All the Elements for Disaster

Chapters

Prologue
Friendship is Magic: Part 1
Friendship is Magic: Part 2
Dreams and Confusion
The Ticket Master
Griffon the Brush Off
Boast Busters
Bridle Gossip

Prologue

“State your business.” A guard demanded of a stranger at the gates of Princess Celestia’s palace, in the middle of the night no less.

“For the last time. I have no memory.” A young blue pegasus colt insisted. “All I know is that I was pretty much dumped into the middle of life in this city and for some reason I’m convinced I’m a hedgehog. I mean really! All I want is to see the pony who a guy I met said was in charge of this wacko place!”

The colt’s green eyes burned into the guard, and he sensed that this stranger could really do some damage if he wanted to. He worriedly let him pass, secretly using a telepathy spell to send a warning to the princess.

The blue pegasus entered a dark hall, at the end being an throne occupied by Princess Celestia herself. The colt found it sort of strange that this pony had both wings and a horn, as the only ones he had seen so far had had one or the other or neither. But he pushed that thought aside and addressed her.

“Hi, are you like the ruler her or something?” he asked.

“Yes, my pegasus friend. My guard told me about you. Sit.” She ordered.

The nameless colt stared at her blankly. “Wait, but if he didn’t talk to you then how did–”

He was cut off as Celestia sent a powerful magic bolt point blank at him. He nimbly dodged it and it dissipated before it could do any real damage.

“I said sit.” She growled.

The pegasus fell on his hindquarters.

“Now.” Celestia said, her voice silky and calm. “You claim to have no memory. How did your amnesia come to be?”

“Am-what-now?”

“No memory.”

“Well, heh, I don’t know. No memory and all.”

“Do you have a name?”

“Currently, no. But as soon as– wait, hang on.” He tapped the side of his head. “S-s-s-s-s-s-s…” he repeated that consonant several times before lowering his head despondently. “Never mind. It slipped.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow at this, but kept her royal composure. The pegasus noted her attitude change from controlled anger to guarded curiosity and relaxed his muscles, which had tensed when the princess had fired her bolt.

“Well. I have a good student and I trust she will be able to help you with your… memory problem.” She said those two words like if she substituted them in any way they were liable to blow up the cosmos.

“Wait, she?” was all the colt was able to get out before a flustered purple unicorn burst into the hall, pausing only a little to bow respectfully.

“Hello princess. I got your message and I came right away!” the unicorn said at an unrealistic rapid fire pace.

“Yes, I can see that.” Celestia said dryly, noting the unicorn’s messed up hair and ruffled coat.

“Again, how in the heck do you manage to talk to each other without a phone or face to face!” the blue pegasus interrupted.

The unicorn looked at him oddly. “What’s a phone? And who are you?” she demanded.

“You know, I have absolutely no idea what a phone is. The word just came to me.” The colt said. He felt sort of embarrassed at the way the unicorn was looking at him, especially since he had determined that she was a girl. He felt his wings flare up without him telling them to, and a burning sensation on his cheeks.

“I think I would be better suited to answer the second question, Twilight Sparkle.” The princess said, both saving the colt from the awkward moment and providing a name to fit with the face.

“This young stallion has no memory and needs help. I trust you will be able to?”

“So, like a test?”

“In a sense.”

“Then yes!”

The pegasus slowly followed the conversation and realized he would be staying with the unicorn until further notice.

“Well with this new development, ya gotta be able to call me something besides ‘that guy’. I need a name.” He said.

Twilight looked at him like she had to put all her thought in naming him.

“Hmm, how about Cobalt? Cobalt Spikes.” She suggested.

The newly called Cobalt Spikes grinned. “Cobalt… yeah! I like it! I mean it’s no stranger a name than any other.”

“Then that is settled.” Celestia determined. “You both are dismissed.”

The pair left the hall, Twilight bowing once more and Cobalt just looking over his shoulder and flashing a ‘too cool’ grin. When they were gone, Celestia looked away, wondering what this new arrival would mean for the sake of Equestria.

As soon as they were wandering the city, Cobalt turned to her.

“Does your teacher always try to kill amnesiacs?” he demanded.

“She tried to kill you?!” Twilight sounded horrified, her eyes going huge.

“Yeah, but I dodged her shot and she backed off when I did what she told me to.”

Twilight visibly relaxed. “Oh, then she knew you could take care of yourself and was just exerting her authority.”

Cobalt exhaled and tried to clear his mind, which wasn’t hard when all he could remember was the last hour or two. “Fine. So where do you live, anyway?”

“Right here.” Twilight nodded to a gigantic elaborate building that seemed to be crafted out of opaque glass.

Cobalt gaped and stared up at it. “Whoa, so this whole thing is yours?”

Twilight laughed. “No, I just pay rent for a small loft in the upper levels. The rest belongs to the public of Canterlot. It’s a library.”

“So freaking cool.” Cobalt breathed.

“Come on in, I’ll take you for a tour.” Twilight announced, desperate to get back to her research, but keeping her guest in mind.

“All right then.” Cobalt said absently, still in awe of the building.

