Vulnerable

by Nimbus92

Rating: teen
Tags: Gore, Slice of Life, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rainbow Dash, Comedy, Other, Sex, Random
Length: 20076

The rise and fall of Nimbus. Rainbow Dash is Nimbus's best and possibly most dangerous friend ever. He learns the struggles of friendship, with their all their crazy antics making their bound more precious than what others may see.

(Sequel: 09/05/2017 I took it down for the final time a few months ago. I didn't like where it was going and wanted to give it a final rewrite. It will take sometime but please bear with me. )

All he wants to do is go fast, but he's not fast enough. He wants to go far, but it's just out of reach. He wants to live large...well, he's got a poor diet. So, at least he's gradually making progress there.

Nimbus is an orphan born colt who quickly learns the struggles of friendship when he is acquainted with Rainbow Dash. Their adventures, crazy antics, and skylarks make their bound more precious than what others may see.

(Part 1 of 2 )

Cover Art by: http://xerlexer.deviantart.com/

Published 2014-02-18 02:20:06 UTC
Last updated 2014-08-23 21:49:36 UTC

Am I your best friend or are you my best friend?

Am I your best friend or are you my best friend?

The two ponies positioned themselves on the edge of the cloud. Their coats were almost identical except the colt was a few shades lighter than his filly friend, but a bit brighter. The filly’s mane was absolutely colorful and amazing, where the colt’s mane and tail was a simple sparkling golden glow to it. The both took the time to look over the final product of their master piece of an obstacle course they had been slaying themselves over for the past week and a half. The tiny rainbow-colored mane filly was the first one to break the silence.

"Whew!" she let out, breathing heavily. She turned her head towards her colt friend "Sooo… if you want to back down from my challenge..." the filly started giving the colt a smug smile "You’re more than welcome to, if you’re too scared of losing."

The colt lifted his head in offense and glared deadly at her "Your challenge? I challenged you!" he snorted, lifting a pointed hoof to the fillies face.

The filly roughly pushed the colt’s firm hoof out of her sight "If the other colts in class couldn’t beat me, what chance do you think you have?" throwing a deadly hoof of her own into the colts face.

The colt knocked her hoof out of his view, just like she did with his "The only reason you won that race yesterday was because I wasn’t there." the colt confirmed. No matter how strongly his confidence sounded, he knew there was absolutely no way he could beat her if she performed the legendary Sonic Rainboom he had heard about.

"Now come on, Rainbow Dash." the colt positioned himself over the edge of the cloud again. "Are we gonna race or not? I need to get home before diner!" he licked his chops and arched his wings back. He was prepared for any of Rainbow Dash’s little tricks she might pull to get a head start. After several long seconds of silence, the colt lifted his head to see a blushing blue filly with her head lowered down and digging her hoof into the floor of the cloud below her.

Rainbow Dash lifted her head with a smile and red blushing cheeks "You called me Rainbow Dash.". She lowered her head again to hide her smile this time "No other pony has ever called me that...” she took a moment’s pause “…the other ponies, except for Fluttershy, call me Rainbow Crash….”

The colt wasn’t quite too familiar with Rainbow Dash acting so “nice”. Rainbow Dash had always seemed like the most awesome chaotically boyish filly he had ever met. Despite the fact he didn’t really talk too much to many of the other fillies in flight class anyways.

He gave a nervous smile “Well, I mean it’s nothing…I-I just uhh I just have a lot of respect for you is all.”

Rainbow Dash continued to blush “You must really…like me.” she smiled back at the nervous colt before her, moving and brushing up closely against him.

The colt brushed his mane nervously “Ahhh, well …you know…”

Rainbow Dash then donkey kicked him in the ribs and blasted right over him, leaving behind a small beam of rainbow ,taking him off his guard “Later, Nimbus!” she mocked, as she pulled her cheeks out horizontally and stuck her tongue at him.

After a few seconds of laying down in his shame, Nimbus picked himself up and snapped back into reality. Rainbow Dash had played and tricked him again to get a head start in the race. Of course, she could have beat him easily anyways. Rainbow Dash might have well just slapped with a frying pan. At least, she wouldn’t have given him false hope.

“Get back here, you disgusting mule carcass!” he insulted, chasing on after her. At first, Nimbus thought calling Rainbow Dash a rotting dead body would have caused her to turn back and punch him in the nose like she always did. If he timed it right, he could possibly dodge the punch and out a few feet between himself and her before she could turn back around He bolted towards her with a gold beam of light flying off of his mane and tail.

He had started off with fast enough acceleration to catch up neck to neck with Rainbow Dash before she could get very far. The colt turned his head and smiled at Rainbow Dash, in hopes that maybe playing friendly would rustle her feathers. Rainbow Dash groaned angrily as she caught sight of the colt winking and smiling at her. She tried to cut him off by taking a sharp turn at a cloud, but Nimbus caught sight of it and turned very early to avoid crashing into it. The two of them were successfully diving through every loop and turn they had made in their small course. They were even able to effectively glide side by side safely through a series of single cloud hoop simultaneously.

Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes at her colt friend as he continued to smile at her and had the spine to say “Try to keep up, Rainbow Dash.” Talking and flying wasn’t exactly an easy task to accomplished, nor was it advised. Having your mouth wide open during a flight without any sort of protection easily invited pest and bugs to soar towards the grand opening of the pony’s throat. It didn’t happen often, but a few pegasai would even choke on a bug and fall to their deaths.

The two reached the half-way point through the course and turned around to conclude the remainder of their race back at the starting cloud. Rainbow Dash snorted loudly out of frustration as she saw just how easily Nimbus was able to stay on her tail. She could see the starting cloud just up ahead from a naked eye view, the only guaranteed way for her to win this, and keep her reputation as the fastest pony in Equestria, was to perform the Sonic Rainboom! Rainbow Dash searched and found every amount of energy she had left in her fuel tank and pushed her body harder than she had ever expected and had intended to in this race (or any race for that matter). She could fell a cone of air surrounding her body. Breaking the sound barrier was a sure sign that she wasn’t far from performing her Sonic Rainboom, she was doing it! Tears began to drip from her eyes as more air forced and pierced into her eyelids.

Nimbus took notice of Rainbow Dash’s sudden increase in speed as she began to gradually pull ahead in front of him. He dived down, pushed, and pressed his body hard up against her side, knocking her off her concentration and disrupting her Sonic Rainboom. She started to lose her balance and began to swerve loosely, but she found her moment of opportunity as she quickly grabbed the colt by his mane and pile drove him into the starting cloud.

Rainbow Dash chuckled at her success “You’re a whole lot crazier than I thought, Nimbus.” she began dusting fluff of clouds off her light blue coat. She continued to speak “For two very good reasons. First, actually thinking I was interested in you, and second, believing you really had a chance to win against me!” She turned her flank towards the colt. "I'm way out of your league on and off the track!" she said turning her head back to him and sticking out her tongue.

Nimbus picked himself up and brushed off some cloud fluff from his mane as he rudely replied "That we can both agree on, I wouldn’t want to lower my standards that far anyway."

Offend and incredibly insulted on a very high personal level, Rainbow Dash pulled up a bit of fluff out of the cloud beneath her hooves and furiously threw it at Nimbus.

He easily dodged out of the way of the projectile. "HA-HA, you throw like a filly!” Nimbus dug his right hoof into the ground to grab a hoof full of fluff, but Rainbow Dash had already gathered another hoof full of the cloud twice the size than the last and in half the time Nimbus could get his fluff ball even started.

She arched her arm back winding up a ball of pain aimed right for his head. "Game over" she said with a smile as she released the ball from her hoof. The ball rolled from her hoof with the speed of a rocket leaving its launch pad.

The amount of force from the throw was completely anaerectic and was more than enough to knock Nimbus off the edge of the cloud and quickly send him descending down to the earth. Rainbow Dash gasped and darted towards the end of the cloud with velocity of a bullet and yelled "Nimbus!" She spread out her wings hovered over the edge, trying desperately to search for her friend but he was nowhere to be found. He was gone. There was no sight of him to be seen.

Then Rainbow Dash remembered thinking to herself with embarrassment "Wait a minute....Nimbus is a pegasus..."

She couldn’t help but close her eyes and face hoof herself at her own stupidity. Behind Rainbow Dash, she could hear the muffled laughs and the flapping wings of Nimbus.

Nimbus couldn’t hold in his breath any longer and let out a loud burst of laughter, falling on his side. Barely able to breathe, Nimbus sarcastically asked "How does a pegasus even fall off a cloud anyway?"

Behind the both of them, and giving them a slight jump, a small quiet squeak replied "It’s a lot easier and a lot scarier than you would think." Rainbow Dash raised and twisted her head around. Nimbus ceased his laughing and turned over onto his other side to face a small delicate yellow filly "I-I’m sorry I uhh ...I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything, but umm Dash you said you would help me feed the butterflies today after class." she reminded, hiding herself behind her pink mane "I mean, but if you’re busy I’d completely understand." Fluttershy spoke softly, almost a whisper at the last few words.

Rainbow Dash floated and landed gently in between Nimbus and Fluttershy "Oh yeah, completely  forgot I promised that." Rainbow Dash mentioned ,making a pair of crazy rolling eyes and motioning her hoof in small circles by her head at Nimbus, referring to Fluttershy.

Rainbow then faced Fluttershy "Go on ahead, Shy. I’ll be right there, I just got to finish up with Nimbus here." Rainbow Dash then made a silent cutting sound as she brought her hoof across her neck and hung her tongue out the side of her mouth, making a mocking reaction towards Nimbus.

"Okay Rainbow Dash, you know where!" Fluttershy giggled as she flew on downwards to the earth.

Nimbus gave Rainbow Dash a disapproving look when she turned back around to face him. Rainbow Dash had no idea why he seemed so ticked "The matter with you?" she asked Nimbus, with the urge to smack the expression off his face

"I saw that" he admitted in a nasty tone. Rainbow Dash laughed at his aggravation. "So" Nimbus continued as he hovered above the cloud with his hooves crossed "What about our race?"

Rainbow Dash wiped some tears from her eyes but continued to laugh a bit "Tomorrow, rematch, I promise!" Nimbus raised an eye brow at her. "Hey!" Rainbow Dash said now getting to eye level with Nimbus “Consider yourself honored. I never give anypony a rematch, and I mean ANYPONY.”

“Forgive me if I’m sound ungrateful.” Nimbus snorted

Rainbow Dash gave a slight shrug and sighed “We need our rest anyways, from all this hard work we put into this past week, we deserve it." She began to fly off downwards towards Fluttershy "I’d love to send your blank flank crashing into a mountain next time."

Nimbus slowly uncrossed his hooves with a frown steadily forming on his face. Rainbow Dash saw how upset he looked. She thought maybe Nimbus was think that she was going to ditch him tomorrow, kind of like she was right now.

She flew back towards him "Tomorrow for sure I promise." Rainbow Dash gently patted him on the head, like he were a pet dog who just learned how to go outside by himself to “do his business” in the grass.

Nimbus just turned away from her. "It’s not that, Rainbow Dash .....It’s..." He was giving off the impression like someone had just took his toys and stomped all over them in a sand box.

Rainbow Dash lowered her head towards him "What’s wrong?"

Nimbus turned his shoulder back towards her "When you said 'blank flank'..." Nimbus and Rainbow Dash simultaneously looked at Nimbus’s bare flank.

"Whoa I didn’t mean it like that!" Rainbow said, backing up a bit with guilt. She held her hooves up to her chest like she were a hostage being held at gun point.

"I know you didn’t." Nimbus said half lying "It’s just I’m the only one in flight school without a cutie mark now. You and Fluttershy both got yours just a few weeks ago.”

Rainbow Dash placed a strong hoof back onto Nimbus shoulder and tried to be as encouraging as she could "Oh come on, Nimbus, Buck up! That just means you have potential to be something awesome." she smiled back

"No" Nimbus chuckled, feeling a bit prouder about himself. He jabbed a hoof into Rainbow Dashs chest "That’s you, you’re awesome!"

She smiled proudly at the comment, refusing to show any modesty “Oh come on now, you could be something cool, I mean not as cool as me though, but maybe something like….” Rainbow Dash thought to herself with her hoof underneath her chin “Oh, a pony with super powers! Where you fight crime and save damsels in distress from horrible monsters.” She finished her speech with hard jabs to air, pretending she were Nimbus fighting off a horde of dragons with only his hooves.

