have thought I would ever live--the city of Manehattan. It was really hard at first, but I got used to the bustling streets and busy ponies.

“I was the only pegasus pony in a city full of earth and unicorn ponies no needles to say I never had any friends.” Rainbow looked back up at her friends and gave them a smile, just to remember herself that her awful childhood didn’t matter anymore. Now she had real friends, all of which looked at her with tears in their eyes.

Rarity, with a very chocked voice asked, “Rainbow, please continue.”

Rainbow took a deep breath and began again.

“My parents knew that I was getting depressed. They tried everything to get me to smile, but nothing would work. Finally one day they made me pick up piano. I couldn't stand it. I hated all that classical music junk, and I was forced to practice hours everyday. I was good, but what’s the point of being good at something if you hate it? This just made my parents even sadder. They loved me so much, but hated seeing me in such a rotten mood all the time.

“One afternoon when I was walking back from my piano rehearsal I decided to take a new route home. Now that I look back on it, I’m lucky that I didn’t get jumped or worse; I was in the worst part of town. Something caught my eye though. There was a bright cyan building with a rainbow pattern painted around the windows. You could see why such a building would spark my curiosity. Going against everything I had been taught I walked in the small store.”

“WELL WHAT WAS IN THERE!” Pinkie Pie yelled as she sat on the edge of her seat with more tears pouring down her face.

“Calm down Pinkie!” Rarity snapped, also with tears in her eyes. “I am sure that if we all just shut up for a moment that Rainbow will continue.”

“Thank you Rarity,” Rainbow laughed. “Yeah, where was I? Oh, right. So I walked in the small shop and heard the most amazing sound that has ever filled my ears. It was the guitar solo from the song Black Dog by Led Zeppelin. The sound was just so pure, yet so untamed and rough. I knew that from that moment on, I would have to learn how to play such an instrument.”

“The shop owner had obviously seen my reaction to the song and approached me. I was terrified that he was going to hurt me somehow seeing as I was an adorable little pegasus pony in the middle of the big city. It turns out that this colt was one of the nicest ponies that ever walked on the face of Equestria. He took the time to explain to me exactly what this whole Rock & Roll thing was. I was absolutely entranced at the information he was telling me. I asked him if I could come back later with some money and buy a record but he wouldn't hear it. He walked into the back of his shop and returned with a single black and blue record in his hoof, and handed it to me. I will never forget the first time I held that record in my hoof. It was Tommy, by the Who. I didn’t know it yet, but that record would save my life. The shop keeper explained to me how it was all about a deaf, dumb, and blind pony that had a love for pinball, but was always told that he would never fulfill his dreams. It reminded me on my struggles of flying, and from that moment on I dedicated my life to three things. Rock & Roll, Guitar, and teaching my self how to be the very best flyer in all of Equestria. The nice Shop keeper closed down the store and escorted me back to my house. My parents were stunned by the generosity of the giant tattoo riddled pony that walked me home. They tried to pay him for the record but he told them to save the money for an electric guitar. That very next day my dad and I walked to the local music store and we bought a Gibson Les Paul. I had no idea at the time that the guitar cost so much or I never would have let my dad spend so much on it, but I was young and foolish. All of my dreams were becoming a reality.”

At this point every pony in the room was in their sleeping bag and it was dark. Each girl had a strong stream of tears going, even Rainbow Dash.

“That story was just absolutely amazing Rainbow Dash,” Rarity sniffled. Rainbow blushed, glad that she could finally share those memories with someone else other than herself.

Twilight spoke next, “Rainbow, I had no idea. Why did you ever stop playing guitar?” Rainbow Dash was even a bit puzzled by the question. “I guess I just lost interest when I finally learned how to fly, and it turned out that I had a chance to make my dream of becoming the best flyer in all of Equestria a reality. It’s just to hard to be the best at two things at the same time” she chuckled. All of her friends laughed at the selfish comment as well.

Rainbow stood up and looked back at the guitar. “I guess it may just be time to break out my old guitar again seeing as I can’t fly. When it comes down to it I will always be upset that my wings are gone, but now I know that if the power of guitar and Rock & Roll kept me alive when I couldn't fly before, I don’t see why it couldn't now.” Rainbow stood up and looked at her friends. “It's time to play again!”

The rest of her friends all stood up and cheered for rainbow. Applejack walked forward first.

“You know Rainbow, I have been told that I am a great singer, maybe, just maybe I could play with you some time?”

Rainbow smiled and said, “AJ, I would love for you to play with me, that would make playing guitar, I don’t know, maybe 20% cooler than it already is!” All the girls burst into laughter at the awesome joke.

Twilight was next to hug Rainbow. “You know Dashie, I may not know how to play now, but I guess its time for me to learn, I want to play guitar too!”

Rainbow chuckled and told Twilight, “Settle down there Twi, I have the guitar covered. Hmmm.... I know! If you still want to learn why don’t you play the bass!” Twilight jumped at the thought.

“That sounds even better!” Rainbow couldn't believe that just a simple crash could bring her friends so close to each other.

Rainbow Dash looked at Pinkie Pie and winked, “You know Pinkie, we still need a drummer if this is going to work.”

Pinkie ran up and hugged Dash, “I thought that you would never ask! We all know that beating the crap out of things with sticks is my specialty!”

Now there was only Fluttershy and Rarity. Rarity finally gave in, “Oh, well I suppose that every great band needs a good manager; my incredible organizational skills should come in handy.”

“Ok then, great Rarity!” Twilight yelled.

Fluttershy after much consideration finally spoke out, “Well I suppose you guys are going to need a biggest fan, so I guess I’m the mare for the job.”

Rainbow pretending to look stunned yelled, “Oh my god Fluttershy! I never would have though of you as a groupie!” All the girls burst in to laughter while Fluttershy was bright red after being the butt of such a crude joke.

“Well then!” Rainbow yelled. “I guess we have a band!”

Applejack looked over to dash and replied,

“Well I reckon we do!”

With that the new band of mares went to sleep of dreams of stardom and fame. Looking forward to their first practice that would take place at AJ’s barn the following morning.

Chapter 4: Time Is Money

A/N This chapter is a bit short, and is not the most action packed if you know that I mean. It is however leading to some great chapters in the future so just be patient! I have school and track season, and my own band's practice everyday so I only have a time for a chapter a week, but now I really know where this story is going, and you will not be disappointed. Enjoy!

Applejack quickly slammed the barn doors shut in hope that the old hinges could still keep out the strong cold air that was blowing outside. Fall had arrived and so had the strong brisk winds that came with it. Typically the Fall season was a time for ponies to relax and mentally prepare themselves for the grueling winter ahead. This was true for all the ponies in Ponyville except for the Apple family. It was cider season again and now poor Applejack had to worry about two new tasks all at once. Making cider for everpony in Ponyville was hard enough, and now she had to worry about trying to be in a band. It was a lot to handle for just one mare, but if there was anypony tough enough to pull through it, it would be Applejack.

Now that the barn doors were shut, Applejack finally could join her other five friends that were patiently waiting to get their first band practice underway. All the girls could feel the excitement in the room. Ever since that slumber party where they had decided to make a band, the six had wanted to play, but they understood that they would have to wait for Applejack to finish her preparations for the cider sales that would start the next morning.

Twilight wasn't even able to stand still she was so excited; the thought of being a famous musician had been lingering in the back of her head all day and she was ready to get playing.

“Come on everypony!” Twilight yelled to the group. “We’re never going become rock stars if we just sit on our flanks all day!”

Rainbow Dash, being the only pony in the group with some actual musical knowledge, put herself in the position of band leader. The other girls didn’t argue. They knew they needed Rainbow Dash the most out of anypony in the band.

Growing tired of Twilight’s overenthusiastic attitude, Rainbow jumped on top of a barrel of fresh cider and began to address all of her friends.

“Girls, I know that we are all excited to be a part of this new band, but this is a challenge not to take lightly. First I recommend that we tr.....”

“Ooh, ooh, what’s our band’s name!?” Pinkie yelled.

“Well, personally I like the idea of the Fashionistas, it has a nice ring to it,” Rarity stated with a smirk. Applejack nearly fell over at the name and gave Rarity a loving smack to the head with her hoof.

“Rare, that’s got to be the worst band name I’ve ever heard of. I think we should be the Apple Buckers,” Applejack said with a quick kick of her back legs.

Before she could even react Rainbow watched as her friends began to argue over the stupid bucking band name.

“SHUT UP EVERYPONY! Rainbow yelled at the top of her lungs. This quickly got the attention of all of her friends who quickly stopped their arguing and turned back to Rainbow.

Now that Rainbow had calmed her friends, she resumed her speech from where she had previously been cut off.

“This is what I was trying to talk about,” Rainbow sighed. “All of you girls are much to worried about the small logistical aspects of this band, while there are so many more important issues that we need to deal with.”

Twilight, trying to be the mature, educated pony of the group stepped up next to Rainbow Dash and explained, “Rainbow Dash is right. We are taking things way too fast! There are much more important things to worry about like....” Twilight put her hoof to her chin to contemplate what she was going to say next. “Like song choice!”

Rainbow leaped to try to keep the words from coming out of Twilight’s mouth, but it was too late. The whole group of ponies were already back to arguing over what bands and songs to cover. Rainbow resorted back to her last method of getting the girls to settle down, and it worked just as well this time.

“If you want this to work, then everypony needs to sit down, shut up, and listen to what I have to say. Are there any objections?” Rainbow asked with a rather irritated tone of voice. She didn’t receive any replies so Rainbow Dash assumed that everypony was finally ready to calm down.

“First things first. All of you girls are so excited to get playing, but what is the one big problem that we have right now?” All of the friends looked to each other with confused looks on their faces and looked back to Rainbow.

Rainbow face hoofed. “This is going to be much harder than I thought...” she whispered under her breath.
Rainbow sighed and looked back at her bewildered friends. “The big problem is the fact that I’m the only one that actually owns an instrument, and knows how to play it.” The five other girls all nodded in agreement, realizing that they may have jumped the gun a little early on this whole band practice.

“I didn’t bring all of you to the barn today to practice,” Rainbow continued. “We're all here today so we can think of a plan of action. Step one of the plan is to make some money. Wait, I take that back; not some money, A LOT of money.”

“Why in Equestria would we need money, I thought we need instruments?” Pinkie asked. All of the girls look at Pinkie and sighed.

AJ walked up to Pinkie who looked rather embarrassed by her question. “ We need money to buy the instruments sugarcube, and from what Rainbow’s tellin us, it ain’t going to be cheap neither.”

“That’s exactly right AJ,” Rainbow thanked her friend. “The real question at hoof is how we’re going to be able to come up with so much dough in so little time.”

Applejack winked back to Rainbow and laughed.

“If you really want to make some money fast meet me at this very spot tomorrow mornin at sunrise, and don’t ya dare be late!”

*------------------*

Just as Applejack had hoped, all of her friends were at the barn just as the sun has begun to rise over the hills. Needless to say, everypony but Applejack was incredibly tired from lack of sleep. Normally Rainbow Dash would have been an incredible pain in the flank and would have refused to do any hard work so early, but ever since she had become the band leader she felt the need to be more responsible. It was hard, but Rainbow was able to keep a smile plastered on her face as the rest of her friends yawned and rubbed their eyes.

Rarity was the first to ask the question that was on everyponies mind. “Applejack, why are we out here in the cold so early in the morning, this is ruining my usual beauty sleep schedule. Applejack just chuckled and pointed her hoof toward the road leading to Ponyville from the farm.

All of the girls turned around and gasped at the sight. There was a line of ponies as far as the eye could see. How could they have forgotten that this was the first day of cider season?

Applejack whistled and managed to get her friend’s attention once more. “As ya’ll can see, today is the first official day of cider season, and with thirsty ponies, comes full wallets.”

All of the mares nodded with a new found enthusiasm that they lacked when they first arrived at the farm.

Pinkie Pie began to jump and up and down yelling, “We’re rich, we’re rich!” Rainbow grabbed hold of the bouncing pony and held her down.

“Chill out there Pinkie,” Rainbow scolded. “So Applejack, I’m guessing that we’re going to help you out during cider season in exchange for instrument money?”

Applejack smiled, “Ya guessed right, I suppose you do have a brain under that thick skull of yours Rainbow.” Rainbow sighed and decided it would be best to take it as a compliment rather that start yet another argument so early in the morning.

With that, the six friends walked into the barn to prepare for a long day of work.

*------------*

The girls were beat. The sun had just gone down and the last ponies in line had finally been served. Luckily for the Apple family, this season a new approach was taken. To try and keep the fighting to a minimum, they made a weeks worth of cider in advance and served it all in one day. The line was long and ponies were a little disappointed that they would have to wait a whole year to get another mug of the liquid gold, but at least everypony got a mug, and nopony got more that another.

After each girl had a chance to use AJ’s shower the group all sat down at the dinning room table to discuss the day and, more importantly, count the money they had earned.

Fluttershy yawned and smiled as she began to devour the small salad she had brought home. “Wow, I never knew how difficult it was to be a number one fan.” Normally the other girls would have laughed at the attempted humor from Fluttershy, but even laughing took too much energy so they all decided that a smile would have to do.

AJ walked back in from the kitchen with a large platter of assorted apple products as well as a whole barrel of cider that she had saved for her friends and herself. Everypony was far too busy filling their glasses with the last bit of cider to even notice AJ leave the room once again. After each pony had a chance at the cider tap they took their seats again and began to eat.

Applejack returned with a large velvet sack of bits. All of the girls stopped chewing and watched as AJ poured the bits out on the table. Applejack happily took a seat at the end of the table as the rest of her friends stared at the pile of bits in the center of the table.

“I’ve never seen so much money in my entire life!” Rarity yelled. Rainbow Dash wanted to make some clever comment on the amount of money, but nothing seemed awesome enough to accurately depict the situation.

“Wow,” was the only thing that Twilight was able to spit out.

“26,000 bits,” Applejack proudly stated to her friends who still refused to take their eyes off of the money. AJ clapped her hooves together to get the attention of her friends.