ONE LONG BORING TOUR LATER

“And this is my room.” Twilight finished, gesturing to a small room with single bed and a cat basket type thing with a purple baby dragon napping in it. Cobalt should’ve been surprised about that, but given his life so far, it didn’t really make that much of an impression on him.

“There’s not really a couch or anything,” she continued, looking at the ground. “But–”

Cobalt flopped down on the ground beside the bed. “Don’t worry. I feel like I’m used to sleeping wherever or not at all.” This was originally meant to make Twilight feel better, but the more he thought about it, it was true. He did feel that he should be fine like that.

Twilight smiled. “Well, if you’re sure about that, then I’ll be studying downstairs. Sleep as long as you want and Spike will help you find me.”

Cobalt yawned and for the first time realized how tired he actually was. “Yep. I’ll do that.” He murmured, closing his eyes and immediately falling to sleep.

Little did he know that his world was about to be rocked beyond his comprehension.

Friendship is Magic: Part 1

Cobalt Spikes woke to the baby dragon from the night before whacking him over the head with a ruler.

“INTRUDER!” the dragon yelled, swinging the ruler like a club.

“Ow.” Cobalt muttered, since it didn’t really hurt that much. First he glanced at the clock, which read eleven AM, then he desperately racked his memory for something to help him get the dragon off him, but the only thing he could remember was what he hoped was its name.

“Spike! Seriously, Twilight let me stay here! Now get offa me!” he complained, blocking another swing with his foreleg.

Spike stopped trying to murder him with a measurement tool for a second and looked at him curiously.

“Twilight let you stay here?” he sounded disbelieving.

“That’s what I just said! Now if you could put down your weapon for a second I can explain!”

ONE AMNESIAC EXPLANATION LATER

“Ohh, so that’s what she meant before she went off to study.” Spike realized.

“And you didn’t see me when you woke up?”

“I was half unconscious, don’t judge!”

Cobalt rolled his green eyes. “Whatever. She told me to ask you to help me find her.”

“Right now she’s under her favorite tree, so I can find her. C’mon!”

The pair exited the library and started through town. After a while, Cobalt noticed some of the other ponies with wings were flying. Huh. He wondered. Maybe I can…

He gave his own wings an experimental flap and he was instantly propelled at high speeds into the air. “Yaah!” he yelled in surprise, forgetting to keep flapping and falling on his face.

Spike turned and looked at him like he was nuts. “What the hay just happened to you?”

“I tried to fly.” Cobalt replied, brushing some dirt off his wings.

“Heh, well first lesson. You stop flapping you fall.” Spike said, just short of bursting out laughing at his companion’s incompetent takeoff.

Cobalt glared at him. “Gee, thank you Corporal Duh.” He tried to take off again and this time managed to stay in the air.

Then something peculiar happened. A wide grin stretched across his face and his eyes flashed.

“I gotta go faster.”

He shot forward, leaving a gust of wind in his wake. He returned five seconds later and stopped dead in the air.

“What the what the whaa?” Spike sputtered in utter amazement.

“I have NO freaking idea!” Cobalt exclaimed, still giddy on his newfound ability. “I just remembered a little bit about myself and that’s that I have a need for speed.” He flew super speed circles around Spike and made him dizzy.

“Dude, stop, you’re gonna make me hurl.” Spike said dazedly, his eyes spinning in their sockets. He shook his head and they returned to normal.

Cobalt stopped and landed. “Hah, sorry! It’s just so cool!”

Spike smiled. “Yeah, it is, but we’ve got to get to Twilight.”

At just that exact moment a specific purple unicorn ran past them both, muttering about nightmares and elements.

Cobalt frowned. “Err, what just happened?”

“She discovered something in her books that made her flip out and she’s gonna make yours truly send Celestia a letter.” Spike explained.

“In that case we better get back.” Cobalt said. “Hop on.”

Spike vaulted onto Cobalt’s back and he took off. The rushed through the city streets with Spike desperately holding on, and they beat Twilight to the library doors by about three or so seconds.

“Stop!” Cobalt yelled when she nearly ran into him. She skidded to a halt and fell on her hindquarters. “Uhh, what’s up?” Cobalt said lamely.

Twilight got a hard determined look in her eyes and pushed past him. “Sending a letter about the nearing disaster.” She explained shortly, pulling Spike off his back.

Cobalt sat down, feeling he might be waiting for a while. He passed about five minutes trying to count the total number of ponies that passed the library, but lost count at about ninety.

Then the door burst open and Twilight and Spike stormed out, or at least Twilight did. Spike more rained.

“Sorry to drag you on a long trip on your first full day of amnesia Cobalt, but I’ve just been assigned to a town called Ponyville to supervise the Summer Sun Celebration.” She told him. “We leave in an hour.”

ONE VERY, VERY, VERY BORING ONE AND A HALF HOURS LATER

The three were sitting in a carriage pulled by older pegasi from Canterlot to Ponyville.

“Ugh, I can’t believe I have to supervise this when the world might end tomorrow.” Twilight complained.