Nimbus half-heartedly laughed “Fine, I’ll remember that the next time you are in trouble.”

Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to make a smart remark again, but then remembered and blurted out the name "Fluttershy!"

Nimbus had completely forgotten about her as well. "She’s probably waiting for you, go, but hey don’t forget tomorrow!" He snapped at her.

Rainbow Dash again set off towards Fluttershy "I know!" she laughed “But right now, I got to feed these starving butterflies!"

A colorful beautiful rainbow that exactly matched her amazing mane was all that was emitted and left of her as Nimbus sat back down onto the cloud, letting out a sigh of happiness. He considered himself incredibly lucky to have a friend such as Rainbow Dash. Nimbus then put a hoof to his chin as he asked himself "How do you feed butterflies?" Nimbus then dived off the cloud and released his wings moments right before he was a few feet from hitting the ground below. "Rainbow Dash, wait! How do you feed butterflies? I want to see this! Do they even have a mouth?! How do they eat anyways? Rainbow Dash!"

***

The next morning Nimbus took his usual spot in class, sitting next to Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash lowered and sent her hoof towards Nimbus holding a note in it. Nimbus curiously and discreetly took and opened the note slowly, careful not to let the flight coach see him. The note read 'I forgot about the test today.' with a frowny face also drawn in the right corner. Nimbus dropped the note and initiated the action of repeatedly hitting his head across the top of his desk. He and Rainbow Dash had been so focused on the obstacle course they been making for the past week that they both completely forgot to set up a date to study. Nimbus looked nervously at Rainbow Dash. It wasn’t for his own sake that he was worried about. He always could remember everything that was taught in the classroom and figure things out on his own fairly easy. Rainbow Dash on the other hoof had a really good habit of falling asleep during class. Now that Nimbus thought about it, Rainbow Dash actually had a really narcoleptic behavior to fall asleep just about anywhere (even in trees) if she wasn’t doing anything physically active or spending time with friends.

"If I fail this test they might have to start thinking about dropping me out of flight school." she whined quietly, keeping an eye on the flight coach as he paced back and forth to both ends of the classroom teaching today’s lesson that was completely unrelated to today’s test.

Nimbi let out a huge breath of air “And drop one of their best and fastest flyers? No way!" he said in a cheery tone, hoping to motivate Rainbow Dash not to give up on herself, just like she had with him yesterday.

Rainbow Dash lifted her head a little higher and quite quickly without getting a blood rush to her head "ONE of the fastest?” She said flipping her mane "Please! I AM the fastest in this school!" she finished raising her hoof in air like she was about to receive a trophy. Nimbus was happy to see she wasn’t showing any signs of Floccinaucinihilipilification, but not at all surprised by the fact that she was still flashing her confidence on display for the whole class to see. He couldn’t hold back a smile.

The test wasn’t as hard as Rainbow Dash had expected. She passed but barely by an inch. If Nimbus hadn’t been so considerate to allow her to look at his paper, she probably wouldn’t have made such a high score. As they both began to fly on their way to their hoof made obstacle course, Rainbow Dash mentioned to Nimbus there was a spot in the Everfree Forest, which she had been told about by another mare in the class, was a sight to see.

“If you’re just looking for a reason to back out of our rematch…” Nimbus started, but was rudely interrupted and cut off after Rainbow Dash pushed a strong hoof into his mouth.

“I swear to Celestia, if you’re about to call me a coward or a chicken I’m going punch your teeth into your skull!” Rainbow threatened.

With the hoof still in his mouth, Nimbus responded with his voice muffled and distorted behind Rainbow’s hoof “Show…thish spawt…ish purty cue, huh?”

Rainbow Dash smiled brightly and removed her hoof from Nimbus mouth, flinging the saliva off of it. “The word ‘Cool’ can’t even begin to describe the caliber of awesomeness this place has, or so I’m told.”

“So, have you been there before, or not?”

“Not at all, that’s why you’re going with me!” Rainbow Dash mentioned cheerily.

“For the protection in case something happens, or because you can’t help but to admit you actually enjoy my company?” Nimbus asked, smiling widely and talking with a strong sense of optimism enough to make a professional circus performing clown look like a background actor in a play.

Rainbow Dash smacked Nimbus in the back of his head. The emotional pain of Rainbow Dash hitting Nimbus every ten minutes hurt Nimbus more than it did physically. “Don’t flatter yourself!” She said, as she flew away from Nimbus and towards the direction of the Everfree Forest, “Now keep up! My mom thinks you and I are at the ice cream shop.”

“AH-HA, so you HAVE told your parents about me?!” Nimbus pressed his cheeks together forcing himself to make a larger-than-life smile. “You must really like me!” he squeaked with a silly high pitched tone. Nimbus loved taking every opportunity to act silly around Rainbow Dash.

At first, Rainbow Dash would openly laugh at his random colorful humor, but recently Rainbow Dash would avoid laughing to just fulfill Nimbus’s satisfaction. She knew that Nimbus liked it when she laughed at his jokes. The only times she would allow herself to laugh at his jokes was when nopony else would. “Just shut up and follow me.” she said dryly.

Nimbus released his cheeks and talked back in his normal tone “Ok, fine, but if we get chased down by a Chimaera or something I’m blaming you!”

“There are no Chimaeras in the Everfree Forest!” Rainbow teased, hoping and praying to Celestia she was right.

Nimbus flew up next to her and directly followed right beside her as she began to lead the way, “Maybe not, but I was told by Hoops that somepony saw a Zebra in there.”

Rainbow Dash stared at Nimbus with the iris of her eyes almost turning into question marks “The buck is a Zebra?”

Nimbus and Rainbow Dash argued for the next half hour about the existence of Zebras and if one really could be living in the Everfree forest. They both lowered to the ground of the Everfree Forest, once they gotten to the exact location Rainbow Dash had been told about. Nimbus shivered a bit at how dark grey and gloomy everything around them looked. Misshaped trees were scattered everywhere, many of which reminded Nimbus of monsters and old creepy mares who wanted to invite you in for a cup of tea. The horror of it all was almost agitating. Rainbow Dash moved incredibly close to him, brushing her coat up against his. Nimbus could fell the warmth of her coat up against his own, as well as the fast beating heart accelerating greatly.

“Are you as scared as I am right now?” she whispered.

“More than I would like to.” Nimbus replied behind shivering teeth.

Rainbow Dash squealed excitedly “I know isn’t this awesome! We are both scared out of our minds and are going on a wild goose chase to find some place we have no idea about!”

Nimbus looked at Rainbow Dash with terror scarred into his eyes “Who are you?!”

Rainbow Dash chuckled, trying to calm herself and Nimbus down “We are going on an adventure, come on lighten up!” she said flying into the dark trees.

Nimbus’s ears picked up suddenly at the sound of the word “adventure”. If there was anything that could pull Nimbus out of the abyss of clawing fear, it was the thrill of adventure. He bolted after Rainbow Dash, with his his hooves barely touching the ground “Just like Daring Do!”

“…Who?”

“Oh yeah I forgot you can’t read…”

Rainbow Dash stopped running dead in her path and slammed her nose into Nimbus’s own face “Hey, it’s not that I can’t read. I just refuse to!”

Nimbus backed away from her and shrugged innocently “Could have fooled me." A blood chilling merciful cry broke in between their conversation sending cold shivers down their manes to the back of their necks.

“What was that noise?” Rainbow Dash asked nervously behind shattering teeth.

“I don’t know….but can you let go of my neck, please?” Nimbus asked politely, but barely with an obligating plea. Secretly, Nimbus was kind of liked the intimacy of his and Rainbow Dash’s faces touching but the timing and location was all too wrong.

Rainbow Dash looked up and met eye to eye with Nimbus. Nimbus asked once more, slowly this time “Can. You. Let. Go. Of. My. Neck. Please? This fells a bit too….mushy.” Then again, mushy didn’t sound so bad, all present things considered.

Rainbow Dash made a high pitched “Eww!” sound right before releasing Nimbus neck. “I would never want anything like that!”

“Trust me, you’re not all that desiring either.” He then walked past Rainbow Dash and continued towards the location of the cry, hoping Rainbow Dash wouldn’t call him on his bluff. Rainbow Dash’s mouth hung open, shocked at what she just been told.

When she caught back up quietly beside him, Nimbus motioned his hoof up and down, signaling her to get low to the ground and remain as obscure as possible in the tall grass. Rainbow Dash did as she was requested and crouched down in the tall grass. Watching her lower herself behind the tall grass, Nimbus recognized just how hard it would be to hide such a colorful mane such as hers, with all its vibrant colors. He looked back over the bush that hid him from the dark silhouette he couldn’t quite make out.

Judging from his perception, Nimbus figured the silhouette wasn’t anything pony, or anything even close. It looked humanoid, like a Minotaur with a much smaller frame and small short claws instead of hands. The strange figure also seemed to have a slight hump to its back, he wasn’t too sure if that was natural to the creature or just some sort of growth defect. Either way, what this “monstrosity” was it defiantly didn’t seem very friendly. Then again, when was anything ever friendly in the Everfree Forest?

“What is it?” Rainbow Dash whispered unexpectedly, giving Nimbus a small startle and panic attack.

He gradually turned his head, with his mane lobbing in the air, and hushed her stridently. The dark silhouette picked up its head and looked over in their direction with huge green glowing eyes. The two ponies immediately ducked for cover behind the bush, barely allowing the creature a chance to catch a glimpse of them. The creature shook its head slightly and dug its face back downwards to the green earth. Nimbus held Rainbow Dash down with a hoof on her mane, to keep her calm and eased. He could fell her bones shivering underneath his hoof “Don’t be scared, I don’t think it saw us.” Nimbus reassured calmly.

“I’m not scared.” Rainbow Dash pushed Nimbus’s bolstering hoof from her head. “It’s just cold in this forest!” Rainbow Dash lied quietly. Of course Rainbow was not a pony who was normally known to be scared of anything, but this was also not your normal forest either. This was the Everfree Forest! Nopony exactly knew what was in there or what would happen once you went inside. Rainbow looked back up at Nimbus “Is it safe to look back up yet?”

“Let me check first.” Nimbus commanded. He lifted his head above the bush once again, slowly. The creature seemed to be devouring something, something small and domestic. Nimbus leaned in a bit closer. “Well it’s a biped that’s for sure” he informed quietly.

“It's a what now?”

“A biped, that means it walks on two legs, and this one looks like it has claws.”

Rainbow Dash picked her head up excitedly “Claws?! Let me see!” She stared hard at the dark shadowed creature, trying her best to conjecture what it was. Then her eyes widened with dismay, once she saw what exactly the creature was feasting on. She sent herself back behind the bush, shivering and vomiting as quietly as she could try.

Nimbus sent himself back down as well, to check on his filly friend. He figured he probably should have warned her first that the creature was eating something. He rubbed her back and asked her “What’s wrong?” It was a rhetorical question, but Nimbus reckoned that was probably a good idea to ask her anyways.

Tears dripped from Rainbow’s reddened eyes “It’s a goblin!” She put a hoof to her mouth to hold in the projectile wanting to leave from out her stomach. She swallowed the vile spew back down her throat to speak “It’s a goblin, and it was eating another filly.” She couldn’t clinch her stomach any more than she already had. Rainbow Dash let out another hurl of this afternoon’s school lunch.

Nimbus continued to rub her back as he inconspicuously looked over his shoulder towards the silhouette again. It was gone, but he could see the remains of it meal. It was defiantly small enough and properly shaped to be a pony. From what Nimbus could see of its carcass, it looked like it was an earth pony. More than likely not anypony they would have known personally, but still the sight of seeing a little pony no bigger or older than they were was still not a pleasant image to be shared. Nimbus turned his full attention back to Rainbow Dash.

“It’s gone! I say we ditch this place of yours and head back home before-” Nimbus was quickly launched away from Rainbow Dash by a strong forearm. The forearm was attached to a goblin with the same of large green glowing eyes from before.

