Wasteland to Wonderland

Rainbow Dash sighed as she watched the sky above her, the seemingly endless expanse of cool blue reaching beyond the peripheral of her vision. She laid upon a lone cloud, her wings spread through the puffy whiteness beneath her, absorbing a few droplets of liquid while cooling off.

She had stopped on this perch after attempting a quintuple-back flip into an aileron roll Rainboom at a 70 degree dive, and failed 17 times. When she thought of how the next attempt would have made a baker's dozen, she realized how hungry she was and had stopped by Sugarcube Corner for some brownies. Then... that happened, and she had flown out of there faster than she normally would have. Rainbow didn't know what was up with Pinkie, and frankly, she didn't want to burn out her mind by trying to understand her pink friend's antics. Twilight had done that for her months ago.

Rainbow stretched out as she licked her lips, wiping off a little more chocolate from the brownies. A content sigh escaped her lips as she relaxed further into the cloud. With a small twist of her neck, she looked down into Ponyville and watched some ponies walk about. There were a few foals running around, playing with random toys, a couple of ponies nuzzling in the park, a blue pony with a trench coat and stetson walking through the streets, a pair of twins with a birdcage-

"Wait, what?" Rainbow stated to herself, standing on the cloud to look down.

In the middle of one of the roads was a blue-coated unicorn, wearing a stetson, similar to Applejack's own, and a trench coat, looking like he walked right out of a comic book. She had heard of this "Wanderer" through some of the circles in town, such as the Flower Fillies.

"Guess I should go see who everypony's been making a big deal about," she mused as she poised herself over the edge of the cloud.

\\\//////

Jason read, reread and memorized both documents that Spice had given him. He rolled them up and deposited the papers in one of his duster's pockets before looking around him.

'Guess I should familiarize myself with the town's layout if I'm going to be doing this from now on.'

Jason adjusted his walking cycle to balance himself while pulling out his Pip-Boy, using his magic to switch to the local map section. He began to focus his thoughts on the area around him as the Pip-Boy began to draw out a 2-D plane that began to fill itself in while he scanned his surroundings.

'Wouldn't hurt to have a map right about now,' Jason thought as he walked about the town.

"Hey there!" someone said above him.

Jason turned to see a blue mare with an almost painfully colorful mane and tail glide down with her wings extended before pulling up into a flip and landing in front of him.

"I've heard a lot about you from around town," she said in a slightly raspy voice. "Name's Rainbow Dash, but you've probably heard stories about me already."

Jason glared at the mare as everything about her sunk in. The attitude, her stance, her shit-eating grin, it all reminded him of that bastard from Little Lamplight.

"Sticky," Jason growled.

"What?" Rainbow said.

"Look, I've got a lot to do right now, so if you don't mind, I'll be on my way," Jason said as he tried to walk past her.

"Oh ho, no way!" Rainbow said as she flew in front of him. "I've heard too much from everypony about how cool you're supposed to be, so I thought I'd see for myself what everypony's getting hyped about. So why don't we compare adventures to try and see who's cooler. But be warned, I've probably already won."

Rainbow looked down to see that the Wanderer had already done just that.

She turned around to see him storm off around a building and flew over it to intercept him.

"Hey, real nice of you to just walk away," Rainbow scolded as she landed in front of the unicorn.

"I don't care," Jason said as he tried to walk around her.

Rainbow extended a wing to but him off as she spoke.

"Dude, calm down, I just wanna talk," she said.

"Well I don't, alright? Now let me get on with my job."

Jason turned around to walk away again but Rainbow just flew in front of him once more.

"You know, Rarity said she felt somewhat sorry about how you two hit it off and wanted to know if you two could start over. Why don't we talk about-"

"I said no, God damn it!" Jason shouted as he broke into a gallop.

Rainbow sighed as she flew ahead of him.

"Look, jerk face, apologize to Rarity and let her make you something or I'll drag you there myself!" Rainbow offered.

As Jason had much experience haggling the many merchants of the Capital Wasteland, he could easily find a way to charm his way into a better deal if he had used his talents to their fullest.

"How about you try fucking off and I'll find her on my own time," Jason proposed.

"Alright, what's your problem?" Rainbow said as she prodded the Wanderer's chest. "I've heard ponies talk about nothing but how great you were for risking your life to save Sweetie Belle and Button Mash, and all that you're doing now is getting mad at me and trying to run."

"Maybe it's because some people have more productive things to do than jerk off in front of a mirror while lying about how 'great' they are."

"Fine, you know what, go to Tartarus, plothole."

With that, Rainbow Dash took off into the skies and left the Wanderer to seethe in anger. When Jason found that he was once again alone, he huffed in annoyance before returning to his previous activity. As he scanned the town around him, he spoke to himself.

"Fucking idiots thinking they can bench press the world. I'm not about to let more of those idiots ruin what I'm making for myself here."

\\\//////

Fawkes chuckled lightly as he felt Scootaloo's fur tickle his skin as she tried to hold on to his thick head and neck. She wore a small eye-patch over her left eye while holding a pirate flag in her teeth. In his left hand sat Sweetie Belle, who held a foam sword in her own mouth, a small hat with an equine equivalent of a jolly roger on it. Apple Bloom sat in his right hand as she pretended to use a tablecloth as a map before tying it up as a bandana underneath her chin.

"Onward, Crusaders!" Apple Bloom said, pointing a hoof to the other side of the room.

The four had long since left the library, the fillies convincing Fawkes to play with them in the main foyer to ease his mind. So far, this was working better than his breathing techniques, as his pains slipped away beneath the fog of war the three were weaving in their minds.

"Yar har har!" Spike chortled as he stood atop a small fortress of books that had been stacked in the center of the Castle's seven thrones. "Ye land lubbers are never going to reach this dragon's bounty!"

"Actually, Spike," Twilight said as she flipped through a book near the corner of the room, "the text that's seen as 'ye' in modern times is actually an incorrect perception of the original symbol, which was an abbreviation of the letters 'th', but ponies today mistook it for a 'y', so in actuality, 'ye' is pronounced as 'the'."

The four young ones looked at Twilight with bored expressions.

"Onward!" Apple Bloom said once more.

Fawkes held his arms out to the side as he tilted somewhat, making a sound that the Crusaders insisted resembled that of a pirate airship, holding the fillies close to the floor before pulling them up as he circled about the book fort. The fillies that grappled onto him began to pelt the dragon with recycled clumps of paper from several bins in the Castle, with Spike ducking into the well constructed and rather complex workings of Twilight's patented 'Fort Smartious Pantious'.

The alicorn smiled as she watched the Meta Human play with the fillies and dragon, even spinning about when one paper ball managed to hit his face. He pretended to fall down slowly enough to not hurt the fillies before offloading them onto the ground outside of the small fort. They laughed as they clashed paper and foam, Fawkes stepping back to watch them play.

Twilight sighed happily as she saw what could likely be called a smile on Fawkes' face, glad that these moments had as much an effect on the alien as they did for anypony else.

Suddenly, Twilight heard the Castle doors open up before she heard somepony.

"Hey Twi, that guy that everypony says is a 'hero' is a huge jerk,you know," Rainbow said as she flew into the main room. "How could anypony defend-"

The pegasus paused when she saw the tall yellowish-green figure looming over the Crusaders. Fawkes looked up at her for a second before Rainbow brought a snarl to her face.

"Get back! Monster!" she yelled before flying straight for the Meta Human.