“Cheer up Twilight, maybe it’ll be fun.” Spike reasoned.

“I think I remember what fun is.” Cobalt put in. “And exploring new places is definitely fun.”

“Yeah, but making new friends really?” Twilight sighed.

“Don’t forget the part about not reading dusty old books anymore.” Spike smiled. “That I could get used to.”

Cobalt tapped his hoof impatiently. “What’s the holdup? I could’ve gotten there and back three times already!”

“You think it’s easy to carry a carriage and not drop it?” one of the pegasi shot back.

“Santa Claus’ reindeer do it!” Cobalt snapped, yet another tiny piece of memory returning.

They landed and Twilight thanked the pegasi for the ride.

They walked a little ways before running into a pink earth pony with a strangely inflated mane. She let out a loud gasp and defied physics for a second by floating into the air, then dashed off at an unnatural speed for a non-pegasus.

“Ooookay then. Where to first?” Cobalt asked.

Spike examined the letter. “Says here we’re going to a place called Sweet Apple Acres to check on the food.”

Cobalt grinned. “Sounds cool. Spike, hop on, Twilight, hold on.” He said, extending a hoof. Twilight took it and Spike hopped on his back, and he took off in the general direction of the farm.

ONE FLIGHT LATER

“And here we are.” Cobalt announced, landing and letting his passengers off near a picnic table full of apple themed food.

Twilight immediately staggered over to a bush and did something that for the weak of stomach I shall leave out.

She walked back over, wiping her mouth. “Never. EVER. Again.” She stammered.

“Well howdy do pardner?” an unfamiliar southern voice came from behind all of them. They turned to see an orange earth pony with freckles and a cowboy hat smiling at them.

“Ah, you must be Applejack!” Twilight said, extending a foreleg in greeting. Applejack took it and shook it heartily.

“Hello y’all! Can I get yer names?”

“I’m Spike!” Spike said happily.

“Twilight Sparkle.” Twilight nodded.

“I’m currently Cobalt Spikes.” Cobalt supplied.

“Currently?” Applejack sounded confused.

“He’s got amnesia.” Twilight said.

“Amnesia huh?” Applejack nodded. “Mighty rare for a pony, but I guess I cain’t judge. Y’all better meet mah family!” she then called out in a voice much louder than the one she’d used before. “SOUP’S ON EVERYPONY!”

Almost instantly a giant crowd of ponies surrounded the four.

There were a lot of introductions, but I’m gonna skip to the only one that I can make funny.

“And that’s Granny Smith!” Applejack finished, gesturing to a withered old greenish earth pony.

“I should’ve been dead five years ago!” Granny Smith said.

Cobalt whistled lowly. “Big family.”

“Tell me about it.” Spike added.

“Well, try some food, see how ya like it.” Applejack offered.

Twilight stepped backward politely. “Oh no, I couldn’t.”

The little yellow pony with the big pink bow stepped forward with her pupils all huge. “Oh please will you try it, we’ve worked really hard to make it good.” She pleaded.

Cobalt twitched and screwed up his face.

“Cobalt, what’s wrong?” Twilight asked worriedly.

“Cuteness. Overload.” He managed to say, and then fell on his side, completely unconscious.

ONE FAINTING LATER

Cobalt awoke for the second time that day being dragged by the tail by Spike. He looked around and saw that they’d made it back to Ponyville in the time he’d been out.

“Dude, I’m up.” He told Spike.

Spike let his tail go with a heavy and relieved sigh. “Whew, I thought I’d have to drag you forever.”

Cobalt rolled his eyes. “Hooray.” He got to his hooves and stretched his wings.

“Okay, says next we should find a pegasus pony named Rainbow Dash who will be keeping the skies clear.” Twilight interrupted. She cocked her head back. “The sky doesn’t look clear though.”

A rainbow colored missile slammed into her at that moment. She tumbled and rolled in the dirt from the impact, and by the time the dust cleared, a rainbow pegasus whom Cobalt assumed was Rainbow Dash was springing off her.

“Oops, sorry.” Rainbow said with an apologetic grin. “I guess you’re a bit dirty.” She zoomed off and returned with a rainy cloud. To Cobalt’s amazement, she placed it above Twilight and stomped on it, making the rain come out in a perfect cloud shaped shower and returning it to its natural white color.

Something about that didn’t seem natural to him.

Twilight was sopping wet in a pile of mud and didn’t look happy about it.

Rainbow Dash made a suppressed giggle and then said, “Um, my bad. Here, let me dry you off with my grade A patent pending Rainblow Dry!”

She proceeded to fly in a circle, creating a rainbow colored tornado around Twilight. By the time she slowed down, Twilight looked normal, but then her hair poofed out into a curly mess.

Rainbow Dash couldn’t take it any more, she absolutely broke down laughing, rolling on the ground. Spike and Cobalt took one glance and joined her.

Twilight rolled her eyes and joined her friends.

“So, Rainbow Dash, am I right?” she asked politely.

Rainbow stopped laughing and flew into the air, hovering upright and pointing at herself proudly. “That’s me, the one and only! I’m gonna be in the Wonderbolts someday!”