Rainbow Dash quickly wiped the drool from her lip and strained her best to flutter out of reach from the goblin. She was successful in escaping from the goblins grasp, but her triumph was cut short as she was tackled by yet another goblin. The tackling goblin wrapped its arms tightly around her body, clinching her wings tightly to her back in a gorilla-griped takedown. She cried for help as she went crashing down into the ground harder than she could bear. Nimbus lifted himself back up to catch the sight of Rainbow Dash being pinned by two goblins. In an absolute blur, Nimbus felt himself being hurled towards one of the goblins holding her down, placing his right shoulder into the goblin’s side, and shattering its ribcage. The ribcage shattered like an egg between a mallet and a counter top. The goblin screeched in anguish, releasing its grip on Rainbow Dash as it seized onto its ribs, rolling on the deck and screaming in pain. Rainbow Dash immediately turned over and drifted herself above the ground. When she got a safe distance from the dispute, rainbow Dash looked dreadfully at Nimbus.

“Fly, Fly out of the way. I’ll be right behind you!” Nimbus ordered vociferously, hoping Rainbow Dash would be alacritous to actually do what he instructed.

Rainbow hesitated at the idea of leaving her friend behind before she flew quickly out of sight. Nimbus turned his back around to the other still standing goblin and looked at him with challenging eyes. The goblin charged at Nimbus, its claws were pulled behind its shoulders. Ready and aimed to swipe Nimbus’s head clean off. Again in another blur, Nimbus felt himself easily countering the swipe by lifting himself above the ground and pulverizing the goblin’s head into the rotted grassy terrain. He had no idea where this flash of speed was coming from, but he was definitely enjoying, and the timing this new found speed was giving him could not have been more perfect.

Nimbus attempted to take flight towards Rainbow Dash, but he didn’t consider the other goblin from before to get back into the game. The goblin caught hold of Nimbus’s lower right leg and brought him back down to the fight. Nimbus turned over on his back and brought his lower legs to his chest. When the goblin had gotten close enough, Nimbus placed both strong hooves into the goblin’s face. It cried and swiped blindly at Nimbus, effectively making contact with his lower left leg. The strike from the goblin left a small deep laceration on Nimbus but it wasn’t nothing he couldn’t shake or shrug off. Nimbus pushed himself through the discomfort in his leg and struggled as he took voyage up to Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash looked at Nimbus’s freshly blooded wound worriedly, when he finally reached her. She reached to place a soothing hoof on his leg, but Nimbus pushed her aiding hooves away. “It’s fine. I’ll be fine.” Nimbus reassured her, before she could say anything to object. He clinched tightly at the open wound. “Let’s just get back in Ponyville.” He pleaded.

Rainbow Dash nodded her head in agreement. She took one more look at his leg. A small spark had appeared right above it and flashed brightly the next second. “Nimbus, look!” She pointed her hoof sharply at his flank. Nimbus turned his head over his shoulder and saw the most satisfying gift he could have ever asked for, his cutie mark! A small tear of joy ran from eye as he looked at his flank that displayed an orange cloud circling a silver shield centered with a blood red heart right in the middle of it. If sweet victory could be described with an image, it would be drawn with the smile Nimbus wore on his face at that very moment.

***

"There were two of them and you took them both out all by yourself?" Fluttershy squealed in disbelief, still only barely loud enough for the table behind to hear her. "Oh my goodness you weren’t .....I mean ...." her hooves became shook as she took a quick drink of her milkshake trying to calm herself as much as possible. "They didn’t actually try to hurt you did they, Rainbow Dash"?

Rainbow Dash lifted herself out of her chair revealing the bruises on the left side of her body, from where she had been tackled "No of course not, Fluttershy. Goblins are incredibly nice and cuddly creatures." she said with a bit of poison in her voice.

"Hey clam down, Rainbow Dash. She’s only concerned. Sit your fat flank down and finish your shake." Nimbus said drinking a milk shake of his own, and pushing her shake closer towards her. Rainbow Dash twisted swiftly and dropped back down to her chair, angrily coming eye to eye with Nimbus.

"And you!” Rainbow Dash started, pointing a solid hoof in Nimbus’s face. Nimbus kept his lips clasped around the straw of his beverage but ceased his drinking, silencing the sucking noise emitting from his half empty cup.

Fluttershy noticed the tension Rainbow Dash had towards Nimbus at the moment and proceeded to silently drink from her own milkshake, making a quiet slurping sound out of her own cup. She pretended to act like she wasn’t even there, which for her wasn’t all that hard to accomplish or even put any effort into.

Rainbow Dash continued her tantrum "You could barely keep up with me in a race, but you moved faster than the speed of light when those gremlins attacked me. I didn’t even see you move and all of a sudden you crashed into that monster without any recoil. Explain yourself!”

Nimbus wore a confused look in his eyes at this, lifting an eyebrow up and arching his head back a bit. "First off, those were goblins not gremlins. Second…" Nimbus peered around the café a bit before finishing his sentence “Hearing you give me a little “Thank you” in public would be kind of nice.”

Rainbow Dash grabbed Nimbus by the collar of his light blue coat, lifting him off his chair as she hovered above her seat once again. "You’re avoiding the question. Where did you even learn to do that?” Nimbus would have explained himself to his angry, yelling, and beautiful friend, but he couldn’t find any sort of answer with a logical explanation.

“I don’t know!” Nimbus blurted out “It just sort of…happened!” He knew that he sounded silly, but it was the only response he could think of saying.

“There’s really no need for you two to be so loud...all the time...or in public at least.” Fluttershy whispered too quietly for either one of the two to have heard her. “Or you could ignore me…kind of like you two always do whenever you guys argue or fight.”

Nimbus gave Rainbow Dash a slight chuckle "Why do you even care how fast I moved? You scared I might at your spot at number one?"

Rainbow Dash let go off him to drop him on the floor, but she failed to remember Nimbus could actually hover midair before hitting the ground. "It’s not that!" She said crossing her hooves defensively and refusing to look at him "I just want to make sure you’re not holding back on me."

Nimbus recognized the tone of her voice. She was back to normal (or at least normal for her). Nimbus shrugged and remarked “Trust me, Rainbow Dash, if I had some sort of...” Nimbus held up his hooves and stared into them like he was holding a ball of ancient magic. “Some sort of weird freaky deeky super power that allowed me to gain a burst of speed to move faster than the eye could keep track, making it appear I teleported from point A to point B.” Nimbus lowered his hooves back down and gave Rainbow Dash a friendly smile “You’d be the first one to know.”

Rainbow Dash ignored Nimbus’s sincerity and his smile. She lowered her head and took a glance at Nimbus’s cutie mark, nearly forgetting the small laceration on his leg. It was now covered over with a small piece of yellow cloth tied together to stop the bleeding and risk of infection. She lifted her head towards Fluttershy “Thanks for treating his wound so kindly, Fluttershy.” Rainbow Dash praised gracefully.

“Yeah, I never really got the chance to thank you properly!” Nimbus added, to show his appreciation.

Fluttershy sighed “It’s kind of hard to have not to, when you two were pounding on my door like my house was on fire, and scaring my parents half to death.”

Nimbus stroked the back of his mane embarrassingly “That’s was me! My bad, Butterpie” Nimbus apologized sincerely.

“It’s Fluttter-…” Fluttershy was cut off from the loud and rude slurping from Rainbow Dash’s side of the table.

Rainbow Dash took a final last slurp of her milkshake before she asked Nimbus “Speaking of parents, don’t you think your parents would be pretty concerned to know how you got hurt, once they see that?” She used her hoof to make an imaginary circle around Nimbus’s leg.

Nimbus rubbed his hooves together awkwardly looking down at the top of the table “I’m actually a bit of an orphan” he mentioned.

Rainbow Dash’s ears lowered against the side of head significantly “Oh, I didn’t mean to-” From what Rainbow Dash had been told from other orphans in Cloudsdale, Equestria was not known to have a very orphanotrophic atmosphere. There weren’t too many standing orphanages around and those that did exist weren’t exactly all that supportive. It was actually quite common for orphans to be unofficially adopted into a family. Otherwise, the child was left to fend for themselves. It was harsh and the majority of Equestria wanted to help these poor unfortunate ponies, but it was hard trying find a system that was completely solid. It was a luxury Equestria had to afford to lose. Ponies who wanted to take matters into their own hooves and support these orphans were strongly influenced to do so, but expecting help from the government of Equestria was an unfortunate virtue.

Nimbus could see how guilt-ridden she felt for having putting the topic out on the table. It bothered Nimbus none- what- so-ever but he could see that the felling between him and Rainbow Dash was not mutual. He quickly tried to think of a various ways to cheer her back up. After a few quick seconds of thinking, Nimbus chuckled to himself as he thought of a clever joke “Well the plus side to having no parents is whenever I fail a test nopony has to sign it.”

Rainbow Dash embraced the humorous tendency and chuckled at the comment. Her ears picked right back up as she laughed at his supportive optimism.

She punched him in the shoulder “Every time you fail, I fail!”

Nimbus countered her punch with a punch to her shoulder of his own “Stop cheating off of me then!”

“Stop leaving your answers s wide out in the open!”

The two went back at each other like this for several minutes with every quick comment and witty insult they could think of.

After several more hours of joking and punches to the shoulder, Fluttershy decided it was time to fly home. She fled the building holding both of her shoulders after Rainbow Dash and Nimbus both shared turns punching her just as equally as each other, not holding back any power behind their strikes.

Watching Fluttershy going home, Nimbus suggested it was probably a good idea to head on his way home as well. Rainbow Dash and Nimbus flew together on the way to Rainbow Dash’s house. As they flew side by side, Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but to mention to Nimbus how sorry she felt for not knowing he was an orphan earlier.

“It’s no problem really. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“I’m not beating myself up!” Rainbow Dash snapped, making Nimbus flinch back. Rainbow Dash lowered her head a bit sadly and spoke a bit slower “…I’m just a little upset I didn’t know before.”

Nimbus shrugged “You’ve only known me for a good two or three months so it’s completely understandable.”

Rainbow Dash frowned “I know but look at how close of friends we have become the in that short amount of time we known each other. We have hung out every day since we meet. I feel like I’ve known you longer than any other pony I know.” They arrived at her house shortly and stood outside her door. “Well this is my place”" she smiled lightly “Home sweet home.”

Nimbus and Rainbow Dash both landed right in front of the house’s door. Rainbow Dash turned to Nimbus, scratching her mane uncomfortably “The way you saved me from those goblins today….” Nimbus couldn’t help but smile pompously. Rainbow Dash ignored his arrogance and continued “It was …uhh it was pretty cool.” She finished with a nod, looking at him nervously.

“Is that your way of a ‘thank you’?” Nimbus asked raising his eyebrow.

“Yeah sure I guess it can be.” Rainbow Dash said,shrugging and looking up at the stars like there was something so interesting going on up there that she just cloud not look at Nimbus.

“You really suck at this, you know?” Nimbus said in a sour tone. Nimbus was now kind of wishing she hadn’t said anything at all.

“FINE!” Rainbow Dash growled. She kept her head back towards the door of her house to avoid eye contact “thank you…”

Nimbus smiled a bit “What was that?”

“Thank you…”

“Didn’t quite hear th-”

Annoyed by his childish game, Rainbow Dash grabbed Nimbus by his blue coat and roared “I SAID THANK YOU!” she calmly threw him back on the cloud made doorstep of her house, throwing some cloud fluff to hang in the air as he landed. Rainbow Dash giggled to herself as she said quietly “Punishment from above”

“What?”

Rainbow Dash repeated herself “The way you took out those goblins! You were like ‘punishment from above’!” Rainbow Dash added sound effects as she threw punches to the air in between her and Nimbus. “That should be like a catch phrase for you if you ever decide to become a super hero or a wrestling superstar!”

“Sure I’ll do that right after I get my cape.” Nimbus added entertainingly. Rainbow Dash had really lost it now, Nimbus thought to himself. He continued to watch her as she kept throwing punches and kicks at the air, looking like she was fighting an elusive ninja. He began to believe that Rainbow Dash often shadow boxed on a regular basis when she had the time to herself.

Rainbow Dash put a small hoof to her chin “Good point, you’re too slow to be a super hero.” Nimbus huffed and swung a right hoof at Rainbow Dash but she easily dodged out the way of it. “See?” Rainbow Dash pointed out. Nimbus let out an aggravated grunt.

“The time you become a super hero is the time I wear a dress.” Rainbow Dash laughed.

“You know if you wore a dress you would look quite…” Nimbus paused for a quick dramatic second. Rainbow Dash looked at him oddly. “I’m adding a pause for dramatic effect” Nimbus said with a smile. Rainbow Dash frowned, not at all amused with the colt’s little game. Nimbus continued “…you would look quite dashing!”