“Now of course I can’t give all of these here bits to the band, but I reckon that after I remove all of the farm expenses from the total that leaves us with about 10,000 bits for the band.”

Rainbow Dash jumped and hugged AJ. “Thank you so much AJ, this is more than enough to be able to get all of the equipment that we need. I suppose that we could go buy everything we need tomorrow.”

Fluttershy got up from her seat and quietly asked, “Um, if you don’t mind me asking, where will we even go to buy this stuff, I don’t think that there is a music store in Ponyville.”

Rarity nodded, “ I must agree with Fluttershy here, where will we be able to buy all of these elaborate instruments that Rainbow Dash keeps speaking of?” Rainbow Dash put a hoof around Rarity.

“Not to worry my friends, we can buy all of these elaborate instruments,” Rainbow quickly jabbed Rarity for calling something so trivial as an instrument as ‘elaborate,’ “at the music store in Manehatten tomorrow. We can just make a trip out of it!”

Pinkie jumped at the thought. “Ooh, ooh, a vacation! That’s almost as good as a party!”

So it was settled. Tomorrow morning the six friends would take the train to Manehatten and visit the music store. Rainbow was looking forward to the trip. She hadn't visited Manehatten since she learned to fly. If she had the time she wanted to visit her parents and say hello to some old neighbors. There was one pony she would have to find though. The unnamed, tattooed Rock & Roll Pony that changed her life for the better so many years ago. Rainbow had some very important questions to ask this old colt...

Chapter 5: Unknown Enemies

Well hello all you rockstars! I don't go against my word, things are starting to get exciting,so you won't have to wait until the weekend, I will have the next chapter tomorrow or the next day, even I can't believe whats going down, and I'm writing the thing! Thanks to my editor MyInnerWeirdo again, and like always Enjoy!!!

The occasional bump, or nudge from the jostling train would snap Rainbow out of her deep thoughts. She had kept quiet the entire trip, clinging to her guitar case that sat awkwardly in her lap. Pinkie tried on numerous occasions to try and get Rainbow to join the game of cards that was taking place between the rest of her friends, but Rainbow would silently shake her head. Pinkie looked like she had taken offense, but Twilight knew better then to try and stop Rainbow Dash from thinking so hard about something, plus the momentary silence that overtook the cabin was a nice change of pace from the usual chaotic bustle that Twilight had become so accustomed to.

Rainbow Dash knew where the Music Shop was; she and her parents had traveled there enough to make it an easy find. Finding the old record store that she found in a dark alley however, would be much more of a challenge. Rainbow was never one to turn down a good challenge, so this would just be one more adventure to take, even if she was by herself. A quick feeling of fear washed over Rainbow, but she quickly brushed it off. “I could handle this by myself when I was just a little filly,” she mumbled beneath her breath. “Who would seriously have the guts to try and mess with me anymore?” Hopefully nopony, she quickly gulped again.

The train ride took a few hours, and for the last stretch of the trip, Pinkie had finally convinced Rainbow to play a couple hands of poker. The casual card game was nice, but it still was not enough to distract Rainbow from the daunting task ahead. With that though in mind, Rainbow led her friends to the center of the city, toward the music store.

The store had grown quite a lot since Rainbow had visited it last. Then again, she was just a few years old way back then. The smell was the same inviting aroma of stained wood and brass that Rainbow had come to love back when her step father would bring her down to buy new sheet music. Applejack couldn't help but laugh when she glanced over to Rainbow, whose mouth was hanging wide open and a grin had taken over her face.

“Well shucks Dash, I thought that sleeping and the Wonderbolts were the only things that would get your off, but I guess you’re just another run of the mill band geek,” Applejack chuckled giving Rainbow Dash a slap on the back.

Rainbow tried to think of some witty comeback, but AJ was right. Music was a huge part of her life, and even if she loved rock and roll, she was still a band geek in some sense of the word.

The rest of the girls began to look around the store admiring all of the different instruments that were resting on the shelves in the front room of the store. Pinkie was the most interested out of all the ponies, even Rainbow Dash. Bouncing from each corner of the store trying to get a better look at all of the different merchandise.

“Ooh, ooh!” she yelled. “I know that I need a new tuba, and my French horn has a terrible dent in it, oh, and I desperately need a new barrel for my clarinet!” Rainbow had completely forgotten how Pinkie used all sorts of different instruments to scare away the parasprites. Maybe Rainbow wouldn't be the only one in the band with a shred of musical knowledge. Then again, Pinkie was not the kind of pony to sit down for hours and help a novice learn something.

Rainbow heard the noon bell ring and quickly glanced around to make sure that all of her friends were still occupied with picking their equipment. She decided that this was as good as any other time to make her “escape.” Rainbow ran out of the fire escape in the back of the store and made her way down the alley that appeared before her.

*--------------*

Finding this old record store was going to be a regular pain in the flank. Rainbow figured that the easiest way to find to find the old place, would be to just retrace her steps. She walked back out into the bustling street and made her way to the old house that she used to take her piano lessons in. When she stumbled upon the record store all those years ago, it was when she was taking the “new and exciting” route home.
Finding the house was no biggie, it only took her about fifteen minutes to walk over from the music store. Now this is where the going would get tough. Rainbow closed her eyes shut, and tried to visualize herself walking home. It was tedious, and she wasn't getting anywhere. “Ponyfeathers,” Rainbow sighed under breath. “This is going to be harder then I expected.”

What normally would have been such an easy task was incredibly difficult for Rainbow now. Normally she would have simply flown over each alley in the city until she spotted the cyan blue store, but alas, her days of flying were long gone. The fact that she didn’t know the name of the store, or the name of the shop owner also made it incredibly difficult to ask anypony where to go, or to even call a taxi. “Oh yeah, I’m looking for the old, rundown rainbow looking record store in a dark alleyway in downtown Manehatten, do you know where I could find it?” Rainbow grunted with anger after sarcastically describing the situation to herself.

“Enough pouting Dashie,” Rainbow told herself. “Get your act together and just start exploring, what’s the worst that could happen?

She shouldn't have asked.

*--------------*
“Hey guys, where the hay did Rainbow go?” Twilight asked as she stood at the checkout, with a new fender bass in hand.

“Beats me darling, but she’s a big girl now, I’m sure she knows that she’s doing.” Rarity stated with confidence.

“Oh, um, I don’t know, the city is a big and scary place, I think we should look for her.” Fluttershy said sheepishly.

“I agree with Fluttershy, we shouldn't just leave our friend wandering about the city alone.” Twilight replied.

“Now quiet you two, Rainbow is capable of taken care of herself, and she don’t need us baysittin’ her all the time. Shucks, I bet she sneaked outta here on purpose so she could be alone for a bit. She’s probably got all sorts of school friends that she’s catching up with and what not.” Applejack stated.

Twilight didn’t buy it. “Remember her story AJ,” Twilight said, “Dash didn’t have any friends in the whole city, that’s why she loved her music so much, the only ponies that actually cared about her were her step parents.” Twilight suddenly grinned. “That explains all of it, I bet Rainbow just went looking for her parents to catch up, she hasn't seen them since she was just a filly, and I bet they really miss her.”

“They sounds like absolute saints from everything Rainbow told us about them.” Rarity said. “I personally want to thank those two ponies for taking in Rainbow off of the street and giving her such a wonderful life. If it weren't for them, we never would have met Rainbow Dash.”

“I agree with Rarity, for once,” Applejack said, quite shocked. “I think we should look them up in the phone book and find their house so we can meet them, if that don’t work out, at least we would have found Rainbow.”

“Oh I love family reunions, I have to throw a party, oh wait, is there a party store in Manehatten, we’re going to have to stop there first.” Pinkie yelled at an incredibly fast pace. The rest of her friends all laughed and picked up their new instruments to began the search for Rainbow’s parents.

*-------------------*

Rainbow had walked through almost every alleyway in the whole city, and was becoming more and more frustrated as the sun slowing worked it’s way down toward the horizon. How in Equestria could such a small filly find a place on accident, and then when she’s all grown up, can’t find it after hours of searching? It was driving Rainbow Dash crazy.

Rainbow rounded one last corner and gasped out of pure amazement, and fright. She quickly blinked a few times to make sure what she was seeing wasn't just her eyes playing tricks on her. She had found the old record store, it looked exactly the same, with the bright cyan blue walls and rainbow trim, but it was what was in front of the store that truly made Rainbow shudder with fear. There was a large pony in front of the store with a crowbar, desperately trying to break a large padlock off of the front door. It was dark outside and Rainbow couldn't make out exactly what she was looking at. The one small street lamp cast a small amount of light into the dark alleyway, but from so far away, there was no way to tell who the pony was, or what he, or she was doing.

Rainbow inched forward, step by step, trying to get a better view of the robber. The large pony hadn't noticed Rainbow, and she wanted to keep it that way.

Each step became harder for her. Rainbow’s breath was heavy and labored, making it incredibly difficult to keep quiet. When Rainbow finally got as close as her mind was willing to take her, she just stood and watched the robber work, trying to get a better look at it.

In her new position Rainbow could make out a few details. The robber was defiantly a male, and was of a light coat color, Rainbow still couldn't tell which color it was. She also couldn't tell what their cutie mark was, or what their mane color was. One thing made the situation a little brighter. She hadn't noticed any tattoos on the pony, so whoever this was definitely was not the shop owner she had met all those years ago.

Rainbow was starting to get restless, and angry watching the bandit try and try to pry the lock off of the door. Rainbow let out a large grunt of dissatisfaction, sadly, it was just a little to large.

The robber shot up and turned around to see where the noise came from. Rainbow froze in place. She had locked eyes with the large Pony who was now only a few feet from her face. Rainbow went pale and couldn't breathe. The robber had a cyan blue coat, and was covered in scars, and mud, and homemade bandages. That was nothing compared to what was on top of his head though, Rainbow looked up just slightly to see that a large, uncut, knotted Rainbow mane was growing out of the robber’s head. He was just as surprised as Rainbow was by the look of it, but he quickly regained his composure quickly enough to put his hoof to his mouth and let out a loud whistle.

Before Rainbow could acknowledge what had happened, she heard quick hoof steps approaching from behind her. Rainbow turned around in time to see a mare in the shadows bring a large red brick down upon her head. Rainbow fell to the ground immediately, and felt her grasp of reality, slowly slide out of her hoof, turning her vision into a black hole.

*---------------*

“Well I must say, Rainbow’s step parents must be rather wealthy to be able to afford such a nice place,” Rarity said as she walked past the well manicured lawn and iron fence that surrounded the moderately large house that was located in one of the nicer residential areas of Manehatten.

“Ah shucks, just when I thought we were done with all this hoity toity fancy pony stuff.” Applejack sighed.

“AJ, I think you may be overreacting to this a little much, this house isn't anything special, it’s just your run of the mill city pony house,” Twilight assured.

Applejack grunted once more, “I suppose it could be worse.”

“Enough grumpy fighting AJ,” Pinkie pleaded. “Come on, I have been so excited to meet Rainbow’s parents, they sound like such nice ponies, do you think that they like parties too? Oh my gosh I hope so, because if they don’t like parties, then, I guess I would just have to…”

“Put a sock it in Pinkie, we don’t want to scare them off before we can tell them who we are,” Twilight said as she rang the door bell.

It only took a few moments before the door slowly opened in front of a well sized light brown pegasus pony. He had a briefcase for a cutie mark which gave Twilight the impression that he was in some sort of important business.

The girls could tell the brown pony at the door was a little bit uneasy with the fact he had five unknown young mares on his doorstep.

“Um.....can I help you girls?” he asked with a little hesitation in his voice.

Pinkie stepped forward and took a huge inhale, “Well, we were just wondering if--” Applejack quickly grabbed hold of Pinkie’s mane and pulled her back, covering her hoof with her mouth. The brown stallion didn’t move, but looked even more confused then he did before.

Twilight, being the smooth talker of the group felt like she should be the one to introduce herself, as well as her friends.

“Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle, but most ponies just call me Twilight, the hyper pink one over there is Pinkie Pie, the one with the cowgirl hat is Applejack, and the white mare to my left is Rarity.”

Rarity gave a quick bow, before stepping to the side to reveal Fluttershy, who had been hiding behind Rarity since they rang the door bell.

Twilight laughed and turned her attention back to the brown stallion. “The shy one is Fluttershy.” The brown pony seemed to have calmed down a bit and loosened his grip on the door knob, he was expecting to shut the door on their faces thinking that they were just some Filly Scouts trying to sell more cupcakes, but something was different about this group
.
“Well, it’s um, very nice to meet you girls, my name is Paper Back. How can I help you?”

“Oh that’s quite alright sir,” said Twilight, “We’re friends of Rainbow Dash, and we were wondering…”

“WAIT!” Yelled Paper back quickly running out side of his mud room joining the girls on the porch. “All of you girls know about Rainbow Dash!?”

Twilight was slightly taken aback by the question. “Um, yes we do, we were just wondering…”

“Please girls, this is no place to talk about such things. Please come inside.” Twilight grunted as she and the other girls walked in to Paper Back’s house.

Paper Back’s wife, who Twilight imagined must have been Rainbow’s step mom entered the room with her husband with a large tray of pastries and tea. She motioned for the girls to take a seat on the leather couch that was to their left. Not wanting to be rude, Twilight sat down first, and was followed by the others.

“Ah, much better,” Paper Back said as he sat in a large leather seat across from the couch. “Now girls, please tell me that you’re telling the truth, and you actually know about our little Rainbow Dash?”

“But of course we do,” explained Rarity. “We wouldn’t have come all this way if we didn’t. She was with us just a few hours ago at the music store, but then she disappeared, we just assumed that she would have come here to see her parents while she had the time to, but by the looks of it, she isn't here.”

