In which Rainbow Dash gets headbutted by an irate jerk
Many creatures call the skies their home. Some float across the sky at their leisure. Others flitter about nervously. Some soar through the heavens with beauty and grace. A fair few stalk across the clouds looking for prey down below.
Rainbow Dash did none of those things. Rainbow Dash tore through the heavens at speeds that warped the rules of everyday reality. She made rapid turns that, technically speaking, ought to have liquefied a fair few of her internal organs. Her stunts were in direct defiance to the classical laws of physics.
Subtlety was just a word in the dictionary to her, much like gravity. She didn’t practice either of them.
What she did practise were her stunts. After all, practise made perfect, and when pressed on the issue, even Rainbow Dash had to admit[1] that she wasn’t quite perfect yet - though she was getting pretty close; her Fantastic Filly Flash had become rather mundane to her, pulling off a Super Speed Strut had become surprisingly simple, and she could perform the Buccaneer Blaze while in a daze.
She was still working on getting the Sonic Rainboom just right, a process which was taking longer than she would like because she was banned from performing the stunt within ten kilometres of Ponyville[2]. Since nopony had mentioned whether or not that included ten kilometres above Ponyville, and since Rainbow Dash was, by nature, a three-dimensional thinker, she’d simply moved her training up into the stratosphere. It wasn’t a perfect solution by any means; by Rainbow Dash’s standards, the stratosphere was sorely lacking in temperature, oxygen levels, and clouds for her to rest on, which was why she only practiced her Sonic Rainboom once every few days.
She looked at the world’s surface far, far below her. Even when flying, she was aware on an intellectual level that some ponies lived their lives on the ground. She had yet to figure out just how anypony could live like that[3]. She hovered in midair for a moment, scanning the world underneath her, not unlike an oversized, unusually colourful bird of prey that just happened to be vegetarian.
She didn’t see anything particularly interesting happening on the surface. Pinkie Pie was bouncing down a street carrying a cake on her head. Twilight Sparkle was lecturing some poor sap. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were about to perform a stunt with a high chance of collateral damage and a very, very small chance of actually getting them their cutie marks. And just outside of town, a big, scary pony was screaming at Fluttershy.
Nought point two seconds later, Rainbow Dash was hovering between the two.
“- and I will have that miserable vermin put down, do you hear me, you worthless little - wait, where did you come from?” said the pony, a light grey earth pony mare with a dark grey mane.
“I think the better question is, who do you think you are, screaming at my friend like that?” Rainbow Dash said. She shot the pony a glare that could melt steel.
Fluttershy whimpered. “Umm, Rainbow, please…”
“I am Blame Game, and one of her little vermin bit my son!” the pony said. “I will have the wretched rodent put to sleep!”
“Umm,” Fluttershy said, “technically Mister Snuggles is a lagomorph, not a rodent, and I’m really not going to…”
“That’s what this is about?” Rainbow Dash said. “Even if you had a point, and you don’t, that still wouldn’t give you an excuse to shout at one of the kindest, sweetest ponies in Ponyville!”
“Who are you to meddle in other ponies’ business?” Blame Game said. “I will have justice for my son, and neither that sad coward nor any of her pathetic little friends are going to stop me!”
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “Pathetic little friends? You have no idea who you’re dealing with, do you?”
“I honestly don’t care who I’m dealing with. I can’t imagine her being friends with anypony that isn’t pathetic.”
“Umm, Dash…” Fluttershy said.
“Well, let’s see,” said Rainbow Dash. “There’s a successful fashion designer, Equestria’s number one producer of cider, the greatest party pony ever, an honest-to-Celestia princess, and the future captain of the Wonderbolts. That’s me, by the way. Did I mention we’ve saved all of Equestria on multiple occasions?”
“Right, so she’s friends with a sad, delusional failure,” Blame Game said. “You’re almost as pathetic as she is.”
“Somepony ought to teach you some respect,” Rainbow Dash said. “If you call her pathetic one more time I swear to Celestia...”
Without warning, Blame Game headbutted Rainbow Dash in the face.
Fluttershy gasped. “Rainbow!”
Rainbow Dash collapsed on the ground. Fluttershy was by her side in an instant.
“Am I seeing double, or do you have an identical twin you’ve never told me about?” Rainbow said. Fluttershy locked Rainbow in a tight embrace. Once Rainbow Dash had recovered enough to sit upright without too great a risk of falling over, Fluttershy turned to Blame Game.
“Done with her already?” Blame Game said. “I was convinced you were going to cling to her all day.”
“You!” Fluttershy said. “You come here to try and kill an innocent bunny. You insult me, my little critters, and my pony friends. You actually hurt my dearest friend.”
“What are you getting at?” Blame Game asked.
Fluttershy took a deep breath. “Nothing, I guess.”
She closed her eyes for a moment.
Then, she unleashed the Stare upon Blame Game.
Not two seconds later, Blame Game was running away, screaming.
“That was awesome!” Rainbow Dash said. “You stared that jerk down like it was nothing!”
Fluttershy blushed. “Are you okay? It looked like you got hit pretty hard.”
Dash shrugged. “Eh, I’ve hit my head harder before. I can handle it.”
“Thanks for coming to help me, Rainbow,” Fluttershy said. “I really appreciate it.”
“I didn’t accomplish anything, though. You could’ve handled it fine on your own.”
“It’s the thought that counts. Besides, I’d much rather you show up when I don’t need you than having you stay away when I do.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’d sooner spend the rest of my life on the ground than leave you hangin’.”
Fluttershy wrapped a wing around Rainbow Dash. “Let’s go inside and get you some ice for your head, and maybe talk about our days. If that’s okay with you, that is.
“Sounds like fun to me!” Rainbow Dash said. “I saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ getting ready for another attempt at getting a cutie mark and you’re not going to believe what it is. I don’t even know where they got that many explosives from.”
Author's Note
[1] begrudgingly
[2] Sonic Rainbooms tend to cause shockwaves, and Ponyville had found out the hard way one afternoon that said shockwaves are quite capable of causing widespread property damage. On the bright side, Rainbow Dash had at least performed the Sonic Rainboom flawlessly that time.
[3] She had tried her hardest to understand, but had given up after a conversation on the subject with Applejack had ended with the two refusing to talk to one another for five days.