Twilight racked her brain and came up with a reverse psychology mechanism.

“Well,” she said with a small smile. “I doubt that the Wonderbolts would ever accept a pegasus that can’t even keep the skies clear.” She gestured to the cloudy sky.

“Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa!” Dash protested. “I could clear the sky in ten seconds flat!”

“Oh really? Prove it.” Cobalt challenged, wanting to see this pony’s game. She seemed cool enough to hang out with even if she was a girl.

Instantly Dash shot off, busting through clouds with amazing speed and agility. She returned a very short time later, landing with a proud grin. “See! Ten. Seconds. Flat.”

“She’s right.” Spike said, holding up an old timey stopwatch with the needle exactly on ten.

Cobalt saw a cloud in the distance that Rainbow seemed not to have seen. “Say, you missed one.” He commented.

Rainbow facehooved. “Oh horsefeathers. I–”

Cobalt raised a hoof to silence her. “I got this.” He took off, sped toward it, and kicked it out, doing what he’d seen her do, and then returned all in less than three seconds.

Rainbow Dash gaped openmouthed for a second, but then her face stretched into a grin. She flew over and put a foreleg around Cobalt’s neck, giving him a friendly noogie.

“You, sir, are my bro!” she exclaimed. “I’ve got to get you a job as weather pony!”

“Sorry, but we aren’t planning to stay for longer than tonight.” Twilight put in.

It would be an understatement to say that Rainbow’s face fell. Her entire happiness vanished on the spot, and she let go of Cobalt and landed. “Oh. Well, nice to meet you then and I guess I’ll see you around.” She murmured vaguely, taking off.

“Really?” Cobalt demanded of Twilight.

“What?” she asked, unaware of something being wrong.

“How insensitive can you get?!” Spike exclaimed. “It was obvious that that Colorful Splash or something pony was lonely and was really enjoying someone who was like her for once, and now she’s gonna be all sad and not even try to be friends with Cobalt!”

Twilight seemed to realize what exactly she had done, and she looked down in guilt. “Oh.”

“Look, I’d better…” Cobalt gestured in the direction Rainbow had left in and took off.

Cobalt spent the entire rest of the day looking for her and couldn’t find a trace. He discovered a city made of clouds above Ponyville that only pegasi could live on, and he looked all through there, but he still couldn’t find anything.

Eventually he gave up and went to the place he knew he and Twilight and Spike were staying, the library.

He landed and saw Twilight and Spike approaching, saying a farewell to a light yellow pegasus with long pink hair.

When they got there, Spike started the conversation.

“So, did you have any luck?” he asked.

“No.” Cobalt replied miserably. He knew the reason why he was so despondent at not being able to find her. If there was one thing that he was sure about himself, it was that he hated to fail at anything.

“Cobalt, I just want to apologize about what I did back there.” Twilight said, looking down. “It was kind of stupid and I didn’t really think.”

“S’okay Twilight.” Cobalt reassured the lavender unicorn. “I wouldn’t have been able to be friends with her for more than a day anyway. How did your events go?”

“Well, first we went to Rarity and Twilight got her hair fixed,” he got all mushy sounding when he mentioned Rarity, and Cobalt assumed he had a crush on her. “And then we sort of just managed to get away from Fluttershy. So that’s about it.”

“Cool.” Cobalt said. “Well, might as well get some rest.” He opened the door and instead of being greeted by a quiet and orderly library, they were faced by a loud party.

“Hiya guys!” the pink pony from before defied physics once again by appearing from the ceiling rather than the floor. “I’m Pinkamena Diane Pie, but everyone just calls me Pinkie Pie! I put this party together as a welcome to Ponyville celebration and a Summer Sun Celebration party! So remember when I first saw you and I was all–”

ONE GASP NOISE LATER

“And then I ran away, well that was because I know everypony in Ponyville but I didn’t know you so that means you’re new and all new residents should get a welcome party because that’s just how we do here!”

She didn’t take a breath in that entire monologue and for a moment Cobalt was worried that she might suffocate.

He answered with a simple. “Okay then.”

Pinkie Pie giggled. “Come on in and let’s kick this party up to a one hundred and one!”

Cobalt and Spike stepped right in, completely confident in this social situation, but Twilight followed more slowly as she had never really been to a party.

“Have a drink!” Pinkie offered, gesturing to the concessions table. Twilight, unsure of what exactly to drink, levitated the nearest bottle of something toward herself and took a tentative sip, but was unpleasantly surprised when she realized that her mouth was on fire and she seemed to literally catch ablaze. She ran off in pursuit of some water, leaving Cobalt and Spike standing dumbfounded at the whole scene.

“Why would you bring triple X hot sauce to a party?” Spike asked, reading the label on the bottle.

Pinkie snatched it out of his hand and put some on a cupcake. “Because it’s good! Duh!” she took a big bite.

Cobalt rolled his eyes and wandered away to mingle, hoping to maybe find Rainbow Dash. His wish came true and he found her sitting alone at a table, sipping out of a paper cup.