“Sadly no, she is not,” said Paper Back who stared into his tea cup looking back at his own reflection. “We wish she would have come. My wife and I have not seen Rainbow since she graduated Manehatten flight school. She stopped by the house only momentarily to tell us that she had gotten assigned to some village in the heart land of Equestria as a weather pony, and that she would come back for her things, but then she never did. We waited, and waited. Days turned into months, months into years, just last week marked ten years since we had seen Rainbow. It hurt every day for the first few years, every night we would set an extra place at the table in hope that this would be the night Rainbow deiced to come home, but that night never came. Life went on without her, and we learned to bear the pain. Thank you girls for coming, we may not have been able to see Rainbow, but at least knowing she is still out there makes us feel better.”

Paper Back had not taken his eyes off of his tea glass for the whole speech, and his reflection began to disappear from the ripple caused by the tears flowing down his cheeks.

He finally looked up and looked at the girls and asked, “Please tell me girls, is our little Rainbow healthy and happy, is she ok?”

Twilight was also crying by how much emotion Paper Back had put in his words. She could really tell that Rainbow’s step parents really did care about her.

“She couldn't be better.”

*----------------*

“Well,” Rainbow sighed as she regained consciousness. “This couldn’t be worse.” Rainbow was tied to a chair, and had a bag over her head. She assumed by the smell of rotten wood and mildew that she was indoors. She desperately tried to get out of the ropes that tied her down but it was useless. “How and the hell did I even get in this position?” Rainbow thought. Her memory was still a bit fuzzy, but she remembered seeing the cyan and rainbow colored stallion that whistled before she was hit by a brick. Just the thought of the event made Rainbow’s head throb with pain again.

After what felt like hours, Rainbow heard a door open in the distance, followed by the sound of hoof steps. The sound was far away and muffled, this led Rainbow to believe that wherever she was being held had at least one other room attached to it.

Rainbow shuttered when she heard a strained mare’s voice come from the main room.

“Celestia, damn this night! I told ya that we would get in to a situation like this. Somepony was bound to have been guarding the place, there’s no way Reverb would have left all the money in there, only being protected by a damn pad lock.”

Rainbow shrieked as she heard the sound of hoof against cheek, followed by the sound of another pony who was in the other room. This pony defiantly was male.

“Bitch, I told you not to raise your voice to me!” Rainbow couldn't believe what she was hearing.

“There’s no way they would leave her to guard Reverb’s stash. He had no idea we were coming, he told us that if he ever saw us again, that he would end us. Besides we were too sneaky to have been caught by a low life like Reverb, but I wasn't expecting that he would know the rainbow one, we made sure that they would never meet!”

Rainbow had a million questions flying through her head. Who the hay was Reverb, and why was she not supposed to know about him? Actually the better question was who the hell were the two ponies in the other room, and what were they screaming about?

Something just didn’t add up.

Chapter 6: A Blast From the Past

I knew I could get the chapter out in time! This one really throws a lot of info at ya, which is good I hope. There is some swearing, but I hope your all old enough to handle that, you can't be a rocker if you don't talk like one!

The sun had set some time ago, but Twilight, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie were still at Paper Back’s house. He had insisted they just stay in their extra guest rooms rather than spend the money on an expensive hotel in Manehatten. The girls all graciously accepted, and called the hotel to cancel the reservations for the night, and to send a message to Rainbow Dash if she appeared at the hotel and asked where they were. The one thing Paper Back wanted in return was for the girls to tell him all about Rainbow’s new life in Ponyville, and all of her incredible accomplishments.

They covered years worth of material in just a few hours, and although the girls were getting slightly tired of telling all of Rainbow’s life, they couldn't stand to see Paper Back go back to his previous irritable mood. Getting to hear about the young fliers competition, and the Running of the Leaves made Paper Back lean forward on his fore legs and just stare with an open mouth at whoever was telling a story about Rainbow Dash.

“You girls just made my heart feel ten times lighter, you have no idea how much all this means to me, I have to think of some way to repay you all.” Paper Back exclaimed with a wide grin.

“That’s quite alright, we don’t want anything, actually, we wish we knew where Rainbow was, she’s normally a little aloof, but only for an hour or two, not all night.” Twilight said with some hesitation.

“We feel just plain awful that ya’ll never get to see you're little Dashie no more, family and friends are two things that you never leave hangin’ like that,” Applejack explained.

“We were quite bitter at first,” Paper Back replied. “But we understood that Rainbow Dash needed time to learn about her self. To do some real soul searching, and we weren't going to deny her that. Rainbow has had such a traumatic past, and,” Paper Back immediately put his hoof over his mouth like he had just uttered some awful curse word.

Pinkie Pie quickly broke the tension and asked, “Is this all about you guys being Dash’s not real parents or whatever the hay you call them. Please, we know all about that stuff. Dashie told us about how her parents abandoned her, and you adopted her, the ponies up in Cloudsdale didn’t like her so you moved to the city, and Dashie had no friends, so she played guitar and what not. Am I right?”

Paper Back as well as the other girls just stared back at Pinkie with open mouths. How could she have made such a horrible situation sound so trivial? Well honestly it didn't matter, because Pinkie had told the truth, just not in the most, “sensitive” way.

“So she told you all that?” Paper Back sighed. “What you said is all true for the most part.”

“For the most part?” Twilight butted in. “I know Pinkie just said a lot, but from what Rainbow told us that’s how it happened, right?

Paper Back shifted about uneasily in his chair, and put his hoofs to his face. “Sometimes I need to remember to just keep my dang mouth shut.” The rest of the girls knew that Paper Back was hiding something from them, and they weren't going to leave until they found out. They didn’t want to be nosey, but they had their friend’s best intentions in mind.

“Sir, I don't want to pry, but what the hay aren't you telling us?” Applejack said getting up from the couch to show her seriousness.

Paper Back knew it was too late, he had to spill the beans to them now. “I can’t believe I’m about to tell you all this, and I have only known you few a few hours.”

“Well I guess we’re going to be the best of friends when this is all done,” Applejack said sitting back down on the couch.

“Before I start,” stated Paper Back. “I want you girls to tell me every thing that Rainbow told you about her old life.”

(If you need a quick re-fresher on what Rainbow said, go back to chapter three, “The Truth Comes Out.” if not then read on!)

*--------------*

“This bag is starting to make me seriously claustrophobic,” Rainbow called out, as if hoping those creeps would hear her and actually do something about it. She had been strapped to the chair for what had to have been hours now, and her flank was starting to get sore.

The other two unknown ponies had left just after the stallion mentioned “the rainbow one,” which could have only meant they were talking about Rainbow Dash. The one thing that was driving Rainbow Dash crazy was they continued to talk about somepony named Reverb. Whoever this was, those two must not have liked him very much.

After sitting alone with her thoughts for sometime Rainbow tried to piece together the puzzle. “Lets see,” she thought. “They said they didn’t intend for me and who ever this Reverb guy is to meet. That means that I have seen him before. This also must mean that whoever these crazy ponies are, have known me prior to this little ‘situation.’”

The pieces were coming together, but Rainbow Dash still couldn't see what the big picture was. Actually all this thinking was making her even more nervous about her current position. These ponies were planning something, and she had to figure it out soon, or else she might not ever get to find out who this Reverb guy was. Also, she might die, and that was also bad, but somehow lower on her priority list.

Rainbow heard the door open again, followed by those same muffled hoof steps that had come before. The male pony was the first to speak this time, and he sounded even angrier than last time.

“Celestia, why must you always FUCK WITH ME!!!” His breathing was quick and labored. “They all said Manehatten was where the good shit was, nopony would recognize you here, you would get a fresh start, well look where that got me. IN ANOTHER GIANT SHIT STORM. AGH!”

Rainbow heard the disgruntled pony fall down on the couch and continue his heavy breathing. There were more hoof steps, followed by the same scratchy female’s voice.

“You acting like a little bitch ain’t makin’ this situation any better.” Rainbow was expecting the same awful sound of a hoof against a skull, but luckily it didn't come. The stallion had shifted, but he didn’t stand up.

“You know that if Reverb knows that the rainbow one is missin, he’s going to come and find us,” said the mare.

“I know, but I got a plan, we can turn this problem into a solution. All we have to do is let Reverb know that if he don’t give us any collateral, than the rainbow one is gonna get it.”

Now Rainbow Dash was really scared. These ponies meant business, and she was most defiantly on the shit end of the deal. There was just so much going on at once that she couldn't process it all.

‘I don’t know who the hay you are, Reverb, but I sure do hope that you’re on my side on whatever the hell is going on here.’

*--------------*

Paper Back went into the kitchen after the girls had retold the story that Rainbow told them back in the library after the accident. Everypony had calmed down a bit since Paper Back spilled the beans about the fact he knew more than the girls knew. Pinkie Pie grabbed a bag of popcorn out of Celestia knows where and made her self comfortable.

Paper Back returned shortly and sat back down in his leather recliner. He also grabbed himself a new cup of tea, which was tear free. Paper Back took a large sigh and looked up at the girls.

“What I’m about to tell you, is very, very private, and I don’t want any of you telling a single pony about it, do you understand?” The girls all nodded in agreement.

“Ok then, another thing you should know, is that everything Rainbow told you was in fact true, but she doesn't even know all the details as to why she is the way she is.” Paper Back stated. Once again the girls all nodded, but what did he mean by, “not even Rainbow knew the details?”

“It all started when my wife and I moved to Cloudsdale about twenty years ago. We were young and reckless, and wanted to start a family. No matter how hard we tried though, we could never get a foul of our own. We tried adopting on numerous occasions, but nopony wanted to trust us because of our age. We thought all hope was lost, and lived the next few years in Cloudsdale alone.”

Paper Back’s wife shot him a somewhat hurt look because of the way he was talking about their inability to have fouls to complete strangers, but he shrugged it off. Too late to turn back now.

“One thing you girls should know about pegasus ponies, is that they are very proud of their heritage and culture, and don’t take kindly to those who sully the pegasus name. They even threaten ponies with violence in some cases. There was one couple in Cloudsdale that was hated by everypony in the city, luckily, it wasn't my wife and I, well not yet anyway.”

Paper Back paused for a moment to take a sip of his tea and to catch his breath. Once he had finished off his second cup he faced the girls again and continued his story.

“There was one couple in Cloudsdale that was hated by everypony, even myself. They were two degenerate pegasus that were the local drug dealers. They robbed gas stations, street walkers, even fillies coming home from school. Those two had no morals, no ethics, as long as they had some cash to support their awful habit, they were happy as clams.”

Rarity looked disgusted, and was about to share her opinion about such ruffians, but Applejack shot her a glance saying that now was not the time.

Paper Back cleared his throat and went on. “These two had been threatened to jail time on numerous occasions, but sadly, nopony could ever catch them in the act. The police would raid their shack of a home, but not a single drug or weapon could be found. It was like they were always one step ahead of everypony else, and that just made the residents of Cloudsdale even more angry.”

“I know this all seems like a lot of random info girls, but please, bare with me, I’m getting to my point soon enough.” Paper Back pleaded to the extremely confused mares sitting in front of him.

“Anyway, there was a point in time that nopony had seen those two for a few weeks. We all hoped that the two had packed up their saddle bags and left town, but we soon learned that they were just taking part in another week long drug bender, and they had locked them selves in their house. It seemed as if the two would never have a single consequence for all their actions, but that all changed a few months after the two unlocked themselves from their house. It was quite apparent that the mare was pregnant, and every pony in Cloudsdale feared that the poor little foul would be subjected to an awful life. Unfortunately, we were right. The mare gave birth to a small brown colt, that despite his early birth, appeared to be quite healthy. A year or two went by, and the two drug ponies and their foul were seldom seen in the city. We knew that by the cuts and bruises on the poor little colt, that his parents beat him, most likely in a drug fueled rage, but every time the authorities went to the house, the three were sitting down to dinner, having a family conversation. Once again they managed to beat the system.”

Rarity could no longer hold her dissatisfaction with the conversation. She stood up and yelled, “What does all this talk of drugs and domestic violence have to do with Rainbow Dash!?”

Paper Back, still calmly sipping on his tea motioned with his hoof for Rarity to sit back down and to be quiet. Very reluctantly, she did as she was told.

Paper back set his third empty cup of tea down, and picked up where he left off. “Another year or so went by, and the family was now starting to show their faces in public again, much to the displeasure of all the other residents. About once a month the city council would hold a meeting trying to get custody of the small colt, but every attempt, every court trial, ended in failure. The two could simply not be caught in the act. That was, until the two had decided to go on yet another week long drug binge, but this time, they locked their son in with them, and he was forced to watch his parents experiment with a new assortment of drugs they had recently received from out of town. Luckily for that little colt, one of the drugs had some incredibly unknown, but powerful side affects. His parents passed out, and he was able to break down a section of the house that was being eaten away by termites. The little colt ran to his neighbor’s house and told them what had happened. The neighbor was the lead board member for achieving custody of the colt from his parents, and he was not going to let this one opportunity slip by. The authorities were contacted, and they broke into the small little shack, to see the two ponies passed out on top of each other in the middle of the room.”

At this point all the girls didn’t care that they had no clue how this tied in with Rainbow Dash, all they knew is that they wanted desperately to find out what happened to the little colt, and the parents. Paper Back could sense that the girls were restless to hear the rest of the tale, so he continued.

“The neighbor insisted that both of them be taken to jail immediately, but because they were in such a heavy drug induced sleep, the police were forced to let the paramedics take the couple, and the traumatized colt to the hospital. Quite a few new discoveries were found when those two were taken to the hospital. For one, they had taken some sort of drug that had ravaged every part of their body, inside and out. The most distinguishable new characteristics about the two, was that the mares normally dark purple coat had turned to cyan blue, just as the stallions had changed to the same color, instead of his usual dark brown. Apparently the drug had somehow rearranged some of their genetic information, which caused some underlying mutations to come out in full force.”

The girls were starting to fear the worst, the fact they had gotten cyan blue coats didn’t sit well with any of them. Paper Back waited for the whispers between them to die out before he continued.

“The other physical characteristic that had changed was their manes. They went from their normal solid purple and brown colors to a fully array of colors.” Paper Back sighed and gulped slightly. “A rainbow more or less.”

