We Stopped Checking for Monsters in the Everfree...

Just another mare... She's just another mare... Rainbow Dash watched the program with this in mind. Celestia made mistakes. She is just another mare, after all. When you realize that Celestia is in fact (to quote Rainbow Dash's internal monologue) "Just another mare", you see details you missed before. You notice that Celestia's voice quivers when she introduces herself. You see the twinge in her eye as she looks to the crowd. You notice how her wings shake. Of course, you don't have to pay close attention to notice a blast of magenta hit Celestia in the chest.

As Celestia fell to the ground, Dash tried to make sense of it. In Daring Do, the evil alicorn Queen was a formidable foe, practically undefeatable by brute force. That is what made that particular book a best-seller; Daring had to use her wits to defeat the Queen. Dash remembered a particular exgange in that book, one of Dash's favorites in the series. The time where Daring first met the evil Queen for battle.

I walked through the corridor, onto a narrow bridge as the gates closed behind me. At the other end was Queen Assimulator, her sheer height astonishing. She was one-and-a-half my height, every inch of her sculpted out of perfect Earth Pony muscle.

"You'll never win!" I cried.

The Queen had a smirk, a new addition to her face designed to add salt to my wounds. I intended to wipe that smirk off her face. "I must win; without free-will, Equestria will prosper! AND I'LL RULE!" She threw her head back into an evil laugh.

"There will always be ponies to stop you!"

"Alicorns do not feel pain. We do not distinguish the heat of the sun from the cool of the moon. We can cause earthquakes with our hooves, hurricanes with our wings, eruptions with our horns. You are just another mare..."

Dash had just assumed that that was an accurate discription of alicorn abilities. Celestia only showed her power in rare moments. Luna was a bit more extravagent, easily beating the world champion hoof wrestler just to do it, winning a nation wide drinking contest (and remaining completely sober!) for charity, going for cross-country (or cross-world!) flights, challenging Hermes to a race and nearly winning, and several other impossible feats.

But now Dash knew that alicorns had their limits, but she wanted to know what they are. Seeing as she didn't have an alicorn to test on, she decided to read one of Twilight's books. "Hey, Twilight?" Dash asked. Twilight turned her head slowly, her eyes hesitant to leave the screen for even a moment.

"Yeah, Dash?"

"Do you have any books on the limits of alicorn phys-phys---magic?"

"Sure. The Verified Record on Alicorn Feats of Power as Collected by Guinness the Study."

"Thanks." Dash scooted off the couch and trotted towards the study. She turned back, and said in a slightly lower voice, "Oh, keep me posted. Tell me if Celestia dies or something..." She felt happy saying that with such relative impunity. It was somehow freeing. It was also terrifying being able to say something so terrible like that...

Our soveriegn Princess is modest about her physical capabilities, but I did manage to get audience with her Majesty and asked her about the truth about some stories. She has given verification to these reports, and has given her blessing for the publishing of this book.

Dash read the reports carefully. She read a story of Celestia carrying a three ton carriage on her back to civilization. How Celestia was the first pony to break Mach 1. How she and her sister broke Old Canterlot with their fight. The 13 deaths that occurred from this. The 187 deaths she's caused by her weakness this week.

What? That's not her fault. She's just another mare, like me! Rainbow Dash's thoughts came to an abrupt stop. And her mind tumbled. What did I just say? I-I'm just another mare? Of course I am... As she thought that, she instinctively started arguing.

What am I talking about? I'm the flastest flier in Equestria, a prodigous athlete! I'm an Element of Harmony, for Pete's sake! I'm among the best of equinity, with the best friends a pony could ask for! And I'm the most loyal pony around, with friends who are just as loyal to me. Like the Mare-Do-W----

Dash winced and shook her head. She couldn't think about that incident without the wince. She'd been too arrogant when saving lives. She should have been less depressed when everyone turned on her; that was her fault. She had no right to sulk. No right to be angry at her friends for subjecting her to the horror of being just another mare...