“What’s up?” he asked, sliding onto the seat across from hers. “I couldn’t find you all day.”

She looked up confusedly, wondering who was speaking, then she saw Cobalt and a little sparkle returned to her eyes. “Hi Cobalt. I was sort of exploring the woods.”

“Cool, I like exploring.” He said happily, then put a hoof to his head. “At least I think I do.”

She looked even more confused at that, and Cobalt realized he hadn’t explained his amnesia to her yet.

“See, I sort of lost all my memory at some point and I can only remember teeny little bits. I’m with Twilight to try to recover a bit of it as an order from Princess Celestia.” He explained.

“Hmm, cool.” Rainbow thought for a moment. “Well, if I’d lost my memory, I would go to the DJ and see if I could remember anything based on the music.”

Cobalt hadn’t thought of that yet. “Good call.” he admitted. “I’ll try that.”

He got up, still feeling as though she had deliberately tried to get him away for some reason, but he wasn’t in any place to judge. He trotted over to the DJ station and confronted the pony in charge. She had purple sunglasses, which he found odd, but again, he wasn’t in any place to judge.

“Hey, can I see your list of songs?” he called over the music pumping.

“Sure bro! Anything for a guest of honor!” she passed him a sheet of paper containing innumerable songs. To his disappointment, there wasn’t anything he recognized.

He passed the list back. “Got anything new or without lyrics?” he asked.

The DJ seemed to ponder this for a moment. “Yeah, I got something. You wanna karaoke it?”

“Heck yeah I do!” Cobalt exclaimed. “Pass me the mic and spin it!”

She handed him the microphone and spoke into another littler microphone that connected to the speakers. “Hey all you party ponies! I got a guest of honor up here named… uh…”

“Cobalt.” He supplied.

“Named Cobalt and he’s gonna do some karaoke up in this house!”

A deafening cheer arose from the assembled ponies and the DJ put the record on the player.

IN THE SONG

Rainbow Dash made her way to the front of the crowd, which was cheering wildly now, and listened in awe to his singing.
As she listened, something stirred inside of her. Something she’d never felt before. Something that made her feel… happy. Her wings started to stretch out on their own, and a red glow appeared on her cheeks as she listened to the sound of Cobalt’s voice.

Pinkie Pie bounced in out of nowhere. “Hey Dashie!” her expression changed from happiness to confusion. “Uh Dashie, your face looks more, um, colorful than usual, and are you about to take off or something?”

Rainbow Dash looked at Pinkie and realized what was going on.

“Oh, um,” she said, trying to save face. “I was just, um, oh forget it!” she took advantage of her already outstretched wings and took off onto the stage. She snatched the microphone out of Cobalt’s hoof and continued in his song (which was some sort of fast paced rock that she didn't recognize, but who cared?).

AFTER THE SONG

The music stopped and Rainbow hugged Cobalt, not knowing why, but only knowing that it made her insides feel warm, and that was good enough for her.

IN TWILIGHT’S NEW LOFT

Spike opened the door and looked inside with a lampshade on his head.

“Hey, Twilight, are you sure that you don’t want to come down and party?” he asked. “Rainbow Dash and Cobalt are going insane!”

Twilight raised her head a little from lying down. “They’ve made up then.” She let out a deep sigh. “No, I don’t want to party Spike. All the ponies in this town are NUTS! All making friends and stuff, it’s just crazy!”

Spike shrugged. “Okay then. Suit yourself.”

BACK DOWNSTAIRS

Cobalt laughed nervously. “Um, Dash, you can stop hugging me now.”

Rainbow broke away from him blushing furiously. “Uhh.”

“S’cool. Those were some epic lines you were throwing down back there! How’d you learn to do that?”

“Um, I guess just natural ability.” She admitted sheepishly.

“That’s so freaking cool!” Cobalt exclaimed.

There was an awkward silence.

“Sooo.” Cobalt tried. “Wanna dance?”

Dash’s face completely flooded with red. “Uhhhh…” her thoughts became lightheaded and unclear. She giggled in a high-pitched voice. “Uh, s-sure!”

They landed and started to dance happily to the beat.

THE NEXT DAY

“Hey, hey! Twilight! Wake up!” Twilight’s eyes flickered open. Spike was trying to wake her up.

“Twilight! The party’s over and you’re about to miss the Summer Sun Celebration!” he yelled.

Her eyes shot open. “Oh no!” she knew the apocalypse was about to come and she was about to sleep through it!

She got onto her hooves and got Spike onto her back. She didn’t waste a moment running out the door and to town hall.

The mayor was just finishing her announcements and introducing Princess Celestia.

And then a curtain supposed to be veiling Celestia was pulled away revealing… nopony.

A collective gasp rose from the assembled ponies, and seconds seemed to stretch for hours. Then a wisp of dark blue smoke came out of the place where Celestia was supposed to appear. The wisp solidified into the shape of a menacing dark blue alicorn and clearly became a living pony.

“CITIZENS OF EQUESTRIA!” the alicorn boomed. “BOW TO YOUR RULER! LONG I HAVE WAITED IN MY BANISHMENT IN MY MOON, AND I HAVE RETURNED! BOW TO NIGHTMARE MOON!”