All of the girls shrieked, but quickly silenced themselves when Paper Back threw his hoof in the air to signal silence.

“There was one other thing that the doctors learned when the two were in the hospital. The mare was pregnant with a filly.”

All of the girls could not believe what they were hearing, they knew what Paper Back was saying, but they desperately wanted to deny it. For him to stand up and laugh and say it was all just one big joke, but the punchline never came, just silent sobs.

Twilight was the first to ask the question that everypony was thinking. “She was pregnant with Rainbow Dash, wasn't she?” It was a question that everypony knew of course, but a question that still needed to be asked. Paper Back responded with a weak nod.

“I know that this is a lot to take in girls, but if you’re still interested, I will continue the story.” Paper Back asked to the crying ponies before him.

Applejack worked up the confidence to respond. “Well it can’t get much worse I reckon,” she said in between sobs.

Paper Back nodded and caught his breath before continuing. “The two were in the hospital for a few days, before they released the father and sent him to prison. He got sentenced to 10 years in a maximum security jail in Canterlot. No chance for parol, no bail. Justice was finally served. The mare on the other hand, was held in the hospital until she gave birth, to......well you know.”

Paper Back once again reached for his tea cup, only to find that it had yet to be re filled, so he quietly set it back down on the plate and twiddled his hoofs for a moment, before continuing.

“The birth went, relatively easy, but the doctors worst fears were confirmed. The drugs had also affected the filly, and she had the same cyan blue coat, and rainbow mane like her parents. She was also incredibly weak, so she could barely move for the first few months of her life. The doctors said she would never fly because of the birth defects.”

“Another moth in the hospital, and the mare and Rainbow Dash were released. The mare didn’t receive immediate jail time, but she was forced to be under house arrest as well as being under constant supervision by a filly protective agent. As for the other little colt, he was taken to the agency’s main office in Manehatten where he was sent off to find a good home.”

Pinkie Pie now on her third bag of popcorn suddenly sat up. “This means that Rainbow has a brother?!” Pinkie said in an upset tone of voice.

“Please calm down Pinkie,” Paper Back yelled. “Let me finish.” Pinkie slouched back down into the couch and began eating her popcorn again.

“After six months of house arrest, the agency came to arrest the mare and take the filly with them, however when they arrived, the only thing the agents saw was another distraught pony from the agency in front of a burning shack. They all feared that the mare had killed herself as well as the filly, but luckily when the fire was put out, and the rubble was looked though, no bodies were found. A few hours later, the agency got a tip that somepony had seen the rainbow mare flying north to an unknown location. Meanwhile a small rainbow filly was found on the door steps of the Cloudsdale flight school.”

“So that’s how Rainbow Dash got left behind, it all makes sense now, in an awful, terrible way” Fluttershy whispered.

“Indeed,” replied Paper Back. “I happened to be the accountant for the flight school at the time and they said that they were going to give the little filly up to the police. I pleaded with my boss to let me keep her and have me deal with all the filly protective agents that would come asking questions, but he just didn’t think it was the right thing to do. I begged everyday, and after a week or two, my boss finally gave in and gave us Rainbow Dash. He had actually been the pony who named her because he had found her first, but I felt like it was a fitting name. In exchange for my job, I got to keep Rainbow Dash.”

“So why were you forced to leave Cloudsdale, you had done everypony in the whole city a huge favor why would they want you gone?” Twilight asked.

“Excellent question Twilight,” Paper Back replied. “As I said before, pegasus ponies are incredibly proud of their culture and population. They knew that Rainbow Dash was born to be a flightless, problem pegasus, that would give the rest of them a bad reputation, so my wife, Rainbow Dash and I left, and moved to the city in hopes we could start a new life. We also had hoped that we could track down that little brown colt that was Rainbow Dash’s brother, but he had already been adopted, and because of his traumatic past, the agents refused to let us know where he was or who had adopted him. They would only tell us that a nice loving family from Manehatten had adopted him, and that his name was Reverb. I still wonder where that pony is today.”

I’m sure Rainbow Dash was probably wondering the exact same thing.

Chapter 7: Hello Again

Well, Hello Again! It was a busy weekend, Had to go kick some flank in Track and Field. Plus, got my birthday tomorrow! (Yeah, that right, my birthday's on Winter Wrap Up, you jelly?) Can't wrap up anything here though, just got a foot of fresh snow in colorado. Enjoy the chapter, I'm going skiing!

The sun was starting to rise again, and everypony in Manehatten had just started to awaken from their dream filled sleep. Well, everypony except for Rainbow Dash, who was forced to listen to her captors have some “horse play,” all night. She had not managed to sleep, but was able to shut off her mind off when her whole body had finally went numb from sitting down for too long. Her mind wanted to stay strong, but her body was too weak to hold on any more. Going without food or water for hours had taken its toll on the poor pony, and she wished she could just go back to her house in the clouds and rest. Thinking about that stuff just made it hurt worse, so Rainbow turned her mind off, and slowly breathed in and out of the small paper bag that was on top of her head.

After so many hours of breathing in and out of the paper bag, the condensation of Rainbow’s breath had begun to weaken the frail paper, which slowly started to disintegrate with every breath Rainbow took.

The feeling of soaking wet paper sliding down her chest was what finally snapped Rainbow Dash out of her thoughtless state. She quickly opened her eyes, only to have them seal shut from the light of the room. Through many tears, Rainbow let her eyes adjust to the light, and she carefully looked around the room she was being held in, making sure that no detail was overlooked.

The room itself was actually quite dim, but after being subjected to complete darkness for so long, even the smallest amount of light flickering in from the small window was enough to cause discomfort.

Rainbow scanned each corner of the room, taking in every smell and sight she could, trying to find out more information about her current residence. The small room still smelled like rotten food and mildew, and after looking at the condition of the room, Rainbow could understand why.

The remnants of old wall paper drooped down the walls, being torn every few feet, while the underlying wood was stained dark brown, with rat droppings.

Rainbow looked up to the one source of light in the room, which was a small, two foot long window than ran along the upper edge of the ceiling.

“Ok,” Rainbow thought to herself. “I’m obviously underground, and in some sort of run down basement. That much is painfully clear.”

She turned her attention to a small door at the far end of the room. It too had a small amount of light pouring out from underneath it. Rainbow would have previously thought that the door led directly to the outside world, but she knew from prior experiences that there must be another room attached.

Just as she thought about the ropes that kept her bound to the chair, she once again heard the sound of hoof steps from the other room.

“So let’s go over the plan once more,” said the mare, who still spoke as if she had sand paper in her throat.

“We’re going to go to Reverb’s place very calm, and very collected, tell him what we want, and that if he doesn't work with us, than we pull out the little one, and that’s sure to make him snap.” The stallion said with an intimidating voice.

“Hahahaha, that was always Reverb’s problem wasn't it, always getting all worked up over some stupid pony that was close to him,” the mare replied.

Rainbow was beyond furious that the two were planning on using her for collateral for what was most likely some drug deal. After being alone with her thoughts for so long, she had convinced herself that whoever Reverb was, he must be a friend, and not an enemy.

Rainbow sat patiently in her chair, waiting for the two to leave so she could try and get herself out of her restraints, but something much more unexpected happened.

She heard the sound of a dead bolt being unlocked and watched as a frail, and malnourished mare walked in to her room.

The mares eyes froze when she realized that Rainbow’s bag had come off of her head. The mare had a short, unkempt rainbow mane and cyan blue coat, exactly the same as Rainbow did.

The mare in the door way continued to look back at Rainbow, who was now trembling with a mixture or fear, hate, and confusion.

“Oh, shit,” was the only thing the mare at the opposite end of the room could utter. Rainbow heard the sound of the stallion getting up off of the couch and walking over to the door way.

“What the hell are you carrying on about over there,” he said with a grunt. Before he could get a reply, he too was staring at Rainbow Dash who once again had to hold back her screams. The stallion was the same one that had assaulted her in the alleyway two nights ago. That same stallion with the cyan blue coat and the rainbow mane.

It was like Rainbow was looking at her future self, only this future self had been turned into a pathetic druggie.

Rainbow couldn't hold it back any longer, she locked eyes with both of the ponies in front of her, and with tears in her eyes yelled, “Who the fuck are you? And why the hell do you look like I do!?”

The stallion looked over to the rainbow mare and whispered, “Oh shit is right.”

*-----------------*

Paper Back had talked to the girls for most of the night, making any sleep that they received quite restless. After hearing the news about Rainbow’s parents, all five of the girls had some sort of bad dream or nightmare that revolved around Rainbow Dash. Now that morning had come, all of them went from being worried to frantic, wondering where there friend could have went off too.

Each of them pleaded with Paper Back, asking him if he knew any places where Rainbow might have gone and visited, but he couldn't think of anything. The fact that Rainbow didn’t have any friends while she was growing up eliminated the idea that she may have gone and visited an old classmate. Paper Back also assured the girls that Rainbow would defiantly not go to her old piano tutor’s house, because Rainbow Dash hated everything about that pony. There just didn’t seem to be any logical idea as to where she would have run off to.

While the rest of the girls tried to come up with a location, Twilight politely asked where the bathroom was. Paper Back pointed his hoof toward the stairwell, and gestured that it was upstairs. Not wanting to be a burden to anypony, Twilight silently walked up the stairs alone.

Finding the bathroom was easy, but as Twilight went to shut the door behind her, she noticed a bright blue room down the hall. Twilight knew it was rude to just go exploring through somepony’s house, but her normal guilty conscience didn’t seem to mind.

Twilight pushed the door open slowly and was greeted by a small, cyan blue room with rainbow trim. There were numerous Wonderbolt posters, as well as numerous rock bands that Twilight was familiar with.
Something about the color scheme of the room made Twilight’s head have to slow down and think, but nothing clicked. She shrugged it off and continued to look around the room.

Twilight had come to the conclusion that this must have been Rainbow Dash’s old bedroom, and it still retained its cute charm. There were stuffed animals neatly lined up on the edge of her bed, and a closet full of small dresses that Rainbow must have worn when she was just a little filly.

While Twilight was browsing Rainbow’s old wardrobe, her eyes caught a glance of a large cardboard box on the floor. Twilight pulled it out to further examine its contents. She smiled as she realized this was eerily similar to the way Rainbow had found the small acoustic guitar in her own closet back at the library.

A healthy layer of dust had accumulated on the old box, but Twilight blew it all off with a blow. There was a faded label written in sharpie that said, “Rainbow’s Records, Don’t touch!”

The hoof writing was incredibly poor, which made Twilight giggle as she thought of the warning as a mere fillies way of putting her claim on her stuff.

Inside the box were numerous records which were still in their original sleeves, in alphabetical order. Twilight had recognized most of the albums, reading them to herself as se flipped through them one, by one.
“Lets see, Alice Cooper, Bad Company, The Beatles, The Doors, Fleetwood Mac.” Twilight read out each one to her self, until she had finally neared the end of the records.

“Simon and Garfunkel, Steve Miller Band, Van Halen, and last but not least,” Twilight froze at the last record. She trembled slightly as she pulled it out of the box.

“Tommy,” she whispered to herself. “By the Who.” Twilight suddenly came to the realization that they never mentioned the record store and the other pony to Paper Back. They had become so absorbed by his story last night, that they all had forgotten to bring it up.

With the record in hoof Twilight ran down the stairs to see Paper Back and the girls still trying to pin point Rainbow’s location.

Paper Back was the first to notice Twilight frantically running down the stairs. “Twilight, what are you doing? Why on Equestria are you holding Rainbow’s reco…” Paper Back had also stopped in mid sentence.

“I know where Rainbow is!” Twilight yelled to the group, who had also recognized the infamous record that Rainbow had brought up in her story. “She must be at that record store she mentioned in her story.”

Paper Back understood what Twilight’s logic was, but was still wondering how she knew about the record. Luckily, Twilight had picked up on his confusion, and was more than happy to explain it to him.

“Paper Back,” Twilight asked. “Do you remember the day a large, fairly intimidating pony brought Rainbow home, and gave her this very record that I am holding in my hoof?”

“Quite well actually, Paper Back replied. “I seem to recall a large brown pegasus pony covered in tattoos had walked her home from his store, and told me to buy Rainbow a guitar. At first I prepared to call the police, but I realized that he meant no harm, and his idea about the guitar actually was a perfect one.”

“Do you remember where his store was?” Twilight asked, getting more and more excited. This whole ordeal was actually starting to become one big mystery for Twilight, and those were her favorite type of novel.

“Sadly I can’t say I remember off the top of my head,” replied Paper Back with a solemn tone of voice. “But I believe that if we walk down to city center, it would be relatively easy to find the address.”

It seemed like their best plan of action, so all the girls agreed to follow Paper Back to the city center and look up the business. Paper Back had offered to call a cab, but the girls insisted they all walk, in case they saw the store on the way. It seemed like a logical idea so Paper Back led the girls toward downtown.

*------------*

Rainbow’s eyes were still fixed upon her captors as they each stared into each others violet colored eyes.
“Hey! I said who the fuck are you?!” Rainbow screamed again, and much to her surprise, the two cyan blue ponies cowered for a moment, but quickly regained their composure.

The stallion walked up to Rainbow Dash and raised his hoof above her head, quickly bringing it back down, but stopping just inches away from her shaking skull.

“I’m going to be the one asking the questions here, and if you want to keep that pretty face of yours, I suggest you shut the fuck up.”

His voice was calm and collected, but still had a sternness that made Rainbow comply.

“First off,” the stallion began. “How the hell did you find Reverb, and why are you helping him!”

“I don’t know what your talking about!” Rainbow yelled. “I don’t even know who Reverb is!”

The stallion didn’t buy it, and gave Rainbow a swift back hoof across the face. “Don’t play me for a fool, I know that your up to something. What’s the deal? You and Reverb suddenly want revenge or some shit? We fucked up, we know that, but life's full of fuck ups, so why are your getting worked up about something your can’t even remember!”