I understand now! I'm afreaid! I have to be the best, or else I feel generic! I understand now! Dash was overjoyed with that discovery. Things finally made sense. She now knew why she's had to be confrontational; being anyhting else would miss the opportunity to prove that she's special. Then horror came. Am I special?

She started feeling sick as soon as she realized that "YES!" didn't spring to her mind. Do I have low self-esteem? Me? This she sat thinking, when Pinkie knocked on her door.

"Dash?!" Pinkie burst through the door, hopping up and down on the fallen slab of wood. "You won't believe it!" She suddenly appeared beside Dash in a puff of confetti. "Princess Celestia lives!" Pinkie screamed and waited for a reaction.

Dash, after a moment of awkward silence, realized that she didn't really care. And so she started to cry. What kind of monster was she, to not care that the Princess---her friend---was alive?

"Dashie?" Pinkie stopped bouncing, and she placed a hoof on her friend's shoulder. "Are those happy tears or---"

"No, Pinkie..." Rainbow tried vainly to stop the waterfall. "I'm fine."

"Rainie, stop. Let me help you." She gave Dash a few pats. Dash thought about it, and then went through with it.

"I don't care..." she said, looking to her friend.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't care if the Princess dies..." Pinkie didn't know how to respond and just stared.

"Dashie..."

"I know. I feel terrible about it. I don't understand... Why---Why don't I care? I was chosen for my loyalty, but when my friend..."

Pinkie let Dash cry into her shoulder, and then asked quietly "Sh-should we tell the girls. They might be able to---"

"No! I don't---I want to figure this out, but---"

"Friends can help you..."

"Yeah, but---You see... Um... Pinkie, I think I need your---I have a secret." She told Pinkie about her fear, about her need.

"Oh, Dashie, of course you're special! You're super duper uber special!"

"How?"

"How?" Pinkie echoed. "You're Rainbow Miriam Dash! Of course you're special. You have a good heart, and are a great flyer and friend and---"

"Heart? I didn't care that a friend might have died..."

Pinkie was losing, she could feel it. "Don't worry. You're just confused. You care..."

"No, I didn't..."

"Well, don't you now."

Dash thought about it, and burst back into tears. "NO! I think I'm going crazy!"

"No, Dash. You aren't crazy. You're just confused. And---"

"And I'm generic..." Rainbow's heart skipped a beat. And then she resumed crying.

"No... You're a great flyer! You're..."

"I'm lucky. That's luck."

"You worked hard; that choice---"

"Wait..." Rainbow couldn't think anymore. It took to much effort. She could only cry. When she could finally talk, "Why can't we catch him? Why can't Celestia catch him?"

"She's needs time. The pony is---"

"We don't have time! Ponies have died---and will continue to die---until he's caught!"

"I'm sorry. We're trying as best we can---"

"And we're all failures! I haven't been able to help at all. You've figured out the pun thing, but it didn't do us a feathering thing!" Dash immediately regretted saying that.

"Dash... I'm sorry..."

"No, I'm sorry..." she said lighter. "I'm just frustrated, that's all. With laws being broken, and some random pony killing others, I just don't know---I want to stop him. I wan't him to be stopped without the line being crossed. I just want the criminal to be caught, but civilians are searched, and we can't stop it. I need to stop him..."

"We will catch him, Dash. Don’t you worry!"

"I dunno... Listen, on the party you're planning, can you keep me out of it?"

"Sure thing! Wait... How did you know I was throwing a party?"

"It's you, Pinks. Anyways, I'll be reading a book, OK."

“Hmm... OK! See ya!” Dash nodded, and Pinkie left out the miraculously fixed door. After a moment or two, Dash remembered a book she saw in the library. It seemed quite interesting, making oneself immortal, and that would be good to take her mind off this horror. She sauntered down the stairs to that floor and found it. It turned out to be a philosophy book, but Dash didn't have the will to stop reading to find another book. And so, for the next few hours, she read Beyond Equinity: On Legends and Ideas. Written by Ra’s al Ghul 600 years ago.