Twilight gasped in horror. She had been right.

“Why I oughta!” Rainbow Dash said from where she was standing. She took off to try to pummel Nightmare Moon, but was held back by the tail by Applejack.

“Hold on there sugarcube, don’t do anything hasty now.” She said through a mouthful of tail.

“No. Let her go.” Cobalt ordered Applejack.

Applejack looked confused. “Ya sure about that pardner?”

“Yes, she knows what she’s doing.” He narrowed his eyes. “And so do I.” He took off as Applejack let Rainbow go, and they accelerated toward Nightmare Moon together.

Nightmare saw Rainbow coming, as she was more noticeable due to her coloring, and teleported slightly to her left to dodge, right into Cobalt’s path. He slammed his hoof right into her jaw and a fang fell out. He just landed next to her with an angry expression on his face. She looked stunned that anypony would put up such a fierce resistance to her power, and glared at him contemptuously. “WHO DOST THOU THINK THOU ART?!” she demanded.

Cobalt grinned and his eyes flashed. “I’m Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog!”

Friendship is Magic: Part 2

Hello, I’m not dead! Sorry this took so long, but I’ve had some things come us and I didn’t really get to this that much. Again, thank you for viewing.

Nightmare Moon’s fury was tempered by utter confusion for a small fraction of a second. “WHAT? WHY WOULD YOU CALL YOURSELF A HEDGEHOG IF YOU ARE CLEARLY A PEGASUS?!”

Cobalt facehooved. “Fine! Sonic the Pegasus then, happy?!” he pivoted on his front legs and bucked her in the face.

“YOU ARE GOING TO PAY FOR THAT YOU PEST!” Nightmare thundered, staggering backward.

Rainbow Dash slammed into the back of her head, having done a perfect one eighty. “Take that you jerk!”

“YOU WILL ALL SUFFER FOR YOU ACTIONS!” Nightmare Moon boomed. “IF YOU DARE TO TRY TO STOP MY NIGHT FROM LASTING FOREVER, THEN CONFRONT ME IN THE EVERFREE FOREST!”

With that, she disappeared into the same dark blue smoke as before and vanished.

ONE TITLE SEQUENCE LATER

Rainbow Dash and Cobalt landed next to their friends. The rest of the crowd had fled in terror.

“The Everfree Forest?!” Fluttershy’s voice quavered in fear.

Cobalt and Twilight exchanged a glance and then asked in unison. “What’s so bad about the Everfree Forest?”

“Oh, it’s just terrible, darlings!” a white unicorn with a lustrous blue mane whom Cobalt had specified as Rarity exclaimed.

“The trees grow by themselves!” Applejack said.

“The animals take care of themselves!” Fluttershy cried in fear.

“And the clouds move on their own!” Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie yelled in unison.

“I’ll admit that’s odd, but right now we need to find the elements of harmony to fight Nightmare Moon!” Twilight announced. “And the best way to do that is to try to find a book that locates them.”

“Which means we’re going back to the library.” Cobalt sighed.

“Ugh, I hate books!” Rainbow groaned. “Do we really have to Sonic, uh, Cobalt?” She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “What’s up with that anyway?”

“I–I don’t know.” Cobalt stammered in confusion. “That name just came to me. I don’t even know what it means if it means anything at all. I… look, just keep calling me Cobalt for now.”

Rainbow Dash frowned even further, even more suspicious now, and with that added to her conflicting emotions toward him, she was really confused.

“Well, ah suggest that we discuss this later and focus on stoppin’ this Nightmare Moon nah.” Applejack reasoned.

“Humph, fine.” Dash agreed grudgingly.

Cobalt was so confused at that moment. He thought that Rainbow liked him, but her attitude had changed like the passing breeze. Girls were just so complicated.

The eight trotted (or in Cobalt and Rainbow’s case, flew, and in Spike’s case, ran) back to the library.

Twilight entered first, followed more slowly by the other seven. She started levitating hundreds of books off the shelves and desperately flipping through them.

“Elements of harmony, elements of harmony, come on!” she said angrily, her searching not uncovering anything.

“Found it!” Pinkie called happily, bouncing over with a heavy leather bound book.

Twilight gaped at how Pinkie had somehow found what they had been looking for before she had. “H-how?”

“It was under ‘E’!” Pinkie glowed.

Everypony but Pinkie facehooved.

“Okay then.” Cobalt said again, which brought a laugh from all of them, especially Rainbow Dash. For some reason she found his jokes a lot more funny than the others.

Twilight took the book and flipped through it. She quickly found the page that gave the general information and the location of the elements.
“Okay, says here that there are five known elements, and when the five are united the sixth will be revealed.” She read. “The elements are laughter, honesty, loyalty, generosity, kindness, and the sixth is unknown.”

“So where are they darling?” Rarity asked.

“Err, says they’re located in the old palace of the royal pony sisters. There’s a map here too.”

“Well, I could copy it and–” Spike began, but was interrupted as Twilight put her horn to the book page and it glowed a bit.