“I still don’t know what your talking about,” Rainbow wheezed. Once again the stallion struck her face, this time cutting her cheek open.

“YOU’RE A FUCKING LIAR, I KNOW IT!” the stallion yelled getting down to eye level with Rainbow Dash. He started to sound possessed, like some evil creature was talking through him.

“He got in your head didn’t he, made you go mad with anger. He knew he could twist your weak little fucking mind, and make you work for him, just so he could get his revenge. He doesn't care about you, you know. He’s just using you to so he can finally get us.”

He stood back up and cracked his neck. “Well,” he whispered in her ear, “It isn’t going to work.”

The stallion shifted back toward Rainbow Dash who now had a mouth full of blood and was looking at her right in the eyes, only inches away from her face.

Rainbow spit right in his face and muttered, “Fuck you scumbag.”

*----------*

It only took a few minutes for the Paper Back and the girls to walk to the city center, and luckily, the store was still in the city records. They had received the address, and started the walk.

The store was in a very poverty stricken part of town, which made each of the girls, except for Pinkie of course, incredibly nervous.

“Why did we have to take this disgusting alleyway?” whined Rarity, but Applejack quickly put her hoof in Rarity’s mouth.

“This disgusting alleyway might be some low life's house,” Applejack whispered. “So I suggest you shut your trap before we draw any unnecessary attention to ourselves.”

Applejack was right about this one. There were several ponies in the dark alleyway that were glaring at each of the girls, but luckily Paper Back was there to keep an eye on the them. He was wearing a suit, but Paper Back was still fairly larger than your average pony, and after a quick flap of his wings, the low lifes went back to sulking in the darkness.

The walk couldn't have ended sooner, because Rarity was finding in increasingly difficult to try and contain her displeasure. They had finally reached the small record store, and the girls could see why Rainbow had been so drawn into the place back when she was young. The cyan blue paint had faded from all the years in the sunlight, but the rainbow trim still shined brightly against the contrast of the dark alley.

“Well if this ain’t the place then I reckon we ought to give up,” Applejack said with pride in her voice. Paper Back responded with a simple nod and walked to the door.

A small bell rang as Paper Back pushed the door open, holding it for the rest of the group. The store had a distinct smell of bath soap and cardboard. It wasn't necessarily bad, but it didn't smell like a garden either.

All of the girls quickly split up to try and search the store for Rainbow Dash, but there wasn't any sign of her. The girls all met back at the door and prepared to leave when they heard a pony coming out from behind a door by the cash register.

Thinking it might have been Rainbow, they all turned quickly, but frowned when it was just the store owner.
There frowns quickly turned into smiles as they recognized the pony from Rainbow’s story. It was the same brown, tattooed pegasus that Rainbow had mentioned. He looked like he was older than all the girls, but still had a young presence, even with his large size and build.

“Can I help you all with something?” the manager asked in a friendly, non threatening tone. This took all of them by surprise, but Twilight realized she was being rude just starring so she quickly responded.

“Oh, no, well maybe, we were looking for our friend, and she came here once when she was just a filly, so we were hoping we might find her here, but,” Twilight lowered her head to show her dissatisfaction.

“Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you out there, I barely see any customers in here, and I don’t remember any fillies coming here recently.”

“Oh no,” Twilight replied. “She isn't a filly any more, she’s a young mare, but she had mentioned this place to us, back when she was re-accounting her life in Manehatten.”

The store owner placed his hoof on his chin and began to think. “Hmmm, still can’t think of anything, what was her name, maybe that will spark my memory. Oh, where are my manners.”

The store owner walked out from behind the counter and stuck his hoof out at the girls.

“The name’s Reverb, so what was that friend of yours name again? All of them froze.

Applejack whispered, “Did...did…did you just say your name was...Re....Reverb?”

“Sure did, so what’s the problem, you guys look like you just saw a ghost or something?” Paper Back slowly motioned for the girls to step back. The store owner looked nice, but if this was the Reverb that he knew, then he knew that this pony could have some tricks up his sleeves.

Paper Back was getting ready to talk to him, when Pinkie yelled, “Ohh, ohh, it’s Reverb, that means he has to know where Rainbow is!”

Reverb looked at Pinkie with a smile, “Sorry, but I don’t think I’ve met you before, why would I know your friend?”

Paper Back walked up to Reverb, “You’re from Cloudsdale are you not?” Paper Back sounded stern, and assertive.

“Um, yeah, haha a lot of pegasus are, good guess.” Reverb was starting to feel a bit weird about the way the situation was unfolding. Paper Back continued his attack.

“Your parents were evil people, they beat you, and made you suffer, until one day you escaped, and you parents were taken away.”

“That’s privet, and I’m going to have to ask you to leave my store right now sir.” Reverb said as he began to sweat and back away from Paper Back, who refused to let the space between the two increase.

“They were drug addicts, abusers, evil ponies who should have never walked on the face of Equestria, but one day they got what they deserved, they went to jail, well at least your father did. Your mother escaped after giving birth to your sister. My daughter.”

Reverb had finally frozen in place. Trying to speak, but the words could not come out of his mouth.

“Where is Rainbow Dash!?” Paper Back yelled, getting face to face with Reverb, who was sweating bullets.

“How long have you been following her, just waiting to snatch her up? Is that it? Well your bullshit is done, tell me where Rainbow Dash is right now, or else you’re dead!”

“I...I... I don’t who you’re talking about,” Reverb wheezed. “Who’s Rainbow Dash?” Paper Back had backed off the slightest bit, but was still only inches away from Reverb’s face.

“You’re not a good liar you know, now tell me what the hell is going on here, or else you’re going to be sorry.

Reverb summoned the courage to walk around Paper Back and locked the door. “Please take a seat, this is going to be a bit of a shock.”

Chapter 8: The Mother and Child Reunion

If you didn't notice, this story is no longer teen rated, and I added a dark tag. I think you can figure out the rest.

“Well, is she ready? The sooner we get our money, the sooner we can get the hell away from this city, and all the damn drama.” The large rainbow stallion barked as he instructed his wife, who was securing more rope around Rainbow Dash, and putting yet another paper bag over her head.

Trying to fight back had become useless. Rainbow did have one last trick up her sleeve. Her rainbow maned captors were extremely paranoid, and they both thought that the whole world was out to get them. They only trusted each other, and without the constant support of the other, one of them was bound to crack. Rainbow knew that if she was going to have any chance of survival, other than the unknown pony Reverb, she would have to turn the two against each other.

Rainbow heard the door open, and felt the cool night breeze in her mane, as her captors carried her out into the street, and loaded her into the back of a carriage. Rainbow had no clue where she was being taken, but after taking a few deep breaths of the outside air, she knew that anyplace had to be better then that basement.

Minutes felt like hours as the carriage rounded each bend and twist in the cobble stone streets of Manehatten. Rainbow had tried and memorize the order of the turns, but if was a futile effort to try and memorize every left and right they encountered. She decided to just sit and wait for whatever those two had planed for her. Being truly helpless in any situation made Rainbow extremely aggravated, but for some reason, these ponies didn’t scare her. Even being bound, and bruised, she felt like she was stronger both mentally and physically then those two. ‘Lets just hope they get a chance to see what the real Rainbow Dash can do,’ she thought having a wide smirk engulf her face.

“We're here,” whispered the mare as the carriage quietly came to a stop, “Stick to the plan, and we can be out of here in ten seconds flat.”

“What…what did you just say?” said Rainbow Dash quickly in mild confusion, and quickly received a blow to the head for her out burst.

“Shut the hell up you stupid bitch!” yelled the stallion. “If you ever want to see the world outside of the bag on your head you better keep that mouth shut.”

Rainbow nodded. She was past the point of feeling pain from his blows, each one just fed the ever growing fire inside her.

The carriage door shut, and by the sounds of it, the stallion had left, but the mare stayed behind to guard Rainbow. This was her only shot, she had to convince this mare that the other stallion was her enemy.
“Why do you let him hit you like that?” Rainbow asked with a stern, yet relaxed tone. “He just hurts, and degrades you everyday, how could someone like that care about you?”

The mare was obviously taken back by Rainbow’s questions. At first her first defense was silence, it always was. When her husband would hit her, or do unmentionable things to her, she just squeezed her eyes shut, and cried to herself, keeping her mouth shut, hoping that the relentless beatings would end soon.

Rainbow knew she was breaking the mare, so she continued her mental assault. “You don’t need him. For drugs, for protection, for love, you’re beautiful, and could do so much better.” Rainbow cringed under her bag when she told the awful mare that she was actually attractive, but in all honesty, underneath all the scars, dried blood, dirt, and bandages she was no different then Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow realized that she was no longer trying to turn the mare against her partner. Something twisted her heart, and now she felt the need to help this mare. She couldn't explain it, but she felt connected to this poor mare in front of her.

Still Rainbow was only met with silence, but she could hear the mare starting to shiver, and whimper.
“Why do you do this, what happened to you, when did this become your life? You and I both know you don’t enjoy this life of crime and running. Imagine the relief, the freedom of escaping him.”

“You.....you don’t know him like I do,” the mare said with a trembling voice, and she began to cry silently. “He only does this because he loves me, he actually wants the best for me, surely you must know that Reverb only wants to use you, he has no emotions directed toward you, you’re just his vessel of revenge. Before you know it, he’s going to leave you, and then who’s going to be screwed?”

“I don’t know who Reverb is, I’m telling the truth I swear, but from what I have heard, anypony that cares enough about me to risk his life, must care about me.”

The mare paused. “You really don’t know who he is, do you?” Rainbow nodded under the bag. Once again the mare was silent. Rainbow heard her begin to groan, and shake, muttering complete gibberish to herself. This was followed by pacing back and fourth in the back of the carriage.

“No, no, no, this is impossible, you planed it all, stop lying to me!” the mare screamed. “Why did you come back, we left you because it was for your own good! Stop making me think about it!” The mare had stopped holding her screams and tears. Rainbow was winning.

“You never left me.” Rainbow yelled back, “If I can’t even remember who you are then you were never there. Never.” Rainbow pushed her over the edge.

The mare pulled the bag off of Rainbow’s head, and put her face up against her own. Her filthy coat had two clean cyan blue streaks running down the side of her cheeks under her eyes where tears continued to flow.

“You don’t dare say that to me, I did everything for you to make sure that you survived. You owe you’re life to me, and I intend to be reimbursed for it!” The mare struck Rainbow across her already bleeding cheek. Rainbow was shocked, after everything, the mare had never actually stuck her before, it was always the stallion, and by the looks of it, the rainbow mare was shocked by her own actions as well.

“All I wanted was for you to be safe, and by some chance to remember me, so you knew that I always loved you. Rainbow Dash, don’t do this to your poor mother…”

How could Rainbow even react. It was unbelievable, but yet it made perfect sense. The two ponies that had almost taken her life yesterday, were the ones that actually gave it to her.

“If you really love me, let me go, let me live my life. You can’t stop me from taking whatever path I please, but if you really care about me, set me free.” Rainbow was calm, but fighting back all of her emotions. Hate, pity, love, sadness, and confusion. “Set me free, and run away, leave that awful stallion behind. You don’t need him. Set yourself free.”

The mare dropped to her knees, and continued to sob. “I can’t leave him, and he would kill me if I let you go, I’m sorry Rainbow, this is the path I took, and its too late to turn back.”

Rainbow came to a bone chilling conclusion, these ponies had to be stopped, they would come back after her in no time, wanting to get their own revenge. The justice system had failed Equestria, and Rainbow was going to be the one to set things straight.

“You can, do it. Let me free, please, stand up to that monster, take your life back, before you lose it forever!” Rainbow was done being nice. Her demands were firm and stern.

For a few moments, the mare was silent. “Ok.....” whispered the mare. “But the only way I can escape him is death, and I won’t commit suicide. Rainbow if you want to free yourself as well as me, end it all right here. Go back to your other family, but just know that I always cared about you, even if I left you.”

Rainbow was fighting back the tears, no matter how much she hated this mare, there was no way she could murder a pony. “There must be another way,” whimpered Rainbow.

“You’re in control Rainbow, decide your fate once and for all.” The mare rose to her feet and untied Rainbow Dash. “Please just give your mother the pleasure of holding her daughter one last time please.”

Rainbow was shaking, she rose off of the seat she had been planted to for the past three days, and cracked her back.

“One last time...” Rainbow whispered as she fell to her knees and hugged her mother. Rainbow looked up for a moment to look her mother in the eyes one last time, she had no intention of actually killing her. Rainbow decided the best course of action was to give her mother a strong buck to the face, making her pass out long enough for Rainbow to escape.

Just as Rainbow prepared to strike, she felt a piercing pain in her back. She looked down to see her mothers hoof holding a large knife that was driven into Rainbow’s back. The blood began to flow slowly as Rainbow felt her mother drive the knife in deeper and deeper. There was no time to feel the pain, she looked her mother in the eyes, and their previous state of pity and love had been replaced with a look of absolute horror.

“I didn’t want to resort to plan B, but you left me no choice dear,” whispered the mare as Rainbow’s eyes began to close. “I didn’t lie when I told you I love you, but like you said, sometimes you just need to set yourself free.”

Rainbow could feel the life pouring out of her. She never believed that when you died your entire life flashed before your eyes, but there it was unfolding before her, even her fillyhood that she could never remember was played out. Well, there was no doubt that the rainbow mare and stallion were her real parents. She watched as her father was arrested, while her mother was handcuffed to the hospital bed after giving birth. One thing caught her eye though. She was always told that her parents left her at the doorstep of the Young Fliers School, but that too was a lie. She watched as her mother escaped the hospital alone, and left Rainbow in the burning house she set fire to in her fleeting escape, but something else caught her attention. A small brown pegasus was also in the burning inferno, and quickly threw Rainbow on his back while running through the flames toward the locked door. The small colt tried desperately to open the door as the flames came closer and closer toward the two. The colt bolted back into the flames, still carrying Rainbow on his back. There was a small patch in the wall where termites had chewed through the rotten wood. Without looking back the small colt smashed through the wall and ran out into the open air. Without even slowing down he ran all the way to the Young Fliers school and set Rainbow on the stairs. He gave her a quick kiss, and whispered something into her ear before once again running off.