Rainbow Dash mimicked a sarcastically excited voice “Oh you’re so original!” She then melodramatically batted her eyelashes at him the same way a damsel would admire her knight in shining armor.

Nimbus ignored her and whistled loudly at the sight of her house, after finally seizing the chance to take a good look at it. He looked back over at Rainbow Dash, telling her good bye and a good night before turning away. Rainbow Dash leaned out a small soft hoof towards him before he could take off, crossing her hoof with his. “You want to meet my parents?” She asked quickly. Nimbus looked at her nervously. “Don’t worry I’m sure they will like you once they hear that you saved me from a pair of goblins”, Rainbow Dash assured. Nimbus smiled confidently as Rainbow Dash led him inside through the front door of her house and the new chapter of his life.

***

“Rainbow Dash, please tell me why we are spending the day in Ponyville?” Nimbus complained, dragging his hooves across the dirt road to Ponyville, skating on the dirt. “And why aren’t we flying? We could get there a lot faster if we flew.” Nimbus stretched and flapped his wings out to show Rainbow Dash he was capable of flying, even with an injured wing. Nimbus had gotten the injured wing from racing Rainbow Dash on the old obstacle course again. He had a good lead throughout the majority of the race but his flight pattern was absolutely reckless. He had grown careless and was too busy glorying himself in an inverted flying position to have noticed the flag pole in his path. Nimbus was lucky that the accident didn’t ground him completely, but he was however completely incapable of even TRYING to fly top speed for the next few weeks.

Rainbow Dash ignored Nimbus’s complaints entirely and instead focused on the town before them “Would you have rather stayed in class?” Rainbow Dash and Nimbus commonly skipped flight class at least once a week or whenever the day was just too “dull” for them. Rainbow Dash brushed the little blue colts’ wing away from her. “We should be meeting up with Gilda within ten minutes after we arrive to the middle of town.”

Nimbus stuck his tongue out and gagged in disgust as he hung his head at the mention of the Griffin’s name.

“You don’t like Gilda?” Rainbow asked curiously, already knowing the answer.

“It’s not that I don’t like her.” Nimbus confessed “It’s the fact that she always thinks I’m trying to steal you away from her.”

“Oh come on now! She doesn’t think that at all! Gilda actually thinks you’re one pretty cool colt and she doesn’t say that about everypony either!” Rainbow Dash informed.

Nimbus grunted in defeat, too well knowing there was no chance in convincing Rainbow Dash that Gilda actually disliked his very presence or existence. “I was her best friend until you came around, feather ball!” Nimbus said, impersonating Gilda’s voice poorly.

“Just TRY to be nice, okay?”

“I’ll TRY.” Nimbus lied “Right after I hit her over the head with an apple cart.” Nimbus admitted to himself silently.

Nimbus and Rainbow Dash arrived into Ponyville successfully without any trouble of being stopped by any authorities wondering why they were not in school. Nimbus spun on his stool bored to death as he and Rainbow Dash waited for Gilda’s arrival. Rainbow Dash was also beginning to grow impatient with Gilda, as she proceeded to pick at the dirt in her hooves.

“AHHH!” Rainbow Dash growled impatiently and slamming her hoof on the table, catching Nimbus off guard and causing him to jump up from his seat into the air. “She said she was going to be here 11 and it’s almost 11:20!” Rainbow Dash turned her head towards the watch tower that sat at the edge of Ponyville.

“Well, we could just ditch the bird and do our own thing.” Nimbus suggested as politely as he possibly could. He thought that after four years of knowing Rainbow Dash, Gilda would like him or even pretend.

Rainbow Dash shrugged slightly, knowing if they were to expect to have any fun today Gilda would just have to miss out. “Fine, what should we though? We’ve spent half the morning waiting on Gilda.”

Nimbus scratched his chin roughly as he searched his mind for suggestions, but his concentration was taken away after the rumble of his belly. He patted his stomach gently “I could go for some hay fries and right now.”

Rainbow Dash sighed “We have a whole day to ourselves and you want to share some hay fries?”

“Who said I was going to share? Besides we always have the day to ourselves after school and every weekend.”

Rainbow Dash grunted at Nimbus “You know how much I love hay fires.” Rainbow Dash crossed her arms and turned away from her colt friend.

“You’re out of bits again, aren’t you?”

“Of course not, I just know how easy it is for me to get you to pay for things for me.” Rainbow Dash confessed with a smile towards Nimbus and patting him on the head as she breezed past him.

They arrived at the café within minutes of flying, getting around Ponyville as Pegasus pony was quite fast and efficient. You didn’t really have to deal with all the traffic nonsense like most of the other ponies did back down on the ground, not to mention all the vendors. Of course there were Pegasus vendors who roamed around the skies of Ponyville, but running into one didn’t happen very commonly. Nimbus just about jumped right into his seat until he decided to disregard and pull out Rainbow Dash’s seat for her. She couldn’t help but to raise an eyebrow at the uncommon gesture. Nimbus did often do nice things for Rainbow Dash but he had always did things like pay for a meal, take her places she wanted to go, save her life etc. the usual sort of thing. Today though, pulling her chair out for her before she sat down was sending her mixed messages. Was Nimbus doing this out of generosity? Was he doing it just to be nice and he was having a good day today? Was he doing it as a sign of affection? Or had he placed a small tack on the chair that she just hadn’t noticed yet?

After seeing she had been standing there looking at the chair for the past minute, Nimbus finally decided to speak “You going to take your seat?”

“What are you up to?”

“Nothing!” Nimbus admitted innocently, a bit heartbroken that Rainbow assumed his intentions were up to no good. Rainbow Dash carefully took her seat softly and slowly. She was even more surprised than before when Nimbus pushed her chair in closer to the table for her. Nimbus took his seat across the table from her, trying to figure out why she was acting so weird. Was she planning something? Is she just trying to make this an awkward diner? Is she really confused as to why he decided to pull her chair out? Or was she was just playing naïve with him? Whatever it was, Nimbus didn’t like it one bit. Speaking of bits, the restaurant of Nimbus’s choice did have quite of a “fancy smancy” atmosphere to it. There were at least two water fountains in the middle of the dining area, a very talented and well-dressed band on stage, and the price of the menu was quite expensive. Hell, the side soup was ten freaking bits, once Nimbus took a closer look at the prices. Did the soup come to life and play music? What made it so special to be tagged with that kind of price? “That better be one hell of a soup.” Nimbus thought to himself outloudly.

“So why here?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking at the display of two forks, three spoons and two different types of knives that were laid out in front of her.

“I didn’t feel like flying any farther, plus I’ve never been here before.”

“So you’re not planning anything “mushy” are you?”

Nimbus slammed his hooves on top of the table, rattling all the silver ware and shaking the ice inside the two empty crystal glasses. “What do you think I’m up too?”

“As soon as we got here you’ve been acting all weird! First you pulled my chair out for me.” Rainbow Dash reminded.

“I was just being nice!” Nimbus claimed, throwing his hooves in the air offensively “Is that so wrong?” Nimbus then played the image of him pulling out Rainbow Dash’s chair for her through her eyes, in his mind. Seeing it from another perspective, Nimbus could understand why Rainbow Dash would be getting mixed messages. He calmly took his seat back down and let a small breath of air to relax his thoughts. Keeping low eye contact, Nimbus explained himself “Look sorry if I sent the wrong message. I just kind of felt like doing something nice for a change….you know with all the crazy adventures and trouble we have been getting ourselves into lately?”

Rainbow Dash nodded understandingly. Agreed, Nimbus and Dash did share a great tale of many adventures, ones that were more times than always almost got them killed or worse. Just recently, Rainbow Dash and Nimbus took a trip to the badlands to “check it out”. Their curiosity was cut quickly though when they were chased back to Ponyville by a rather nasty teenage dragon. Even worse, they had to explain all to Ponyville why they attracted a dragon from the badlands in the first place.

Not too long before that, Rainbow Dash had flown into the Everfree forest by herself, to prove to a group of colts she had no fear. It wasn’t too long before she entered into the forest that she encountered a pack of Timber Wolves. If Nimbus hadn’t followed closely behind her, curious as to where she was going but remaining discreet, she probably wouldn’t have been able to escape unharmed.

With his eye contact still low, Nimbus gently kicked Rainbow Dash underneath the table “So…I…you’re not mad at me, are you?” Rainbow Dash had gotten so lost in her train of thought, she had become completely oblivious to the fact she was still having lunch with Nimbus.

“Yeah, of course!” Rainbow Dash kicked Nimbus back a bit harder than he had. “I mean ‘yeah of course’ as in like ‘yeah we’re cool’! Don’t worry about it, I was just being stupid.”

“You say that as if you’re not already.” Nimbus smiled with his ears picked up high. Rainbow Dash considered smacking Nimbus with one of the empty silver pewter plates in front of her, but she didn’t know exactly which one she needed for eating and which one was just there for decoration.

After placing her order from the ridiculously expensive menu, Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but wonder how Nimbus was able to pay for it, if he could.

“Nimbus…”

“Sup, Rainbow Dash?”

“How are you going to…?” Rainbow Dash looked over both her shoulders before asking her question “You know, pay?”

Nimbus crossed his fore legs “I got the bits and plenty more, don’t worry, I got it!”

“Where the hay in Equestria did you make so much money, are you selling Nightmare Moon Shine or something?” Rainbow Dash’s question echoed all across the restaurant, turning all eyes to their table. She blushed embarrassingly with her ears turning red. She tried to hide herself behind her chair from all the attention.

Nimbus slapped his hoof on his face “No, I got a small job as a courier”

Rainbow’s ears perked back up “Where did you get time to do that?” Rainbow Dash rubbed her hooves together excitedly “and just out of complete curiosity, how much money?”

Nimbus growled silently and strongly stated “I got enough.” Just on beat after Nimbus finished talking, their dinner was loudly interrupted by a screaming unicorn.

Rainbow Dash turned her head towards the entrance doors as the unicorn busted through the restaurant loudly “SOMEPONY HELP! MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE AND MY TWO FOALS ARE STILL IN THERE!”

Rainbow Dash eyes widened worriedly “Oh no! I wonder if there is some way we can….” She turned her view back across the table to find Nimbus missing gone from sight.

Nimbus had torn open the window and speed up to the open air of the Ponyville sky to spot the burning building. Scanning Ponyville for a burning building only took a few seconds as he followed the trail of smoke. Nimbus pen dropped out of the sky like a dive bomb towards the house, as he performed the signature opening of his wings back up only a few feet above the ground that he was known locally for. He looked at every window or door for a safe opening into the building, but this was just wasting time as the heat of fire increased drastically with every passing second. It was either rocket through the glass or to watch the house crumble. Nimbus took a deep breath to prepare his body for the physical punishment ahead of him. He closed his eyes and slammed in the glass, shattering tiny pieces of glass into his previous wing injury. Crimson blood was now flowing from his left wing like a busted bush of cherries. There was no way he was going to be able to properly fly now, but the lives of foals hung in the balance. Sacrificing a week of flying to save two lives was quite a bargain to Nimbus’s logic.

Nimbus could hear a cry of fear over the snap and pop of the burning wood. Luckily for Nimbus the cry wasn’t very far and had fairly safe path towards it, despite the blazing fire overhead. He trotted quickly to the foals play room and saw them completely unharmed but dangerously surrounded by the fire. Nimbus pushed his wings past their tolerating punishment meter to overcome the pain of flapping his wings fast enough to make a small gap in the ring of fire. His successful efforts lead him to immediately lift both foals onto his back. The two foals were aware enough to hold on tightly to his mane.

Nimbus tried to escape the same way he came in but he was in too badly injured to make it out properly. Besides, the hole he made wasn’t large enough to safely escort the foals away from the fire. Large heavy sounds of cracked wood popped over Nimbus’s head. Nimbus looked up in time just see a large beam of fiery death coming for the foals on his back. Nimbus roared as he saw the colors of his environment disappear around him for a spilt second. When the light finally caught up with Nimbus, he looked behind him to see the previously falling beam crash and split behind him. Again, he unexplainably teleported from short distance without intending to do so.

He lowered his head and admitted to himself in a huff of breath “I really need to find out how I do that…” Nimbus looked over his environment hurriedly but calmly, as he tried to find the safest route out. His search seemed effortlessly until he heard the sound of hooves hit the deck behind him. Nimbus turned to meet face to face with the one and only Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash looked at Nimbus with determination “What can I do to help?” she offered.