“Memory imprinting spell.” She informed them when she was done. “I now know it by heart.”

“Or you could do that.” Spike agreed.

“Spike, stay here.” Twilight ordered. “I’ve got to go!” she dashed out the door, only to have her way blocked by Rainbow Dash.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Rainbow protested. “You’re not going anywhere without us!”

Cobalt flew over and joined Dash. “She’s right. We’re either coming with you or stopping you from hurting yourself.”

Twilight audibly growled. “Fine. I don’t know why you’d want to though.”

“Because you’re our friend.” Fluttershy said calmly, ‘eep’ing and jumping in the air when Pinkie accidentally tapped her shoulder.

“Face it. We’re coming with you whether you like it or not.” Cobalt said finally.

They exited the library in double file, with Twilight at the head and the others following in pairs. Spike stayed behind at Twilight’s orders to guard the library.

Cobalt stayed at the back of he line with RD for some reason. He couldn’t figure out why, but he liked to be around her.

When he noticed that her pupils were pinpricks, and her mane was frizzing up, he couldn’t help asking what was up.

“Oh, I’m just cold that’s all.” She replied shortly.

Cobalt raised an eyebrow. “You and I both know that’s not true.”

Her face glowed pink. “I’m just a teeny bit scared of the Everfree Forest.” She exhaled hard and blushed some more. “There. I said it. Happy?”

Cobalt moved a little closer to her and put his wing around her back (it’s the pegasus equivalent of sort of a discreet hug). “Don’t worry Dash. If it gets really scary you can hold my hoof.”

She smiled. “Thanks.” As they had reached the forest, she pulled free of his wing and started to put on a show of her usual cocky bravado near the front of the line.

Cobalt blinked as he realized that Dash had just shown him a side of herself she’d probably never shown anyone else. He blushed. She must really trust him. He hadn’t thought about it much, but he kind of liked her. As in like liked her. His wings stretched out as he thought about her.

Rainbow prowled around low to the ground. “Do you all remember the rumors about the Everfree Forest?” she asked in a low, growly voice. “There are monsters and predators that would eat you up in a second.” She made her way behind a bush. “And when you least expect it, they pop out of nowhere!” she burst out of the bush, scaring poor Fluttershy so much that she fell over, quivering.

“Stop it Rainbow! You’re gonna give Fluttershy a heart attack!” Applejack reprimanded her.

Rainbow let out a giggle. “Yeah, sorry.”

Cobalt snickered, and then whacked his hoof on something while walking. After hopping around for a few moments muttering ‘ow, ow, ow’, he bent down and examined it.

It was a cyan blue jewel, in the general shape of a diamond, an emerald he decided, and it was so polished that Cobalt could see his reflection in it, despite it having been in the woods for who knows how long. He was sure that the others had walked over that same spot before him, and got a sinking feeling that the emerald had appeared just for him.

“Cobalt, what’s keeping you?” he heard Twilight call from ahead.

“Uh, I found something.” He called back. “I think it’s important.”

While the others doubled back to join him, he picked up the emerald in his teeth and flipped it up in the air, catching it in his hoof.

Rarity was the first to see it. “Oh my stars!” she exclaimed. “This will simply go perfect on my next design! You must let me have it my dear Cobalt!”

“Ah, no.” Cobalt said, moving the emerald a little ways away from her. “I think this is significant to my past somehow, as weird as that sounds. I think I’m–”

His eyes flashed and he was transported into the realms of his subconscious.

His vision was black except for flashes of random color.

“Hah! You won’t stop me this time, you blue pest!” a voice said, and a round red color splotch appeared.

“Think again, Egg-butt!” he heard himself yell. He felt a severe sense of warmth and power along with a feeling of seven powerful jewels around him, including the cyan one. And then a flash of yellow enveloped his vision.

He was thrown back into the present quite suddenly. Rainbow Dash was slapping him in the face, her expression one of worry and fear.

“Wake up, Cobalt!” she cried.

“Ow.” He muttered.

Rainbow’s face broke out in a smile, and tears, hopefully of relief, formed in her eyes. She hugged him tightly. “Oh I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I might pass out again if you squeeze me any tighter!” He choked, already having black spots appearing in his vision.

She let him go. “Sorry.”

“Um, Cobalt, two things.” Twilight said. “One, you might want one of us to carry that thing for you so you don’t pass out again, and two, look at your flank.”

After an immediate thought of, why the heck are you staring at my flank?, Cobalt set down the emerald and turned around. A design had appeared on his flank that he knew hadn’t been there before. It was a gold yellow ring with the blue emerald on the exterior, placed like there were other things meant to surround the ring as well.

“A cutie mark!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“A what now?” Cobalt asked in confusion.

“A cutie mark.” Twilight explained. “It’s the mark that appears on a pony’s flank when they realize their special talent.” Her eyes clouded with confusion. “But I don’t think that mark is related to any special talent at all.”

“Oh, so that’s what the tattoos on your flanks mean.” Cobalt realized. “I thought that was just personal preference.”