The flashback ended with the sight of Rainbow’s friends all cheering her on at numerous flying competitions. The sight brought Rainbow to tears as she felt the last bit of life drain from her.

Just when she thought she was done, it felt as if a fire was lit under Rainbow, and she felt one last bit of energy flow through her. She looked at the mare, whom was still held the knife in her back, and stared right into her emotionless eyes, and whispered in her ear.

“You don’t love me, you failed to kill me last time, and you’re not going to succeed this time either!”

With the last bit of energy she had Rainbow threw herself on top of her mother and ignored the pain in her back as she wrapped her fore legs around her mother’s neck and began to squeeze as hard as she could.
It came to a complete struggle between the two. Rainbow’s mother tossed and turned around the carriage, but Rainbow held on. The cyan blue coat of her mother had begun to turn shades darker from lack of oxygen.

Rainbow felt no guilt. This was revenge, this was her putting her life on the line to end another. Rainbow’s mother still held tight to the knife repeatedly pulling it out and driving it back into Rainbow’s coat in an attempt to get Rainbow Dash to let go, but resistance was futile. One thing that everypony knew about Rainbow Dash, was that she would never give up. She would gladly die for her friends. She was the true definition of loyalty.

With one last pull, Rainbow felt her mother go limp. She quickly stood up to make sure that she was done, but Rainbow immediately fell back to the ground on top of her mother.

Rainbow heard no heart beat from the body that was resting under her, and that gave her great relief, but that relief was replaced with pain. Rainbow smiled as her vision began to blur. Out of nowhere a Paul Simon song had begun playing in her head.

“No I would not give you false hope, on this strange and mournful day, but the mother and child reunion is only a motion away.” Rainbow sang with her last breath, and then darkness engulfed her.

*---------------*

“So that is how I left Rainbow at the Young Fliers School all those years ago,” Reverb said as all of the girls, including Paper Back were crying from his story.

“Well shucks Reverb, if there was an element of bravery, you would surely be the owner after you did all of that for Rainbow, how could we ever thank you,” said Applejack in between sobs.

“You already thanked me,” replied Reverb. “You have kept my little Dashie safe and happy in Ponyville for all of these years. You took the burden of watch guard off of my back. It was a burden that I cherished, but keeping Rainbow safe for all those years was my duty.”

“Whatever do you mean by watch guard my dear?” asked Rarity. “Have you always known where Rainbow lived?”

“Indeed I have,” replied Reverb. “I was always in the shadows making sure Rainbow was safe. I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to run out and hug her, but I was doing her a service. If she never found out where she came from, then she would always be a happier pony. If her happiness meant that we could never meet, then so be it. If she was happy, I was as well.”

“What about that day at the record store?” asked Twilight. “I thought you never intended to meet her face to face. “

“That’s still true,” replied Reverb. “One day I saw Rainbow taking the alleyways home, and I knew she was in for trouble. I was one step ahead of her each turn, scaring away all of the drug addicts and gang members, trying to clear a straight pathway to my store. It was the safest option. If I had to blow my cover in order to ensure Rainbow was safe, then that’s what I would do.”

“Then you walked her home and gave her that record,” replied Paper Back. “How did you know that she would embrace Rock and Roll?”

“It’s in her blood. After all, she is my sister, so I knew she would have a soft spot for the classics. I also knew from all my observations, that poor Rainbow had no friends, couldn't fly, and despised the piano. From all of my time as a lonely colt, I knew that music could save lives, and I suppose that having Rainbow Dash walk right into my record store had to be a sign that she needed the power of music.”

Paper Back smiled. “I’m not sure if I am comfortable with the fact you were spying on my daughter, but I suppose that you always had good intentions. By the way Reverb, how could you have owned a store at such a young age, what about your step parents?”

“Never call it spying again if you know what’s good for you,” Reverb replied hastily. “As for my family, I never got one. The Foal Protection Agency never caught me after I delivered Rainbow, I just flew to the nearest city, and it happened to be Manehatten. This very record store drew me in with its unique colors, and I was greeted with unparalleled kindness from the owner. He also had a rough foalhood, and wanted to help me out, in exchange for working at the store, he raised me, and let me live with him. That’s how I learned my love for Rock and Roll, and became the owner of this place after he died a few years back.”

Paper Back was about to ask another question, but Reverb had already anticipated it as well.

“I’m sure that the Foal Protection Agency told you and the tabloids that I was put in a good home, but they knew that if anypony found out that they let the colt of two drug selling ponies escape, they would be persecuted relentlessly by the law, and parents. I don’t blame them, sometimes you have to do questionable actions to save others.”

For such a tough, delinquent looking stallion, Reverb was wise beyond his years, it impressed each of the girls a great deal. He would have made a great father figure for Rainbow Dash is she wasn't already grown up.

“I’m terribly sorry that Rainbow Dash isn't here to see you Reverb, as well as you Paper Back. She deserves to know the truth more so then anypony here,” Twilight sighed.

“Oh, it’s quite alright Twilight,” Paper Back began. “You don’t need to apologize for Rainbow, I’m sure that whatever she had been doing is important, from what all you have told me, she can handle anything.”

“I beg to differ,” Reverb muttered quietly. “It’s been a while since I have seen Dash, but something feels…off, as Rainbow’s guardian, I will always do my duty to protect her.”

“That’s so noble Reverb,” Rarity cooed, “It’s just so amazing to see the bravery and love of a brother toward his sis-”

“Quiet!” yelled Reverb. “Everypony get down now and don’t move!” All the girls, as well as Paper Back did as they were instructed and ducked down behind the shelves.

A large rusted carriage had slowly pulled up in the shadows in front of the store. The group was actually quite amazed at the fact Reverb was actually able to see the carriage pull up from so far away at night.

“Reverb, what’s going o-”

“I said don’t move! Be quiet, don’t make a single sound.” Reverb was scurrying from window to window drawing the blinds, and turning off all of the lights. The girls were beginning to panic, but Applejack gave them a reassuring smile that eased the tension.

Reverb army crawled back to the group and whispered, “Twilight, do you know any suppression spells strong enough to hold down a full grown stallion?” He spoke with absolutely no hesitation, but you could hear the panic in his voice.

“Um, yes I do, but I have never done such a dark spell on a pony before, who is out there?”

“They're back...” Reverb whispered to himself, but everypony could hear it.

“Who’s back?” asked Twilight who was beyond scared at this point.

“When you see him…you will know what to do Twilight.”

*-----------*

Only a few moments passed before the sound of hoof steps could be heard from the outside of store.
The door began to shake as whoever was outside tried to open the locked door without success.

“Reverb, Reverb, Reverb, you were never good at hide and go seek, just come out here now so we can settle this as stallions.”

Reverb was shaking with anger, but remained silent, waiting to give Twilight the cue to use the spell.

“So, we got to play hard ball Reverb, I will give you one more chance to give yourself up....GET THE FUCK OUT HERE YOU PATHETIC PIECE OF SHIT!”

Twilight trembled at the tone of the stallion’s voice, she looked over to Reverb to see his reaction, but he was still unfazed. The anger and hate in his eyes and breath was undeniable, but keeping a level head was a talent Reverb had perfected over the years.

Reverb looked over to Twilight once more and nodded his head showing her to prepare herself.
Right on cue a large blast was heard and the display window of the store shattered, spraying fragments of glass throughout the shop.

“NOW,” Yelled Reverb as both he and Twilight jumped over the first shelve to be greeted by a large cyan blue coated stallion with a rainbow colored mane who had a rather large shotgun barrel aimed directly at the two.

Twilight was shocked by the sight. She immediately knew what Reverb had meant when he said, “when you see him, you will know what to do,” it was without a doubt Rainbow’s father. Any feelings of hesitation that Twilight had felt prior were quickly replaced with feelings of hatred. She cast the suppression spell, throwing the weapon out of the stallion’s hooves, and pinning him to the ground.

“What the fuck is going on here, who the fuck are you!?” yelled the stallion as he saw source of the magic.

“You don’t have the right to ask me what my name is you piece of shit!” yelled Twilight as she increased the strength of the spell, pushing the stallion to the ground with even more force.

“Calm yourself Twilight,” said Reverb as he approached the grounded stallion.

“Oh, you would get some stupid fucking slut of a pony to do your dirty work for you coward!” screamed the stallion as he continued to reach for his weapon.

“Trying to get this?” Reverb chucked as he picked up the shotgun and cocked it. “And sorry to burst you’re bubble, but the dirty work is just starting.”

“What, you going to kill me Reverb, kill your own father, you don’t have the balls! If you know what’s good for you, release me, and give me my gun if you ever want to see your sister alive again!”

Reverb snapped. He pressed the weapon directly against the forehead of the stallion. “Where is she!? I swear to Celestia that if she even had a single hair out of place, you’re going to wish you killed me when you had the chance!”

“I’m afraid I may have moved a hair or two on her face when she began to struggle, but don’t fear she is more then alive, for now...”

Reverb drove his back leg down on Rainbow’s father’s back making him lose his breath. “Tell me where she is right now!”

“Never,” laughed the stallion as he coughed and hacked trying to regain his breath. “I will warn you once more! Let me go, or Rainbow Dash is going to be a fucking rag doll.”

“You evil piece of....agh!” Reverb had to walk away for a moment to regain his composure, but returned momentarily. “Where is Rainbow Dash!?”

“Wrong question Reverb,” laughed the stallion as he quickly let out three long whistles.

“What the hell did you just do!?” Reverb yelled, kicking the stallion in the ribs once more.

“Plan B,” is all the pony could wheeze.

Chapter 9: A Brother's Embrace

Well, this one took a bit, but I promise to give you all break from cliff hangers for a bit. I'm going to go ahead and promise one more chapter by the end of the week because I'm taking a much needed trip to the desert. Thanks to MyInnerWeirdo for making this whole project possible, this wouldn't exist if it were not for her! *round of applause* without further adu...

“Plan B, what the buck do you mean plan B!?” screamed Reverb as he continued to beat Rainbow’s father into a small blue pulp. Even though the stallion was in an incredible amount of pain from his numerous injuries, the thought of causing so much stress and chaos for one pony absolutely delighted him. Even with a punctured lung, and a number of broken ribs, the pony continued to laugh and wheeze.

In any other situation Twilight would have been disgusted, and would have tried to break the two apart, but here vision was blurred tears of anger which drove her to give the awful stallion a kick or two in the groin when she could get a good shot.

Reverb finally convinced himself to stop kicking, but the fire in his heart had yet to fade. He took three paces back once again and caught his breath. The bruised and beaten pony had yet to cease his fit of laughter, occasionally coughing up blood in between breaths.

“Just calm yourself Reverb, don’t want to anything to drastic here,” Reverb said to himself as he threw his hooves on his head while pacing back and forth in front of the destroyed store front. He approached the cyan blue stallion again, but set him upright so he could look the monster in the eye.

In the calmest tone that Reverb could muster, he once again asked the stallion, “Where is Rainbow Dash, where is my sister?” Just saying that word...sister, he hadn't actually felt the power behind that one word until now. It was so much more than a simple word. The love and care had always been there, but the constant distance between the two siblings made it impossible to know how much one pony meant to him.

Reverb could picture that young little filly that he rescued all those years ago. Rainbow colored bangs hanging carelessly in front of pink eyes. A bright white smile that could illuminate even the darkest of rooms. Even though Reverb had not seen his sister in nearly half a decade, he still had that image forever ingrained in his mind.

Suddenly something snapped Reverb out of his trance; he couldn't quite make out the sound that had startled him so he turned his attention back the Rainbow’s father.

“WHERE IS MY SISTER!?” Reverb screamed giving the pony one last, swift kick to the chest.

Through the muffled coughs and laughter the stallion choked, “Just listen for yourself.”

Reverb quickly realized what snapped him out of his dreams, it was a loud scream. Then it all clicked. He knew that voice. Even if it was just a distant scream, it was unmistakably Rainbow Dash.

Not wanting to waste any time, Reverb jumped out of the broken store front window and sprinted out into the dark, moonlight filled alleyway.

He continued to hear the screams of agony, mixed with the sound of grunts and shouts of another pony. He didn’t want to believe it was his mother, but nopony else would have been crazy enough to join his father in a mission to, well to be honest Reverb never bothered to ask his father his true intentions, but he came to the conclusion that it would have revolved around using Rainbow for collateral in exchange of the small fortune Reverb had saved over the years.

The screams continued to resonate off the surrounding buildings, making it impossible to determine the true source of the struggle. Reverb began to pathetically scream out for his sister, but his only response was more agonizing, blood curdling screams.

Trying to see through his tear filled eyes, Reverb flew overhead to try and locate the carriage that most likely contained Rainbow, but with so little light, it was impossible to see your own hoof in front of your face at that altitude.

Dropping back down to the streets Reverb continued his search. He had heard the rest of the girls as well as Paper Back behind him trying to help him search, but he knew that whatever horrible situation Rainbow was in, would surely be too much for one, or five innocent mares to witness.

Reverb would never give up, but his frustration was starting to impair his hearing and vision. Just as Reverb wanted to scream and fall to the ground, his ears picked up the sound of metal on metal. It was faint, but it was enough for Reverb to find the location of the carriage. Without looking back Reverb sped off to the left taking a small drainage all the way to an abandoned parking lot.

There, cast in the shadows of the neighboring factory, was a small rusted carriage that without a doubt belonged to his parents.

Reverb was relieved to have found the carriage, but something else had made his heart skip a beat. He noticed that Rainbow had not screamed for the past two minutes, which to Reverb felt like hours.

Sprinting as fast as he could, Reverb approached the rusted doors and threw them open. If he had eaten any food at all that day, then he would have surely been reacquainted with it, because the sight and smell of the scene before him made Reverb lose control of his legs.