Nimbus looked back over at the window and scaled it back and forth with Rainbow Dash’s size. If she was careful enough, Rainbow Dash just might be able to leave here with the foals without a scratch. Nimbus nudged the foals onto Rainbow’s back carefully. “Take these two out the same way you came, I’ll be right behind you!” Nimbus hid his injured wing away from Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash nodded confidently and faced back towards the window and darted outside to the open without any challenge of difficulty. Nimbus took a few steps back to launch himself back out. As he came within just a few feet from the exit, a large piece of ceiling collapsed in front of him, blocking his escape route. Nimbus scurried away from the sizzling blaze. He could hear the fire cracking and snapping over him. From what he could guess he only had a few minutes before the roof was on top of him. Beads of sweat raced down his neck, his vision was going blurry from the smoke and tears in his eyes, dehydration was becoming his new enemy as the air began to decrease drastically, and the heat of the fire only assured the fact he was going to die in here if he didn’t escape soon.

Nimbus arched his wings back, crouch his body to the ground, and lowered his head down as he charged the burning piece of wood in his way. Like all previous times before, Nimbus could feel the world around him get slower as he watched the colors and light begin to disappear. He broke through the heap of burning wood and made through the previously made hole in the window, adding several chips of wood and glass splinters into his body, but at least now he was out of the hell hole. If anypony would have seen the whole act, all they would have witnessed was a pony vanish from behind the pile of fire to the other side of the window in less than a blink of the eye. The building finally surrendered to the fire and collapsed just after Nimbus’s daring escape. Nimbus fell onto the soft green grass, blinded by the shinning bright beauty of the sun. He tried to fight the urge to sleep. He wanted to make sure and guarantee Rainbow Dash and the foals were safe, but his mind and body were telling him that it was time to rest. Nimbus felt there was no reason to fight the temptation, he was indeed very tired, and he did watch Rainbow Dash leave the building safely with the foals on her back after all. Nimbus allowed his eyelids to close slowly like the heavy red curtains at the finishing act of a play. He gave himself an imaginary pat on the back. He needed somepony to tell him “Good Job”. Who’d be better than himself?

POWER UP!

[Zero Shifting]: Yeah, you might suck at racing on the track, but can anypony else move 5 yards in less time than the speed of light? Nope! Only you, Nimbus boy! Make it look like you’re using a teleportation spell. Confuse your unicorn friends at this special talent. Scientist will be scratching their heads at how you can move so fast in just a short distance, without your skin ripping off of your body. They won’t even be able to explain how you can crash into somepony else’s body and break their bones without busting your own! Worried about the ruining the carpet you stop on? Don’t be! So go wild, Zero Shift across your living room. Knock on your neighbors door, Zero Shift across their living room, fucking I don’t care!

You're acting like this is the first time something like this has happened.

You're acting like this is the first time something like this has happened.

“Doc, if you try stabbing me with that needle one more time, you’re going to find it lodged in your throat!” Nimbus’s threat echoed all throughout the hall way for everypony to hear. He had finally woken up after being out cold for the past few hours.  Luckily, he had now severe or any serious injuries. A few minor scrapes and a crippled wing was a regular summer weekend afternoon for Nimbus.

“I think he’s in that room.” Fluttershy said gently as she walked alongside with Rainbow Dash and Gilda. It had only been about two hours since they helped the doctors escort Nimbus to the hospital. Fluttershy and Gilda arrived to scene very shortly after seeing the thick black smoke hovering over Ponyville. It would have been more of a challenge to have missed it.  “Do you think these are sending the wrong message?” Fluttershy asked as she held the beautiful bouquet of dandelions to Rainbow Dash’s face.

“I don’t know, Fluttershy! Why would I know what he likes?” Rainbow Dash bitterly pushed the dandelions away from her nose. A few of the leaves flew off the delicate dandelions from the harsh treatment.

Fluttershy held the flowers closer to her chest, safely away from Rainbow Dash and quietly asked “…because, no offence, but…uhh you’re with him…like almost every day?”

“That’s a bit of an understatement.” Gilda added comically, her claws clicking across the tile floor of the hallway.

“Hardly!” Rainbow Dash flipped her mane out of her eye view “There was a time when we went three weeks without seeing each other.”

“Wasn’t that the time you cried at school when you finally saw him in class after spring break?” Fluttershy asked, laughing quietly. Gilda snickered behind her beak with her claw providing cover for some added discretion.

Rainbow Dash snarled under her breath “Do you both like breathing?” Rainbow Dash raised a single shaking hoof in both their faces. Fluttershy and Gilda froze in fear in the middle of the hall as their eyes widened with terror and their laughing immediately ceased. “That’s what I thought.” Rainbow Dash continued to walk forward, turning directly into Nimbus’s room. She was greeted warmly by Nimbus as he cheered happily at her presence.

The doctor evicted himself from the room after trying to tell Rainbow Dash no guest were allowed at the time. After her ignoring him for the third time, he just figured he had a better chance of trying to Celestia HE was the ruler of Equestria.

“She’s a really hostile pony when you tell her the truth, isn’t she?” Gilda question sounded a whole lot more like a statement with the tone she used to whisper into Fluttershy’s ear, as they both stayed glued to the floor of the hallway.

“So hey I got these for you.” Rainbow Dash shrugged as she handed over a bouquet of dandelions to Nimbus, who was obviously doped out on whatever medication he had been given and prescribed. “I thought you might like them, since well…So yeah, here you go.” Nimbus squeaked happily and hugged the bouquet lightly to his chest.

“She took my dandelions!” Fluttershy gasped as she looked down in her empty hooves.

Nimbus set the dandelions on the counter to his left after taking a small bite out of one of them. “So be honest, Rainbow Dash.”

“Aren’t I always?” Rainbow Dash crossed her hooves defensively and raised an eyebrow as she took a seat in the chair adjacent to Nimbus’s head side of the bed. The chair was a bit more comfortable than Rainbow Dash had expected for a visitor’s chair to be. Hell, she was even debating whether or not she should revenue it before she left.

Nimbus ignored her commonly dry attitude and continued with his question “Is my wing injury kinda cool looking or do you think it makes other ponies sick and want to gag at the very sight of it?”

Rainbow Dash tilted her head away from Nimbus’s left wounded wing as if it were a snake about to strike.   “Every time I look at it, I feel like I can smell it.”

Nimbus frowned sadly “Well at least it makes a cool story for what it is worth.”

“No, Nimbus.” Rainbow Dash scooted her chair a bit farther away from Nimbus. “Seriously, I feel like I’m about to barf up my lunch, and I haven’t even eaten yet.”

Nimbus could see Rainbow Dash was trying to hide the troubled look on her face with a mask of fury and bantering. He looked for an alternative topic to transition to from his wing. “How are those foals? Did they make it back to their mother safely?”

“I don’t know, I hoofed them over to the authorities. I had a much bigger problem on my mind.” Rainbow Dash ended her last few words with a bit of venom as she stared at Nimbus angrily. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt back inside the house?”

Nimbus bit his lip “Look, Rainbow Dash” Nimbus moved his eyes self-ashamedly to the tiled floor of his room “I didn’t want you to worry…”

“Oh!” Rainbow Dash lifted herself out of the chair before Nimbus could get another word in and landed on the middle of his bed, planting her front hooves digging right into his chest. “You didn’t want me to worry as you were trapped inside a fiery hellhole?!”

“I got out in one piece, didn’t I?” Nimbus’s eyes meet and followed Rainbow Dash’s gaze as they both looked in chorus at his bloody bandaged wing. “Well… I mean almost did.” Nimbus knew there was no way he was going to avoid getting his flank chewed by Rainbow Dash, or at the very least kicked. He was lucky if she wasn’t already thinking about taking the dandelions and sticking them up somewhere in a place where flowers aren’t supposed to go up in his body. “You’re making a bigger deal out of this more than you should be.”

“I could have dropped the kids and gone back inside for you!” Rainbow Dash roared digging her hoof deeper into Nimbus’s chest, removing some of the hairs off his sky blue coat.

“That’s really starting to hurt a little.” Nimbus winced as he tried to gently push Rainbow Dash’s hoof off of him, but Rainbow Dash was putting too much power behind her hoof and Nimbus didn’t exactly have the dynamism or incentive to move it.

  “I could have easily gotten you out of there! I barely knew you were still in there until I saw your stupid golden light thing right behind you just right before the building collapsed!” Rainbow Dash grabbed Nimbus by the collar of his coat for the four hundredth time this month. “AND I saw you do that stupid vanishing move when you got out.”

“Oh.” Nimbus knew if he wasn’t in deep shit now he was going to be in the bottom of a pile of shit in the next few minutes.  “Y-you saw that?”

“Duh, I saw it. I was looking for you, you dumb…grrr!” Rainbow Dash spat the words she couldn’t say all over Nimbus’s face with her saliva.

“Well, you didn’t have to look all that hard. I was only a few feet away.” Nimbus admitted a bit timidly after seeing Rainbow Dash shaking and trembling with anger.

“Is everything in life just a game to you?!” Rainbow Dash asked with an ear ripping shout.

Ignoring the back and forth ringing in his ear, Nimbus continued to talk coolly “I’d like to think so.”

“Nimbus, I swear your crazy actions, your desire to jump at everything that has a skull and cross bones on it, your stupid look at life, it’s all going to be the death of me. Sometimes you just make me want to scream.”

“You’re screaming now and you’re not dead. So, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Nimbus! I swear to Celestia!” Rainbow Dash gripped and curl her hooves deeper into Nimbus’s collar. She pressed her face into the sky blue pegasus’s face with the exhibition of anger, but crystal sparkling tears suddenly came streaming down her face. “I thought I lost you today.” Rainbow Dash began to speak slowly and quieter, inadvertently mimicking Fluttershy’s well-known persona. “When I didn’t see you get back up right away, my heart sank a bit….I didn’t realize how much of a friend you were to me until I thought you were gone forever.” Rainbow Dash brushed her head onto Nimbus’s neck. “I begged and prayed to Celestia that you would be ok.”

Nimbus stroked Rainbow Dash’s mane softly with his good hoof. He had landed hard on his right hoof nearly twisting it in the completely wrong direction when he fled out of the window earlier. For Nimbus’s sake, thankfully he was a south paw (or hoof) and had just as much, if not more, strength in his left hoof.

He pulled Rainbow Dash closer into his shoulder fighting back some of his own tears. If there was one thing Nimbus despised, it was showing weakness, especially in front of Rainbow Dash. Nimbus would rather risk injury or the chance of death than to rather let anypony see one ounce of weakness or fear in his body. He didn’t want to cry in front of Rainbow Dash, it would have made a huge impact on his pride. “I guess she heard you then.” Nimbus finally replied, after staying silent for several long seconds and holding Rainbow Dash in his one legged hug.

Rainbow Dash lifted her head off of his shoulder with small smile “I know I have never said it before, Nimbus, but I just wanted you to know that…”

Nimbus waited patiently for Rainbow Dash to finish her sentence, but the suspense was butchering him from the inside with a fiery chainsaw “Wanted me to know what, Rainbow Dash?”

“That I-I thin-”

“This is quite a touchy scene.” Gilda interrupted as she had laid silent, leaning against the door frame of the patient room.

“Shhh, quiet!” Fluttershy softly bucked Gilda in her thigh. Gilda turned her concentration onto Fluttershy, narrowing her eyes down at the yellow fragile pony, her chest lifted high, and her feathers ruffled wildly. “…please?” Fluttershy asked kindly with a weak frightened and regretful smile.  “But I think Rainbow Dash was about to say something really sweet.”

Gilda nodded in agreement and turned back to the two ponies that had only become aware of their presence as of a few seconds ago “Oh yes, do continue” she winked at Rainbow Dash “Pretend we’re not even here.”

Rainbow Dash began to stutter when she tried to speak, but she cleared her throat before speaking a lot more firmly “Yeah, I think I uhh” She looked around the room for a diversion. She caught attention of the half-opened door leading to the connected bath and wash room of Nimbus’s room. “I-I have to go to the bathroom” she lied. There was no way Rainbow Dash was going to finish her original statement in front of her other friends. She had almost completely forgotten that they had come with her.

Nimbus frowned sadly and grunted lowly. “Well again, thanks for the flowers, Rainbow Dash.” Nimbus figured it was probably in his best interest to get off topic to avoid any unwanted attention to himself and/or Rainbow Dash.  He still wanted to know what exactly she wanted to tell him. Locked up feelings is what Nimbus was betting his money on, but he didn’t want to give himself a false sense of hope and put all of his eggs into that one basket.