In a pool of blood, he saw two cyan blue mares, with rainbow manes entangled in a final, hatred filled embrace. Reverb had no tears to shed, the sight was so graphic, that all of those drug filled nights that he had spent with his parents as a colt, seemed like a cartoon.

The sound of hoof steps could be heard echoing from the pavement as Paper Back and the girls approached the carriage.

“Don’t come a step closer!” Reverb yelled. There may have not been any tears in his eyes, but the tone of his voice was all the girls needed to know that something was terribly wrong.

“You can’t keep us from our friend ya hear!” Applejack yelled back continuing to approach the carriage. Reverb was not in any mood to negotiate with these girls. With a swift swing of a wing he had knocked Applejack on to the ground. Before the rest of the girls could help her up, Reverb sprinted back to the carriage, locked the door behind him, and looked for any sign of life in Rainbow Dash. He could care less about his mother; her death would actually bring a terrible weight off of Reverb’s shoulders. That mare may have been his mother, but she was never family.

His assumption had been correct; his mother had been strangled to death by none other than her own daughter. If the situation wasn't so grim, Reverb would have commended Rainbow Dash for her bravery, but this was no time for celebrating.

Reverb picked up his only true family member and held her tight. Both for the embrace, and to try and apply pressure to the numerous stab wounds that dotted Rainbow’s back. Reverb began to cry. This was the first time that he had even touched Rainbow since he had kissed her on the cheek nearly sixteen years ago when he left her on the steps of the flight school. It broke his heart to know that the only two times he had ever embraced his sister, was when he was preparing himself to say goodbye. Forever.

Not knowing what to do next Reverb pulled his sister’s head toward his own, and whispered those exact same words he told her when she was a small filly.

“You will never get to know me, or who I really am, but remember. I will always protect you. I will be your light in times of darkness. I will be your shelter in the worst of storms. I will be your silent guide in life. I will be you’re one and only brother, and I will love you forever... I promise”

Reverb began to shake and cry. He had failed. His one job in life was to make sure that this one mare, the one pony in the whole world that meant more to him then his own life was safe. Here she was, having the life spill out of her in his very arms. How could he have come so close to being reunited with his sister, only to have her taken away by those same ponies that had taken away his own life.

Sadness, grief, anger. Reverb didn’t know what emotion he was feeling but it was tearing his heart to shreds. All he knew was that if his father wasn't dead yet, he would make sure that his own hoof would deliver that final blow.

Just as Reverb began to shift the limp Rainbow Dash off of his broad shoulders, he felt the delicate mare in his hooves shiver. Reverb quickly hugged Rainbow again.

“You’re still in this Rainbow! Don’t you give up, you hear me? I watched you grow up. You have never lost a battle that you truly loved. Fight Rainbow Dash! Don’t leave me... Please....please don’t leave.”

Rainbow’s lips quivered, but no words came out. Reverb put his ear directly next to her mouth. “Come on Rainbow say it, just say anything, you can do it.”

“Loyalty...” is all Rainbow had the strength to say.

“I know Rainbow, I know. You are the most loyal pony in Equestria, just stay strong, stay with me!”

“You made a promise, it’s not too late to keep it,” Rainbow whispered

Reverb pulled his sister in tighter. “Always...”

*-----------*

Reverb’s attempt to keep the girls at bay was hopeless. He had managed to lock the door to the carriage behind him, but everypony outside had heard everything he had said. Frankly, he didn’t care anymore. His only job was to take Rainbow to the hospital. It would be a long shot, but he had to try and save her.

“Reverb, I know you don’t want to leave her now, but I can teleport her to the hospital. I only have the strength to send Rainbow and I though. It’s the only way we can get her there before...before it’s too late...” Twilight pleaded

Reverb was still holding Rainbow in his arms. He didn’t want to let go of her. This might be his last chance to be with his sister.

“Do it for Dash Reverb, it’s the only way.” Twilight said again. Reverb took a breath, kissed Rainbow on her cheek, and set her gently in front of Twilight.

“Just get out of here,” Reverb chocked, not wanting to look Twilight, or Rainbow in the eye.

After the purple flash dissipated, Reverb turned back to the girls.

“Well we better get a move on if we want to make it to the hospital in good time,” Applejack stated, starting to walk toward the street. The rest of the girls followed suit, but Reverb stood still.

“Come on Reverb, we wouldn't want to keep those two waiting,” Rarity said with some hesitation.

“You girls go on,” Reverb replied coldly. “I have some unfinished business to attend to.

Everypony knew what his intentions were, but they all told themselves that Reverb was just going to say goodbye to his mom. In a way, they were all right, but Reverb had something a bit different in mind.

The girls left Reverb to his work. He slowly made his way back to the carriage and looked at that the blood filled interior. Not wanting to leave any immediate sight of the crime, Reverb pushed the carriage into the garage door in the back of the factory. It would be months, perhaps even years until another pony would stumble into the shell of a building.

Next, Reverb pulled his mother out of the pool of blood she was resting in and set her on the ground. Delicate would not be the most fitting word as to how he slid his mother along the ground toward a hose attached to the fire escape of the factory.

Crusted blood and dirt washed off of her coat as Reverb sprayed his mother’s body with the rusted hose. Seeing the mare clean of all filth made Reverb examine his mother more closely.

She really was just as beautiful as Rainbow Dash. They had nearly identical bodies, but years of apparent drug use and domestic violence had ravaged some of his mother’s finer features.

Carelessly slinging his mother on to his back, Reverb began his slow walk to his store, where his father was waiting for him.

Shards of broken glass sparkled in the moonlight, giving some added light to the pitch black alleyway. Reverb casually made his way through the front door, ignoring the large entrance that was made by his father.

Reverb didn’t need to worry about his father getting away. After doing that much damage to his fragile body, any chance of movement was impossible for the broken stallion.

His father had curled himself up into a small ball in the main aisle. He was shaking quite vigorously from the cold night air that spilled into the store through the shattered windows. Reverb approached quite slowly, trying to keep his cool. After one look at his father he could see that he was in a substantial amount of pain, but there was no fear in his eyes. No matter what Reverb did to that heartless stallion, his father would never give Reverb the satisfaction of causing him as much pain as he deserved. It was all just some twisted game to his father. Lives were just pawns that he moved about the chess board of life, sacrificing them as needed. Love was a foreign emotion to that pony. He may have lived with the same pony for years, but even she was just as part of his game.

No longer would this stallion be allowed to do what he pleased to anypony. Reverb had failed to stop this game in the past. He had learned from his mistakes, but he knew that this was his only chance to turn something that used to be so wrong, into something so right.

Reverb walked in front of his father, and set the lifeless body of his mother down next to his quivering father.

Reverb’s father was obviously not accustomed to seeing his partner so clean and peaceful, that he had assumed Reverb just carried in the body of Rainbow Dash.

Laughing like a mad pony the stallion looked down at the body. “Plan B hasn't failed me yet, you know Reverb I gave you a chance, but you turned it down. You could have switched places with your sister, but I suppose you were just too much of a coward to do it. Doesn't really surprise me though. You never had the guts to deal with death, even when you had your chance to kill me last time, you chickened out. I’m glad we tossed you to the curb, I wouldn't want a son that was a pussy, always holding me back.”

Reverb just chuckled to himself. His father’s words stung like daggers, but he knew that every word that came out of that bastard’s mouth was a lie.

“Something funny you little shit?” yelled Reverb’s father, becoming quite confused and aggravated by his son’s unusual behavior.

“Take a closer look,” Reverb whispered with a smirk on his face. The stallion looked up at his son trying to analyze what he had said. Reverb responded by quietly pointing down to rainbow mare on the ground.

The Stallion shifted his weight toward the mare and scanned each corner of the cold corpse.

“How, how dare you!” screamed the stallion falling over the body desperately flailing his hoofs at Reverb’s feet. “I’m going to kill you for this you fucking monster!”

Reverb once again responded with laughter. “So, I’m the monster now. Death is a part of life dad. You should know that better then anypony, but sometimes things interfere with the natural process of death. Murder is also a part of life. No matter how hard you run from it, your actions always come back to haunt you. I’m sure that my actions today will have severe consequences in the future, but for today it’s my turn to deliver justice. Father, I don’t need to tell you what evil things you have done. Even if the list is miles long, each and every one of those actions is ingrained in your head. So you could constantly feel the guilt and pain that everypony you hurt had felt. Allow me to put you out of that misery father. Life isn't a game that can be manipulated by small brained stallions such as yourself. Game over, dad.

The stallion rose to his feet and stared his son in the eyes. There was no emotion. Just two mirrors that reflected back the image of a beaten, bloody stallion that had his last laugh.

Reverb watched his father’s eyes drift lazily to the left, down toward the ground where the shotgun was resting. Reverb turned his back to his father and anticipated his sudden jump for the weapon.

While his father was in mid jump, Reverb bucked his father so hard that his body flew like a rag doll toward the other corner of the store.

That blow was enough to make the stallion completely immobile. He had several broken bones and was suffering from internal bleeding. Reverb picked up the weapon that his father had attempted to grab, and pointed the muzzle at the pathetic excuse of a stallion that lied at his feet.

“Sorry it had to be this way dad, but Rainbow Dash and I deserved better than this, and it’s about time that life goes back to normal.”

*------------*

Twilight met Reverb in the waiting room of the Manehatten hospital. She looked quite shaken, but she mustered the power to give Reverb a small smile. That alone made Reverb sigh in relief. Reverb knew that Rainbow was alive, but her condition must be critical.

Without exchanging any words Twilight led Reverb through a pair of white swinging doors.

Reverb hated hospitals. He only been to one once before, but it had been when he was just a young colt, and he watched as his guardian slowly died. He just associated the hospital with a cemetery. A place where ponies came to die. Luckily after seeing Rainbow Dash resting in her bed covered with bandages, Reverb knew that this place saved his sister.

“She needs her rest right now everypony, but you may stay in the room as long as you keep your voices down,” whispered the nurse as she walked out of the room.

“We got her here just in the nic o’ time,” Applejack sighed. “My heart was poundin’ mighty fierce when we saw Rainbow all beat up bein’ taken to the operating room.”

“Yeah, I was all super scared, but then she came out, and that little beepy machine was still beeping, so I knew that Dashie was ok!” Pinkie Pie yelled, but was quickly scolded by the others for being too loud.

“She’s in critical condition, but she is going to pull through, everypony knows that Rainbow Dash won’t lose anything without a fight.” Twilight said proudly.

“Believe me I know,” both Reverb and Paper Back said in unison. Paper Back was slowly running his hoof through Rainbow’s mane cherishing the connection he was having with his daughter. It had been far too long since he had seen his daughter. Even If she was in the hospital.

Everypony sat in the room for a few more hours recapping the crazy events that had taken place the past three days. They didn’t feel bad leaving out one or two of the more, “graphic scenes.”

Twilight sat peacefully in the corner, but motioned for Reverb to join her in the hallway so they could talk in privet.

“Um, Reverb, so about cleaning up the mess we made back there, I was thinki-”

“It’s already been done Twilight, just relax. Everything had been taken care of.” Reverb assured.

“What about the situation back at the store, what do we do about your dad, and all the glass and...blood.” Twilight stuttered on the last word.

“That has also been taken care of,” Reverb said coldly. “Nopony will be messing with Rainbow and I ever again, and the store has been taken care of properly.”

“Reverb, what did you do?” Twilight asked with a stern voice.

“Let’s just say that I learned two things from my father,” reverb replied. “One, if you have a problem pony, take care of said problem so it doesn't come back. Two, if you need to make a mad dash out of town and don’t want to leave any evidence, just burn it all.”

“You didn’t,” Twilight said in disbelief.

“I did. I assure you that I didn’t have any intentions of doing what I did to my father, and I made sure that my store was properly destroyed. I can’t hide forever, but I can try to live my life to the fullest with Rainbow Dash and you all until that day comes.”

Twilight was at a loss for words. What Reverb did was awful, but after contemplating his actions in her head, she realized that she would have done the exact same thing if she was in his situation.

Twilight patted Reverb on the back and gave him a smile. They continued to make small talk until Rarity came out and told the two that Rainbow was starting to wake up.

Everypony in the room gathered around Rainbow and gently hugged her, making sure they didn’t disturb her wounds.

Rainbow was weak, and could barely talk to she just gave everypony in the room a weak smile. When she turned her attention to Reverb he gave her a large grin.

“Hello Rainbow Dash, you probably don’t remember me, but my name is-”

“Reverb,” she whispered. “It’s nice to see you again bro.”
Reverb felt a tear roll down his cheek and hugged Rainbow, knowing that this time he would be able to hold her in his hooves forever.

Chapter 10: One Last Time

***Six Years Later***

Just as it had done for thousands of years, Celestia’s sun was once again going down below the horizon, allowing Luna’s beautiful moon to rise and radiate its gentle glow over the residents of Ponyville. It had seemed like yesterday that Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rarity were seeing their beloved friend Rainbow Dash off as she took the first steps toward her lifelong dream.

Dreams come and go. Live and die. It’s a simple fact of life. Sometimes no matter how desperately you try to hold on to something, it will always slip out of reach, never to be seen again. Being able to perceiver is the key to keeping dreams alive, but sometimes no matter how much it hurts to do so, you have to let go, and take the next turn down life’s road.

Rainbow Dash had taken so many turns in life that she was accustomed to the whirls and twirls that life had to offer. The one day she had been flying with the Wonder Bolts had changed her life...for the better.

Rainbow could recall that throughout the entire day she spent flying with the squad, she was stressed, unhappy, and constantly looking to her friends welcoming faces down on the ground, instead of her fellow teammates. As fate would have it, she crashed, and lost the one thing that made her an individual–her wings. She would never believe you if you told her that by losing her wings, that she was actually setting herself free.

Flying was the one thing that separated her from her friends, which were the most important things in Rainbow’s life. Being an Element of Harmony, especially the one of Loyalty gave Rainbow Dash a deeper connection to each of her friends. When she went flying, she felt free, but she was actually just distancing herself from those who cared for her most.