“Yeah, No problem!” Rainbow Dash hoof punched Nimbus in the shoulder “We are going to have to get going but I’ll see you later, ok?”

“Of course!” Nimbus smiled, he twitched uncomfortably underneath the itchy blankets. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere. You’re more than welcome to came back anytime you like.” Nimbus invited warmly.

Rainbow Dash began to lead her way and pushed roughly past Fluttershy and Gilda out the door “I thought you had to go to the bathroom?” Gilda asked with a smile, trying her best to resist Rainbow Dash’s shoving hooves.

“I changed my mind, false alarm.” Rainbow Dash successfully removed herself from the room and instructed Fluttershy and Gilda to keeping moving ahead of her. She was about to close the door shut, but not before turning her head around and giving Nimbus a whole-hearted smile. Nimbus returned her smile with an even wider but gorier and bloody smile of his own. She chuckled slightly at his blood coated teeth filled smirk before closing the door behind her.

Nimbus wiped his hoof across his mouth and looked at the red smear coated on his fore leg. “Great.” Nimbus rolled his eyes at his own stupidity and stood up straighter in his bed. He sat there silently looking at the closed door his best friend had just walked out of and listened to the heavy ticking of the clock above it. He continued to sit there, thinking to himself, contemplating about what kind of potential there could be between him and Rainbow Dash. After enjoying himself in his own imagination for a few hours, Nimbus slumped down in his bed and groaned loudly enough to get the nurses attention from the help desk at the other end of his hallway “I’m soooo booooorrrreedd!”

Later that evening, Rainbow Dash returned and sat in chair beside Nimbus again, she stayed up with him playing her favorite board game. It took and cost Nimbus twenty seven matches and 17 bits to finally find a reason to stop playing and call it a night. He wasn’t a sore loser or anything by any means. He just thought there was no reason why anypony would believe a guppy could be a shark at her own game. Nimbus might not have had any plans for the next week or so, but Rainbow Dash still needed to go to flight school in the morning and the night had already overcome the beautiful glow of the sun.

“Well I told my folks where I am going to be for the night.”

“You can’t stay here!” Nimbus stated rather loudly, almost forgetting he had another patient in the same room as he was. He looked over his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t unintentionally waked him up.

“Why the hay not?” Rainbow Dash glared at him and placed her hooves on her hips like a little filly being told to go to bed.

“Umm where are you going to sleep, on the chair? It’s not exactly comfortable I can imagine.”

“Well then…” Rainbow Dash moved her hooves on her hips and hovered above the ground only a few inches “That only leaves only one solution!” Rainbow Dash bopped Nimbus on the nose with a wicked smile and a sinister laugh.

Nimbus looked at her curiously for several seconds. His eyes widened once he realized the only logical option left for her to get well rested for tomorrow morning. “You are not getting in this bed!” Nimbus stretched his body out to cover as much of the bed he could accomplish. “I’d rather break my other wing than to share a bed with you!”

“Oh come on, Nimby! It will be like our little sleepover.” Rainbow Dash teased as she poked him on his left wing, knowing well enough she would irritate his wing.

Nimbus continued to lie down with his entire body stretched out across the bed as he rose his only movable hoof in the air “Ok first off, never call me that again!”

“Aww but Nimby is such a cute name!” Rainbow Dash continued to tease him, waiting for him to explode with anger.

“I’m not cute!” Nimbus shouted. Rainbow Dashed had succeeded in pissing off Nimbus and was completely satisfied.

Rainbow Dash giggled “Ok fine then, Nimby.” Nimbus’s cheeks turned red with frustration and a touch of embarrassment. Rainbow Dash knew he hated it when she called him pet names. “What’s your next instruction of command, sir?” Rainbow Dash smiled with amusement as her colt friend struggled with constricted anger towards her.

“Second, I am not going to share a bed as soft as this one, with you!”

Rainbow Dash gasped with excitement “OHMYGOSH OHMYGOSH OHMYGOSH! Just how soft is it?” Rainbow Dash dove into an empty spot in the fluffy bed, nearly sending Nimbus flying off the safety side bars. “OHMYGOSH! It’s almost as soft as a cloud, not as comfortable I’ll admit, but darn it, it’s close!” She snuggled up to Nimbus and began to quickly drift off to sleep.

“You better not snore!” Nimbus demanded.

“Who, me?” Rainbow Dash lifted her head up. “I’ll be as quite as a mouse. You won’t even remember I’m here!” Rainbow Dash was having a great time infuriating the colt more than she had intended. She was already thinking of other fun ways to prank, anger, and annoy Nimbus in the morning. “Good night, Nimbus!”

Nimbus pushed Rainbow Dash forelegs length away and placed a pillow in between her and him, separating her from physically making contact with him. “Drop dead, Rainbow Dash.” Nimbus forced his eyes shut and faced away from the pillow.

Right before shutting her eyes into a peaceful sleep, Rainbow Dash admitted “You know, I could easily just reach over this pillow and poke you all night if I wanted” She chuckled silently as Nimbus turned over, angrily facing away from her and grumbling curses under his breath.

Nimbus was unaware of Rainbow Dash’s loud obnoxious snoring and couldn’t get a good night’s rest. He looked over towards her to confirm the beastly noise he was hearing was actually coming from her. If he didn’t know any better, Nimbus could have easily mistaken her snoring for a towering Ursa Major.

“There’s no way a sound of such volume can come from such a tiny filly…” Nimbus whispered to himself with the straightest face he could manage. Nimbus finally passed out later in the night from complete exhaustion.

***

Nimbus was finally out the hospital after what felt like an eternity! If it wasn’t for the hospitals fortunate supply of the “Daring Do” book series, he might have gone insane with boredom. Without cutting time any closer, Fluttershy appeared from the clouds slowly diving to Nimbus.

“You have really got to learn how to fly more properly” Nimbus friendly laughed.

Fluttershy just looked down at the dirt sadly “Oh, I know! All those other colts still tease me for it!”

Nimbus snapped immediately “Come on, Fluttershy, you can’t let ponies like Dumb-Bell and his crew get in your head!”

Fluttershy picked up her eyes view a bit from below “How do YOU do it then?” Nimbus took a few steps back. He wasn’t expecting Fluttershy to ask a pony like himself for advice. “I know you’re aware they say things about you…and Rainbow Dash. Terrible things, so terrible I feel bad for even have listened to them.” Fluttershy admitted with an embarrassing blush.

It was no secret that Rainbow Dash and Nimbus had been hanging out a lot more often and spending most of their days together. No doubt there were probably rumors about them floating around. Some that Nimbus would have wished were actually true. Nimbus had even considered on giving Rainbow Dash her space for quite a while, so maybe the rumors would stop but Rainbow Dash insisted they ignore everypony’s opinions and continue to be themselves.

Nimbus sighed before answering Fluttershy’s question “I use my pent up anger as fuel.” He noticed there was a somewhat confused expression on Fluttershy, so he elaborated a bit more as best he could “What I mean is: I use my anger/rage as my determination.”

“I knew what you meant.” Fluttershy fully picked her head up after she finished speaking “I just don’t think I completely believe you…” Nimbus opened his wings offensively and huffed at Fluttershy “I…I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to call you a lair or anything!” Fluttershy cowered a bit beneath her mane.

Nimbus knew she meant no harm in any intended way, so he apologized sincerely to her for his outburst. “Then what do you mean you don’t believe me?” Nimbus put a bit more emphasis on the term “Believe."

Fluttershy moved her face a little ways away from her mane “What I meant was that I don’t think you used anger to help those little ponies out of that burning building.” Fluttershy continued to talk with a bit more firmness in her voice but she was still barely audible past a few feet. “Nopony jumps into a dangerous situation like that out of anger. No, something else inside you made you want to help them, and I’m assured it was something like happiness!” She finished her last word with a quite an impressive bit of cheer (or at least impressive for Fluttershy). “I’ve seen the way you behave when you and Rainbow Dash are together. You’re not in any way angry. In fact you always look like the happiest pony in Equestria. I think you convince yourself that you’re angry to prove to yourself that you’re strong, but you would be even stronger if you did what Rainbow Dash always tells you: just be yourself.”

Everything Fluttershy said was true and Nimbus knew it, denying any part of it would just be ignorant. Yes it was true. He did persuade himself that he was angry all the time. Maybe she was right. No, she was right! If he would just suck in a bit more of his pride and just use his confidence as motivational fuel, he could probably be a whole lot more than he could possibly imagine. Of course, Nimbus often imagined himself moving so fast that he could out race the colors on his coat to come right off…, but still that thought of being great, powerful beyond measure. Nimbus charged and gave Fluttershy the biggest and tightest hug she had ever received. Not even bears had hugged her this tightly before, or came even close. Nimbus thanked her repeatedly for opening his eyes and being honest. Fluttershy was blissful to help and grateful for his generous hug but asked him to put her down.

Nimbus set her down easily and apologized once more again. Fluttershy tried to breathe back in the air she had lost while her lungs were being clinched “Its ok, Nimbus. You’re...really strong!” Fluttershy struggled to breathe the last words as she continued to catch her breath. His hugs were tighter than most of the bears that hugged her on a daily basis.

Nimbus looked himself over proudly “Yeah I kind have been lifting a lot with my upper body since my back was bad.”

What was he lifting? Other patients? That was the only theoretical explanation Fluttershy could think of. Sure, yeah he was strong before, but Fluttershy felt like somepony had pinned her between two boulders when Nimbus hugged her.

Nimbus flexed the biceps of his forelegs and looked at himself in his reflection off of one of the hospital windows. After checking himself out for a little while, Nimbus noticed how impressively clean ALL of the hospital’s windows were. He was actually surprised he hadn’t noticed them before with all the spare time he had. Great! Nimbus was now paying attention to the cleanliness of glassware. He slammed his forehead lowly on the window and quietly promised himself he would never go back inside a hospital for any longer than a week.

***

When Nimbus and Rainbow Dash arrived to school the next day, they were immediately informed by their class flight coach to report to the head coach’s office first thing. Rainbow Dash questioned why they both had to go, but their flight coach had nothing further to tell them and just repeated himself once more. Nimbus tried to stay optimistic and told Rainbow Dash maybe it wasn’t anything bad, but maybe it was for something good like a reward or something. Rainbow Dash argued though that they were more than likely getting suspended for something that had happened a long time ago. Despite Nimbus’s optimism and opposing opinion, Rainbow Dash was very well undeniably correct. They were in fact suspended for the next three weeks to be exact.

Rainbow Dash shielded her self-ashamed face behind her hooves. “My life is ruined!” She cried as she sat crashing down on top of the cloud she and Nimbus decided to stop at, after leaving the school premises. “My parents are going. TO. KILL. ME!”

“Oh come on, Rainbow Dash! You’re over exaggerating, it can’t be that bad.”  Nimbus took a seat next to Rainbow Dash relaxed his chin into his hooves “Hmmm it took us four months to get suspended. That’s got to be our best personal record, but I think we are losing our touch. We need to up our game.”

Rainbow Dash quickly removed her hooves from her face and snapped at Nimbus “Of course you would assume that! You wouldn’t know what’s like to get in trouble with your parents because you don’t have any!” After seeing Nimbus flatten his ears to the sides of head and his smile quickly tremble to a frown, Rainbow Dash comprehended what she had just said. She gasped and slapped her hooves over her mouth. She apologized over and over again until Nimbus decided to speak.

“It’s ok, you’re right though. I don’t what it’s like to have your parents yell at you for your actions.” Nimbus said quietly and slowly. His mane hung low over his eyes as he forcefully looked away from Rainbow Dash.

“I didn’t mean it to…”  Rainbow Dash started, biting her lip a bit.

“Then how did you mean it!?” Nimbus growled, finally picking up his head and poking his face into Rainbow Dash’s “Please explain it to me, because I’m having a real hard time seeing it from any other way!”

Rainbow Dash knew Nimbus had every reason to be mad at her, and she sure as hell felt guilty about it too. However, she didn’t much favor his tone of voice or attitude towards her, and she wasn’t to just stand there and take that kind of crap from him.  “Look I’m sorry ok, and I didn’t mean to say that! Now will you please take the thorn out of your ass and listen to me?”

Fortunately for Rainbow Dash, Nimbus knew she didn’t mean it and he couldn’t stay mad at her for any longer than a couple of minutes anyways. Nimbus let out an inhalation of air to calm himself. “Ok….Ok, I’m good now. What do you have to say?” If Nimbus hadn’t respected the bond he and Rainbow Dash shared, he would have listened to his brain and decked her right in the muzzle. As much as he probably would have discreetly enjoyed that, Nimbus knew he would feel like shit the next minute. Sometimes he felt like his brain had a mind of its own.

After confirming Nimbus was longer mad at her, Rainbow Dash perked up her ears stiffly with optimism, and smiled “Well, seeing that you kind of already owe me twice now…”

“How do I owe you twice, and for what?” Nimbus interrupted, picking himself up off the cloud.

Rainbow Dash held her hoof up, almost as if she were counting imaginary numbers off “First off, you still owe me dinner.”

“Even though that was months ago, but whatever.” Nimbus grunted, but nodded and shrugged agreeably.

“And second, this isn’t the first time you’ve gotten me in trouble with my parents.” Rainbow Dash finished as she put her hoof back down.

“Gotten you in trouble with your parents? What else have we done as bad as this?”

***

“As far as I know this kid has gotten our daughter to skip class in and out of school a repeated amount of times, lead her into a burning building, almost got her killed by a couple of goblins a few years back.”

“That he saved her from, don’t forget!” Rainbow Dash’s mom corrected, disagreeing with her husband’s hastily judging accusations of Nimbus.

“I know that and I’m very grateful for it, but I’m just saying these kids are barley even close to being teenagers and look at the kind of trouble they get into already! Plus didn’t Nimbus just get out of the hospital for going into a fire that our daughter followed him into? What’s going to happen when they get older? We are going to…”

“We are going to have to trust them!” Rainbow Dash’s mom interrupted once again for the thousandth time. “Yes, they get into trouble, and maybe Nimbus IS the main source of it all.” She knew for a guaranteed fact that Nimbus and Rainbow Dash pretty much planned every little adventure together, so Rainbow Dash was just as guilty as Nimbus was, but the fact the Nimbus actually helped her out with the dishes on more occasions than her husband ever had made Rainbow Dash’s mom a whole lot more thankful to have Nimbus around the house from time to time, and she didn’t want to lose her favorite dish washing assistant.

“Exactly!” Rainbow Dash’s dad agreed quickly. If he had had fingers or any sort of appendages on his hoof, he would have snapped them and pointed one at his wife.

“But!” Rainbow Dash’s mom was not quite finished just yet “They are friends! Best friends at the very least. That colt comes around this house often enough to be considered part of this family, and we have no right as parents to split them apart!” Rainbow Dash’s mom ended her last sentence with a strong note that left her husband speechless for words and only blurt out a short series unintelligent blabber and nonsense.

“Ok, fine!” Rainbow Dash’s dad agreed a little unwillingly “But if that colt comes by today for any reason I’m going to giving him a piece of my mind and put my boot somewhere I’ve been wanting to put it for a very long time!” He shook a hoof in air to demonstrate his anger.

“You see?! I told you this was a bad idea! Your dad is going to kill me!” there was a small whisper from behind the front door of Rainbow Dash’s house. Rainbow Dash’s parents simultaneously turned their heads towards their front door and remained quiet, silently listening to the small whisper.

“Maybe he will, if you don’t lower your voice, idiot!” said a second whisper which they could easily recognize was their very daughter’s voice.

“Hey, don’t think I forgot what you said to me this morning, I’m still mad at you!” Nimbus lied horribly.

“I said I was sorry like twenty times already! I just wasn’t thinking and I forgot!

“How do you forget that I don’t have parents?! I’ve known you for four years now!”

“Well MY parents are about to kill us both if you don’t shut up!”

Rainbow Dash’s mom and dad crept closer to the door, careful not to make a sound. They moved their heads closer and pressed their ears up against the door to listen more thoroughly to what the two unaware ponies were saying.

“Ok maybe they haven’t heard us yet, so maybe we can sneak out of here before….” Rainbow Dash’s dad quickly pulled the door open to reveal himself and his wife behind the door. “Before they know we are here” Nimbus finished sadly, keeping his head turned facing Rainbow Dash but his eyes fixated on her parents. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Rainbow Dash!” Nimbus said awkwardly with a forced smile, behind closed teeth.

“Nimbus! It’s so nice to see you this evening!” Rainbow Dash’s mom greeted warmly.

“Not really…” Nimbus heard Rainbow Dash’s dad mumble just loud enough for him to barely catch it.

Despite her husband’s harsh opinion, Rainbow Dash’s mom always thought approvingly of Nimbus. Anypony that could keep up with her Rainbow Dash and make her happy was more than good enough for her! “Why don’t you two come inside? It’s cold out there!” Rainbow Dash’s mom invited. “And Nimbus, how many times do I have to tell you to just call me Rainbowshine?”

Rainbow Dash’s dad looked at his wife worriedly “Nimbus is coming inside too?” Nimbus trotted inside the home and past the adult stallion as fast as he could, but the stallion stomped a strong hoof between his home and Nimbus.

Nimbus stared at the limb for a bit and gulped a heavy lump of air before looking at the death glare staring right at him. He kind of preferred that he was back in the hospital again. “H-hi?” Nimbus’s voice was incredibly weak and meek.

“Why were you and my daughter suspended from school?” Rainbow’s dad got right to the meat and potatoes, directly asking his question without any meaningless stalling.

Before Nimbus could answer the question, Rainbow Dash called for him from inside the house, “Nimbus are you coming?”

“I’m coming, I just have to get your dad’s permission.” Nimbus answered quickly, hoping she or mom would come outside to save him from his near peril.

Rainbow Dash didn’t quite hear him correctly, “What?” she asked.

Nimbus rolled his eyes and repeated, “I’m coming, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow Dash still couldn’t hear him with all the noise being made by her mom as set and prepared all the plates and silver ware on the dining table. “Are you going to come inside, or do I have to make you come?”

“I’m coming inside, Rainbow Dash!” Nimbus suddenly screamed, almost making his throat start to bleed. His screaming forced Rainbowshine to stop in her tracks and quickly think over the dialog of Nimbus and Rainbow Dash’s conversation. Nimbus pushed past around the limb blocking him from the warm meal awaiting him inside.

Rainbowshine sweetly offered a spot at the dinner table for Nimbus to sit. “And he’s eating with us?!” Rainbow Dash’s dad threw his hooves up in the air. Nimbus took the joy of sitting next to Rainbow Dash at the table and ignored the fact that her dad didn’t even want him within fifteen feet of her or the house.

Rainbowshine kicked her husband in the side and whispered “Storm! Look at how happy they are!”

Storm looked over at the dining table in the next room as discreetly as he could. It was clear, even to a pony who was blind, how happy the two ponies were. From what he could see, they were more than likely reenacting some crazy adventure they had out in Ponyville today. Of course, he didn’t throw away the fact that they were both suspended, but a smile spread across his face none the less. As far as he could see, even at the darkest of times, there was always going to be somepony that could make his daughter laugh and love life, whether or not she wanted to. Nimbus might not have been his first choice (or the one hundred sixth choice) for his daughter, but he knew she was more than fortunate to have him as a friend.

Rainbowshine put a comforting foreleg around Flash’s neck and kissed his cheek. “She’s getting older….” Flash said slowly “It wasn’t too long ago that they were pushing each other on swings.” He moved out from under his wife’s foreleg and on over to his favorite chair and rested his head back up against the headrest. His head sunk into the soft silk pillow that encouraged him to let out a soothing breath of air “And it won’t be too long till we have to worry about what kind of bigger trouble they might get into next!” He turned his head over to his wife “I mean they are both practically two mini daredevils!”

Rainbowshine chuckled “They are just little ponies, dear! How much trouble and crazy adventures could they get into?”

***

[Four years later…]

“Ok, let’s see if you can dodge this, piss for brains!” Rainbow Dash said pointing a bow and arrow about twenty five yards away from Nimbus’s temple.

“Oh trust me I’ll dodge the shit out of that arrow, blubber butt!” replied Nimbus enthusiastically. Nimbus thought Rainbow Dash would have objected to shooting a bow and arrow at him, but apparently this is not what has happened.  Like most of their ideas, this one had been in the planning process for several seconds. Nimbus and Rainbow Dash could never figure out how or why Nimbus could move short distances so fast, but they planned on milk the cow on it as much as they could, now that Nimbus could use it at his own free will, but only a few times in a given amount of time. They came to call it Zero Shifting, and whenever Nimbus Zero Shifted it usually took out quite a bit of his energy, which explained why he always seemed to be almost out of breath after he used it. He also had to be very careful when he used it. Nimbus fainted from exhaustion a good number of times the first time he and Rainbow Dash played with his new found ability.

Nimbus and Rainbow Dash figured it would be wise of them to take their little idea far away from Ponyville and/or anywhere in general where somepony else could get unintentionally hurt. After spending several hours learning how to read a map and taking another two hours learning where to find a map. They both decided it would be a lot safer for the two of them to play with the bow and arrow in the middle of the Rambling Rock Ridge.

There was really nothing at Rambling Rock Ridge except…well rocks! No civilization, not too many signs of wild life and most importantly: no authorities telling them they can’t shoot arrows at each other. Playing with bow and arrows wasn’t technically illegal in Ponyville, especially when they couldn’t hit each other with them, but it wasn’t exactly something that publically accepted. The same things applied whenever Nimbus and Rainbow Dash had one of their races through the market part of town, which mainly consisted of how many carts the other one could dodge without crashing into something.

“EWW! I knew you looked at my butt, you abnormal pony!” Rainbow Dash said amusingly.

“Oh yeah? Well, you’re a…bitch!” Nimbus hissed, hesitating a bit at the name calling.

Rainbow Dash lowered her arrow and gave Nimbus an unsatisfying facial expression “Really? That’s the best you got?”

“We’re on ‘C’. Don’t try to skip your turn like you did last time.” Nimbus hollered.

“You’re a coward!” Rainbow Dash shouted back.

“You’re a dumbass!” Nimbus shot back.

“You’re an egg head.”

“You’re a feather brain!”

“You’re a goat fu-”

There was a pleading cry that tore through the ponies cheering the same way a bullet tore through a layer of paper “Please, stop!...both of you. I’ve had to listen to you scream at each other for the past eight years. Please don’t hurt me! I just can’t take it anymore…” Fluttershy cried as she cowered into a fetal position. She had been peer pressured by both Nimbus and Rainbow Dash to witness Nimbus for proof just in case they needed a third person’s perspective for when they wanted to call the Equestrian World Record judges. “This is too dangerous! Why am I even here?” Fluttershy repeated for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Not even Gilda wanted to be here!”

Nimbus scratched his chin, still looking any signs of facial maturity with a touch of his hoof “Where has Gilda been anyways?”  He asked, not that he actually wanted her there or anything, but he figured it would be polite to just ask anyways.

Rainbow Dash threw the bow on the ground, realizing and accepting the fact that they were not going to be able to pull of their idea any time soon. “She stopped hanging around me whenever I’m with you. You know, ever since you used her feathers as part of your costume for the Nightmare Night Festival this year.”

Nimbus laughed out loudly as he remembered how he had jumped from behind a thick cloud to catch Gilda off guard, and grab as many feathers off of her as he could in one attempt. Needless to say, he actually pulled it off a lot more successfully than he had thought “Oh yeah, that was funny. You have to admit I made a pretty cool Werewolf costume though!”

“She’s still pretty mad at you as will.” Rainbow Dash shouted back at him. She liked and respected Gilda like she would any of her other friends, if not more, but Gilda was starting to develop a bit of a possessive and attachment issue, especially when it was about Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash just couldn’t understand (and didn’t want to understand) why Gilda always wanted her to herself.

“Oh no.” Nimbus lazily put his hoof over his forehead, and said in an overly exaggerated shocking tone “Gilda is mad at me? Oh gosh, oh boy, oh no, what ever shall I do?” Nimbus had to literally self-restraint himself to not snicker at his own performance. His acting was complete garbage, but he knew Rainbow Dash would have never believed him anyways, even if he was a good actor.

Rainbow Dash glowered at Nimbus, “And you wonder why you couldn’t make the drama club…” She wanted to dig deeper into why two of her closest friends didn’t like each other, but the sun was already starting to set and it was going to take them just below an hour to get home from their current location.