Rainbow chuckled as she reached back and scratched the stubs that used to hold her wings, as well as the rough patches of hair that never grew back fully after her incident in the carriage. Those scars were just another story that Rainbow was reminded of constantly. Every hour of every day. For months she was bitter about the fight, but she soon realized that being angry at those ponies that could never come back to hurt her was just a waste of time and energy. Reverb was also a big help when Rainbow Dash would have a breakdown, but after a few weeks these panic attacks almost never happened.

Rainbow Dash was standing in another dark alleyway in Fillydelphia, alone in the cold. This time however, she was sweating profusely and just needed to cool down. The girls, as well as Reverb had just played a full set at their largest show since they had become a band.

After Reverb joined the other mares back in Ponyville, he helped Rainbow organize the restless group of mares, into a well functioning pack of musicians.

The band traveled from town to town, playing small bar gigs, and an occasional prom or two, but they never made an impact on the music world.

That was the case until one night at a small gig in Canterlot that Princess Luna was nice enough to arrange, a pony by the name of Platinum had taken a liking to the group. He made his introduction short and sweet at the end of the show, and requested that the group come to his studio the following morning.

Not wanting to miss their one potential chance at stardom all of the girls, including Reverb began to prepare for the following day. Everypony that is, except for Rainbow Dash. After having her last dream pulled out from underneath her wings, she didn’t want to go through the heartbreak again. It had been a brutal year for her after all of the events that had taken place with her parents, and the thought of failure chilled Rainbow to the bone.

All of the girls pleaded with Rainbow not to give up, but she had her mind set on quitting. There was no way that the others could meet Platinum’s expectations without Rainbow Dash, so they too gave up.

Seeing everypony so drained and depressed made Reverb furious. He had started to look over the other girls as closely as Rainbow Dash after he had become friends with them, and hated seeing them so down.

The next morning Reverb grabbed Rainbow Dash while she was sleeping and flew her up to the nearest solitary cloud over Canterlot.

“Reverb, you know I hate flying now, put me back on the ground this instant!” Rainbow Dash was trying to sound assertive toward her older brother, but being awoken so suddenly and early made Rainbow have to yawn in between words, making every word out of her mouth a complete joke.

Knowing that she was trapped, Rainbow took a seat down on the cloud and waited for Reverb to scold her.

“You know Rainbow Dash, you have changed a lot from that audition day with the Wonder Bolts,” Reverb stated trying to ease himself into the tense conversation.

Rainbow already feeling irritable and moody responded with a hurtful, “Well how would you know, you weren't even there.”

Reverb was expecting something along those lines, so no offense was taken, but instead he responded calmly, “Actually Rainbow, I was there. Sitting in the crowd just a couple of pony strides in front of your friends. I could see that you were so nervous, but I knew that you were brave enough to pull through alone. I was wrong. You constantly flew over our heads, making sure that each of your friends was shooting you a smile or a wave. Hell you even waved to them at supersonic speed Dashie. What I’m trying to say is that you need your friends to achieve these difficult goals. I know that the idea of being turned down by Platinum is daunting, and scary, but this time you’re not alone. Each of us will be right next to you. We’re doing this as a family Rainbow Dash, and this family isn't complete without you.” Reverb smiled warmly at Rainbow Dash, who couldn't help but smile back.

“We won’t fail Dash, and even if we did, we would fail as a family, and I would rather fail a million times over, than have to live with the thought of...what if. I know that the world has taken so much from you this past year, this time it’s trying to give something back. Take it, run with it, and never look back.” Reverb finished his heartfelt speech by giving his sister that same tight embrace like he had done when she was near-death.

“You’re right Reverb,” Rainbow sighed. “Sometimes it just becomes too much to deal with, you know?” Reverb smiled and nodded his head slowly.

“I’m going to do it. I can’t let my friends down again, they have always been there to pick me back up, I can’t leave them now. Let’s go bro, I’m ready for this!” Rainbow stood up and smacked her brother on the back. Without looking back she jumped of the cloud, and came to the quick realization, that maybe that pep talk was just a little too motivational.

It was no problem for Reverb to swoop down and catch Rainbow, but it still gave them both a good scare, as well as a laugh.

The rest of the girls were ecstatic when they heard that Rainbow had changed her mind. They realized that they only had an hour to pack up their equipment and get to the studio, but hey. Crazier things have been done.

The audition went off without a hitch, and Platinum was thrilled to have signed the group to his record label. The band wasn't too bummed either.

In another year’s time, they all recorded their first record, and it was a hit. Platinum lived up to his name, when the record went double Platinum in just two months.

Before they could even catch their breaths, the band members were on every billboard, bus, magazine cover, and newspaper they could find. Rainbow couldn't help but laugh when she was the featured pony on Equestria gossip, knocking Spitfire out of her usual spot in the tabloids.

Touring came next, and the band absolutely loved traveling from city to city playing their music. If it weren't for the company from each of her friends, Rainbow would have despised the constant traveling, but being around the ponies she cared for most, made any day just a little brighter.

It was their third tour around Equestria, and the band was playing their largest gig yet at a coliseum in Baltimare. Everything was going as planned, but something terrible had happened to the tour bus that carried the band members. They had gotten a flat miles outside of the city, and were going to miss the concert’s start by hours. Fluttershy, Rarity, and Reverb took a separate car, seeing as they didn’t have to practice with the others, and were already at the venue. Rarity was absolutely furious being the uptight manager she was famous for, and blamed the bus driver for being careless.

There was no way that the others would arrive before the crowd would get restless and leave, so Rarity did what she did best. Bossed everypony. Reverb easily agreed to go out and play a few fast paced solos for the crowd, but even those couldn't satisfy them. Rarity had completely run out of options, she begged Fluttershy to try and entertain the group of several thousand, but Fluttershy wouldn't hear any of it.

“Rarity...I can’t,” Fluttershy squealed as Rarity pushed the yellow pegasus out on to stage.

“I believe in you sweetheart!” yelled Rarity after successfully pushing her friend out in front of the crowd.

They weren't booing, but Fluttershy could hear the whispers and shouts of disapproval that had taken over the crowd.

“DO SOMETHING ALREADY!” yelled one pony in the fifth row throwing his empty beer bottle on stage. Fluttershy leaped back as the glass shattered around her hooves.

Just when she prepared to run away Reverb walked on stage and wrapped his foreleg around Fluttershy. The crowd was now booing mercilessly, and one by one ponies started to exit.

“Please Fluttershy, can you think of anything that you are talented at that can tame this crowd, Anything!” Reverb asked as nicely as he could, but the stress he had could be heard in his voice.

“Um, um, um, I can’t do it, she won’t like it.” Fluttershy whispered into Reverb’s ear as she began to cry.

“Can’t do what, who’s going to be angry, please Fluttershy, explain.” Reverb whispered back holding Fluttershy closer.

“She’ll hate me forever, and ever!” Fluttershy cried out grabbing on to Reverb’s mane.

“Fluttershy just do what you have to do, nopony is ever going to hate you, I think that’s physically impossible.” Reverb smiled looking the yellow pegasus in the eyes.

“Ok....I can try, but you have to help.” Fluttershy said picking herself up off of the ground.

“I will do anything for you Fluttershy,” replied Reverb as he hugged her again. Fluttershy broke the embrace and pointed to the acoustic guitar in the wings of the stage. Rarity saw Reverb motion for the guitar and she quickly dispatched a roadie to bring it to him.

With the guitar in hoof Reverb looked back over to Fluttershy who had taken a seat at the grand piano on the other end of the stage.

“No way!” Reverb said to himself, but he was never heard by anypony over the growing murmurs coming from the crowd.

“Look she’s finally doing something!” yelled one pony in the first row. Reverb shot the intoxicated colt a nasty look, which was received with an even more obscene gesture.

Fluttershy began to play, softly and slowly, and Reverb immediately recognized the song. It was a classic that would always move any crowd to tears if performed correctly. Reverb slowly played along as Fluttershy sang the first chorus.

It sounded as if a choir of angels had descended to the stage and started to perform. The crowd became deathly silent as Fluttershy sang each chorus with more emotion each time.

As Fluttershy finished her song, she could see her other friends clapping wildly in the wings. They had arrived just after Fluttershy had begun to play, and couldn't believe that their best friend was actually a musical prodigy.

Taking a bow, Fluttershy and Reverb ran off the stage, directly into the embrace of their friends.

The small shy pegasus was bombarded with questions, but just smiled back as her friends knew that she would not respond to all of them.

“Why didn’t you tell us you could sing so well!” yelled Twilight as she gave her friend another hug.

“Well, Applejack was already the singer, and I didn’t want to make her upset so I just stayed quiet,” Fluttershy said looking at Applejack from the corner of her eye. Applejack blushed and gave her a reassuring slap on the back.

“You know I could never be jealous of that kind of talent sugar cube. I’m the Element of Honesty, and I can honestly say that you’re little song you just sang, put me to s-h-a-m-e.

Applejack had meant it as a joke, but she could tell that Fluttershy was preparing to apologize already.

“Fluttershy, why didn’t you ever tell me you played piano, especially that well?” Rainbow Dash asked putting a hoof on the pegasus’ shoulder.

“Well, you see. You always talked about how much you hated playing the piano, and how you never wanted to play it again, so I just kept to myself because I knew you wouldn't like me if I played the piano,” Fluttershy said staring at the ground.

Rainbow Dash was at a loss for words. How could her friend assume that she would hate her for such a small thing? Then again, Fluttershy did tend to over think things.

“I would never be mad at you Fluttershy. I love the fact you play the piano. If I have learned anything these past two years, it’s that you should always believe in your friends, and never let anypony hold you back. You’re amazing Fluttershy, and I want you to know that you mean the world to me.” Rainbow Dash said lifting Fluttershy’s head up so she could look her friend in the eyes.

“Thanks Rainbow Dash, It means a lot to hear you say that.” Fluttershy said giving her friend a hug.

“Well I reckon that we should get out on stage, it gonna be mighty hard to follow up Fluttershy, but we have to give all them ponies their money’s worth,” Applejack said making her way to the stage. The rest of the band members nodded and followed Applejack out on to the stage being greeted with the shouts and screams of thousands of fans.

Rarity had once again run off to scold the bus driver, which left Reverb and Fluttershy in the wings alone watching their friends perform.

“You did absolutely amazing Fluttershy, I had no clue you were so talented, I think we may just have to play a song or two on our own one of these days.” Reverb said grinning at his friend.

“Oh, thank you Reverb I couldn't have done it without you there to give me some confidence, and I would love to play more with you.” Fluttershy blushed looking away.

Reverb just laughed and turned Fluttershy around to they were eye to eye. “That sounds nice.”

Fluttershy turned bright crimson, and without giving it a second thought firmly planted her lips on Reverb’s.

To say he was shocked would be an understatement, but Reverb was in no position to end the kiss, so he returned it with just as much gusto as Fluttershy.

Fluttershy pulled away breathing heavily. “That was nice too,” she giggled taking Reverb by the hoof.

“And I thought I had you all figured out,” laughed Reverb as he took Fluttershy’s hoof in his own.

Fluttershy laughed as well and they walked hoof in hoof back to their car and to the hotel room.

Four more years, and numerous tours would soon pass after that night, and Fluttershy and Reverb were happily married with two fillies, and had long stopped touring with the others. Although Fluttershy would occasionally come along and play a song or two she preferred to stay at home and watch over her young ones while Reverb happily lived with her at their small cottage on the edge of the Everfree Forrest.

Reverb had received a letter from his sister asking for their presence when the band of friends played their very last live show in Manehatten the following weekend. Rainbow wanted Fluttershy to close their careers by performing that same song from such a long time ago. Reverb and Fluttershy didn’t have to think twice and quickly packed their bags for the city.

Rainbow Dash ended her flashback and stretched her forelegs over her head. The cool night air felt good against her scars, but she had to run back to the stage. Closing the back door behind her Rainbow Dash walked back to the wings of the stage and met up with the rest of her friends.

She was greeted with many hellos from her friends, brother, and now sister-in-law as they each picked up their respective instruments.

“Well we got time for one more song, I reckon it’s a no brainer what we're gonna play?” Applejack asked adjusting her stetson hat.

“Without a doubt,” Rainbow Dash said giving Fluttershy a friendly punch on the shoulder. Rainbow pointed to Reverb and Fluttershy. “You two take center stage, we got your backs.” With That Rainbow Dash walked off toward the stage.

The rest of the band followed and were met with a roar of applause from their audience. Every time the group took the stage, no matter how big, or small it always amazed them how far they had come in just six years time.

This was the last time they would play together. They would obviously continue to be friends, but they were all satisfied with all of the work they had done. For once Rainbow Dash could say that she overcame the odds and lived her lifelong dream. Not something that many ponies can say.

With one last nod Fluttershy started to play. (Here is the Song)

For you, there'll be no more crying,

For you, the sun will be shining,

And I feel that when I'm with you,

It's alright, I know it's right

To you, I'll give the world

To you, I'll never be cold

'Cause I feel that when I'm with you,

It's alright, I know it's right.

And the songbirds are singing,

Like they know the score,

And I love you, I love you, I love you,

Like never before.

And I wish you all the love in the world,

But most of all, I wish it from myself.

And the songbirds keep singing,

Like they know the score,

And I love you, I love you, I love you,

Like never before, like never before.

*-----------The End----------*

Well there it is folks, thank you so much for staying until the end, this story went in a very different path then I was expecting, but I came to the conclusion that if I continued, all it would be is Reverb and the other six going from gig to gig, I would post lyrics in the story, and hope that you liked my song choice. It would be entertaining, but it lacked creativity, that is why I ended it this way. Thanks a million times to my editor, MyInnerWeirdo.

If you have not done so already please rate, and leave your opinion. I plan on making many, many, many more fics in the future, so If you have any interest in seeing what I have planned in the future, go ahead and watch me!

I will leave you with one more thank you, and I wish you all a good day!

For more info on the story, or me if you actually give a crap, check this out. Rock&RollRunner