“Now, come on, Nimbus.  It’s my family reunion tonight and I really don’t want to hear my mom-” That was all Rainbow Dash was able to get out before Nimbus started freaking out and rushing up towards her like a predator lunging at its prey.

“Your family anniversary is today?!” Nimbus spat enthusiastically, spraying the question all over Rainbow Dash’s face.

She ignored the saliva on her face and corrected him “Yeah, MY ‘Family Reunion’, and yes, it’s today. Why are you frea-”

Nimbus interrupted her once again, grabbing her shoulders and shaking Rainbow Dash wildly, he shouted loudly “Why didn’t you tell me?!” Nimbus had been waiting to meet the rest Rainbow Dash’s family. Thanks to the influence of Rainbow Dash’s father, Rainbow Dash believed a select few members didn’t want to personally see him or have anything to do with him, despite never having met Nimbus before. Rainbow Dash just never really had the heart to tell that kind of thing to Nimbus. “You know how long I’ve been waiting to see the rest of your family.” Nimbus admitted happily.

“I know.” Rainbow Dash confessed, feeling kind of remorseful for what she was about to say next.  She scratched the back part of her mane and looked down and away from Nimbus “I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Nimbus’s smile faded away from his face just as fast as a bullet left the barrel of a gun. “W-what do you mean it’s not a good idea?” He asked heart-brokenly. Nimbus felt somepony had just told that he was about to meet his mother for the first time and came to find out it was all a rude practical joke. He didn’t know whether to feel sad, angry, or both. The two emotions twisted inside Nimbus like a bad combination of water and electricity.

Rainbow Dash knew she had just practically knocked Nimbus down, kicked in his ribs, and thrown dirt in his eyes, but she had to give him her honest perspective of the situation.. No matter how much it hurt for her to see him like this, Rainbow Dash felt better if she hurt him, rather than somepony or everyponyelse in her family did. “Look, Nimbus, I want you there just as much as you want to be there, but-”

“Just piss off and go to YOUR family anniversary or reunion or whatever the hell it’s supposed to be.” Nimbus growled loud and rudely at Rainbow Dash.

“Don’t get all mad at me because nopony in my family likes you, besides my mother and me.” Rainbow Dash barked back at Nimbus with a cold shot of the truth. It was cruel, but Rainbow Dash didn’t like Nimbus lashing out his anger at her about something she couldn’t control.

“You haven’t even given me the chance to meet them, and you’re already assuming they’re not going to like me. How exactly do you expect to react?” Nimbus asked, his voice starting to get raspy.

“Ok, fine! You want to come over and get rejected by my whole family? Be my guest. They’ll run you out of the house faster than I can fly.” Rainbow Dash said, adding salt to the open bleeding wound.  “And, knowing my dad like I do, he’ll find a reason to keep you out of my life for as long as he can.”

Nimbus dragged his hoof over his eyes dryly. “Is that what this is all about?” Nimbus’s voice was still raspy as he continued to talk. “You’re just scared that your dad is going to kick me out, because you’re too afraid to stand up to him and do what makes you happy?”

Rainbow Dash pulled her hoof back fiercely and threw it right into Nimbus’s muzzle. Blood splayed ubiquitously all over Nimbus’s face, covering his whole nose in the crimson liquid. He cuffed both his hooves over his mouth to make sure none of the blood would pour in and suffocate him. Rainbow Dash had hit Nimbus several times before, but never in the face. When Nimbus removed one of his hooves away from his mouth, he realized his comment cut Rainbow Dash a little deeper than he had intended it to, but he didn’t regret saying it. It was something he had been meaning to say for quite some time now.

Despite the fact that his nose was crooked to the left a little, Nimbus bit through the pain and said simply, “That hurt.”  He was kind of hoping to get some small value of sympathy from Rainbow Dash, but she wasn’t budging, or if she was feeling some sort of sympathy she had a great way of hiding it.  Though, he should have known better to piss off somepony who can move twice as fast as him.

  “What you said kind of hurt a bit too…” Rainbow Dash responded back, rubbing the leg she used to punch Nimbus in the face with. She rubbed at her leg like it was a parasite she wanted to get off of her. It wasn’t exactly her fault for punching Nimbus. He had pushed her buttons too far. Her expression stayed the same as Nimbus tried to amuse her.

Fluttershy could have grabbed the tension in the air with her hoof. It was thick like wood and about as painful to look at as blood. Fluttershy barely even had to whisper for Nimbus and Rainbow Dash to hear her, it was so quiet “I’ll just leave…you two alone…bye” Fluttershy bolted as fast as her weak wings could take her.

With Fluttershy gone, Nimbus and Rainbow Dash were truly alone. They both avoided looking at each other or even talking to one another. One of them was going to have to be the bigger pony. It was just a matter of who was going to do it and what they were going to say. Nimbus was going to say something sappy like asking about the weather, but it had started to rain so he threw that card off the playing table.

Rainbow Dash drew up some air in her lungs and whispered “You owe me fifty bits…”

“What?”

Rainbow Dash smiled and laughed a bit as the rain began to pour harder and louder. “I said: You owe me fifty bits!” She shouted over the interrupting rain. She looked up at the sky wondering where the clouds had come from and why they hadn't noticed them before.

“Like hay I do!” Nimbus said catching on to Rainbow Dash’s burst of sanguinity “You didn’t shot the bow at me. YOU owe me!”

Rainbow Dash bolted towards Nimbus and dug her head underneath his and hovered it above her head “Alright, alright, but i don’t have fifty bits.”

“Then you better make fifty bits.”

“Or..” Rainbow Dash flicked her hoof dry before placing it on Nimbus’s chest and making small circles. “How you let me make fifty bits?” She asked in a very seductive voice, licking and biting the bottom of her lip.

Nimbus shivered by the tingling sense Rainbow’s hoof made on his chest. He wanted to fall victim to her whip and just give in to the temptation. Nimbus was a moments away from carrying Rainbow Dash underneath him and flying them home as he kept dry, but he fought the urge wanting to escape from underneath his hind legs and bolted away from Rainbow Dash, saying “Nope. Not falling for that again.” Nimbus’s wings knocked Rainbow Dash to the ground and splashed surrounding water all over her. “You’re just going to blue ball me again.”

Rainbow Dash stood there in her drenched blue coat and called after Nimbus with a small light laugh “Oh, Nimbus. I’m so…WET!” Rainbow Dash had no intentions at all to do anything intimate with Nimbus, but she sure as hell liked watching him think she did.

“Screw you, and go to hell!”

Rainbow Dash whipped her wet rainbow mane back behind her. She spread her wings laughing and asked “Hey we stopped at ‘G’, right?”

“Yeah, and it’s your turn.” Nimbus answered back without looking, too scared Rainbow Dash might be doing something behind him that he would give into.

“Good because I got a good one for you.”

“What do you got?”

“You’re gay!”

***

Due to Nimbus and Rainbow Dash’s familiarity with Ponyville, they were able to find the bank with great ease, and they caught it just in time moments before they closed for the storm coming. Rainbow Dash drew out the money she owed Nimbus and about thirty bits more for her to spend on herself.

“What are you going to do with that?” Nimbus asked, watching Rainbow Dash pocket the the extra bits she didn’t hand him in a side pocket of the quiver she was holding the bow and arrows in.

“Just in case I want some fun?” Rainbow Dash was curious as to why Nimbus would ask such a question, but she got her answer right away.

“With only thirty bits? What kind of fun were you going to have with thirty bits?” Nimbus asked as he trailed behind Rainbow Dash, who had just bolted out the bank doors just so she could run and spend less time through the rain.

“I wasn’t going to spend all of it.” Rainbow Dash stated, trying to make Nimbus sound stupid for assuming she was going to spend all her money at one place.

“You can’t do anything for tha-” Nimbus’s faced ramed right up to Rainbow Dash hind quarters, his nose almost ending up somewhere no nose was to venture to. Nimbus heard a click and saw Rainbow Dash frozen in place and shivering madly. At first, Nimbus thought Rainbow Dash was shivering from the drench of rain, but that was before he found out where the click came from.

The click had a heavy thud to it, despite being wet in the rain, and it was made by the unicorn that was holding a pistol to Rainbow Dash and Nimbus at point blank range. He had definitely done this before as he immediately demanded Rainbow Dash’s and Nimbus’s money without a pause or sense of hesitation. This was Rainbow Dash Nimbus’s first time ever really seeing a gun. They weren’t exactly commonly owned by ponies since only unicorns could properly use them without having to spend a few hundred more bits to purchase the saddle to fire them. Guns were incredibly hard to come across in Equestria and weren’t exactly distributed all that, or even very affordable.

Nimbus nodded and immediately hoofed over the bits to the magical perpetrator. Nimbus didn’t want to give this guy any reason to want to pull the trigger. He might have just gave him Rainbow Dash’s money, but at least they would have gotten out with their lives. Rainbow Dash was a bit hesitant to hoof over her bits so willingly. She watched as the unicorn screamed and demanded her money again. She immediately put her right hoof behind her to search for the pocket that was holding her bits. Unfortunately, the gun wielding unicorn had mistaken Rainbow Dash’s action as an effort to defend herself.

“Get your hoof away from your back!” The criminal barked at Rainbow Dash.

“I’m just getting you-” Rainbow Dash started to say innocently, but the unicorn barked at her again to remove her hoof from behind her back. When Rainbow Dash continued to keep her hoof behind her back and search for the pocket, the unicorn squinted his eyes slightly as he tightened his magical grip in the wooden handles of the pistol and ease lightly on the trigger.

Nimbus felt every red flag fly up in his head. He could see the unicorn’s eyes starting to squint, the magical essence around the gun growing tighter, and even the trigger slowly getting pulled back. Apparently, Nimbus was Zero Shifting again without him intending to do so, but this time was different. He could actually see everything that was going on around him, unlike all the other times where time was just kind of a blur. Nimbus didn’t know if you he was moving so fast that time itself had slowed down, or if the earth had just conveniently slowed down for his sake. Whatever the explanation was, Nimbus knew bullets could fly at a speed up to 1300 feet per second, Rainbow Dash was only standing five feet away, and he could travel (or Zero Shift) up to a speed of 300,00 kilometers per second. So, if he could convert kilometers to feet…

Nimbus now saw the flash of barrel happening before him, which meant the bullet won’t be too far behind. There was no time for math conversions, no time for thinking, not time for bullshit. The time for action was ticking faster and now was nowhere near fast enough. Nimbus pushed and felt the colors leaving th world around him. He pulled his legs out reaching for Rainbow Dash to tackle her down hopefully keep her and himself a safe distance away from the bullet.

The colors and sounds of the world all came back in a mixed simultaneous blend. It was the kind of scenic feeling you’d  get if you’d had the opportunity to smash a speaker as it was playing music  and the sound waves appeared as a series of various colors and contorted shapes. All Nimbus could understand from the world around him was that there was somepony screaming continuously for help and the fact that the wind and energy had been completely knocked out of him. He couldn’t tell if it was still raining or not, all senses had left his body. He couldn’t feel, see, hear, smell, or taste anything. It felt like being suffocated without the burning fire building in your chest. Nimbus wanted to gasp for air, but he had no idea where his mouth was or how to even breathe anymore. All he wanted to do was sleep. This was starting to get old. First thing Nimbus wanted to do once he woke up was to check and see if he was diagnosed for insomnia. For now, Nimbus embraced to the beautiful grace of sleep and let it wrap him in its blanket of absence.

POWER UP!

[Aim Dodge]: Whew, if you thought Zero Shifting was a short distance wait until you read this description. So, Aim Dodge, sounds pretty badass, right? Hell yeah, it’s badass! You have a quick slow motion glimpse of everything that is happening in the world around you. You can literally see everything happen right before it happens. Down side: you can only move faster than light for about six inches, maybe two feet in some cases. Never been able to measure the speed at which a fly flaps it’s wings, using only your naked eye? Now you can! Ever wanted to stand in front of a machine gun and dodge every bullet as your friend unloads the magazine on you? Now you can! Ever wanted to watch a YouTube video without having to watch a stupid advertisement? Well, you still can’t do that…bummer, bro.

Is there any blue berry frosting, or not? Cause I'm getting hungry

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Stop it! Stop making me do things!

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It's just how I feel

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Being somepony in this life

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Books, the best things to make you look smart.

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Now you don'tsee me, now you...still don't see me

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Consider this an "eye for an eye"

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