“Nope!” RD exclaimed, flying up next to him. “Mine’s pretty cool, right?”

“Yeah.” Cobalt agreed. “Well, enough dawdling. Let’s get moving.” He stowed the emerald in his mane and started to walk again.

It wasn’t long before the seven found a cliff edge that seemed too steep to climb down.

“Ohh, we’ll never get there now.” Fluttershy fretted.

“Ah, c’mon Fluttershy, are you a pegasus or what?” Rainbow chastised.

With everypony distracted, no one noticed the dark smoke that broke the cliff off the edge.

Cobalt, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy were fine, as they simply unfolded their wings and hovered, but the rest were sliding down the incline at a scarily fast speed.

Twilight managed to grab a hoofhold on a rock very near the edge of the drop-off, and she held on for dear life, not knowing any spells to levitate herself. Suddenly Applejack appeared beside her, not holding onto the cliff.

“Just let go Twilight!” she called. “Let go and you’ll be okay!”

“ARE YOU NUTS!?” Twilight erupted. “If I let go I’ll fall, and if I fall, I’ll die, and if I die we’ll never find the elements!”

“I’m not lyin’, sugarcube!” Applejack insisted. “Let. Go.”

Twilight closed her eyes. “Sweet Celestia help me.” She muttered, and let go. She felt the terrifying sensation of falling, and then felt something grab her hoof.

She opened her eyes and saw Cobalt grinning down at her, straining and sweating with the effort of carrying both her and Applejack.

She glanced farther up the slope and saw Rainbow Dash carrying Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy keeping Rarity from falling. She breathed a loud sigh of relief.

Cobalt and the other pegasi lowered the others into the forest below, and Cobalt nearly passed out from exhaustion.

They waited a second to regenerate, and then carried on. Eventually they came across an area of particularly menacing looking trees.
Cobalt noticed the others starting to tremble, and Dash’s mane and tail frizzing more than usual. Except Pinkie. She was busy laughing at the faces (*Cough* Wizard of Oz *Cough*) on the trees. She began rolling on the ground.

He took a risk. “What are you doing Pinkie?”

“Duh, I’m laughing at the scary trees!” she gasped in between giggles.

“Um, why?”

“Because when I was little, I used to get scared of all the scary faces in the dark, but then I just learned to laugh at them and make them go away!”

[Cue background soundtrack]

ONE UNPLANNED AND ANNOYING SONG LATER

“Laaaugh!” Pinkie finished, making the last of the tree faces disappear.

“I must admit, Pinkie Pie, that was a rather amusing song.” Rarity confessed.

“It gave me the funny hiccups.” Fluttershy agreed, hiccupping to prove her point.

“That song had swag.” Cobalt and Rainbow said at the same time, then both blushed.

“Woulda been better with a banjo.” Applejack commented.

“Great job Pinkie!” Twilight praised. “Now we’re one step closer!”

The group carried on deeper into the forest and soon came across a bridge with their side attached and the other hanging into the ravine below.

"Ha!” Dash laughed confidently. “I’ve got this.” She flew into the pit and grabbed the other side of the bridge, then flew that up to the other side and started to attach it to the posts.

Then the wisp of smoke appeared again and solidified into the forms of three pegasi in black and purple uniforms.

“Hello Rainbow Dash.” One of them said, startling her. She jumped up into the air and slowly landed again.

“Uh, yeah?” she asked cautiously, not expecting to see pony folk this deep into the woods.

“We have heard tales of your remarkable feats from those on the outside.” The same shadow pegasus spoke again.

Rainbow stuck her chest out in pride. “That’s right.”

“We would like you to join our team of fliers.” The same shadow pony said. “We are the Shadowbolts! The best flying team in the Everfree Forest and soon all Equestria!”

“Sounds awesome!” Dash exclaimed, getting in to it. “But first I have to fix this bridge so my friends can get across.”

“No!” the shadow pegasus roared, surprising Rainbow to no end. “It’s either them or us.”

The ultimatum shocked her for a second, causing her to sweat.

“You.” Rainbow sighed eventually. The shadow entity grinned in triumph, until Rainbow continued her sentence. “No thank you, I mean. Really, it sounds great, but I’m a teeny bit more concerned with stopping Nightmare Moon at the moment. Thanks, but no thanks.” She turned her back and proceeded fixing the bridge. The Shadowbolts growled in frustration and disappeared into the same black smoke as before.

The others crossed the bridge and Cobalt hugged Rainbow, making her blush.

Two words.” He declared. “You are awesome.” She smiled and hugged him back. “I heard it all.” He added quietly.

“Ahem.” Twilight interrupted. “Not to interrupt a moment or anything, but we’ve got to get moving.”

Dash and Cobalt broke away, embarrassed, and moved on with their friends.

Eventually they crossed paths with a river and its dragon, who was sobbing for some reason and making the river roil with his thrashing.

“We’re never going to get across at this rate.” Twilight said analytically.

“Oh my moustache, my beautiful moustache!” the dragon cried.

Cobalt put a hoof to his chin to think. “Maybe if I kick it?” he wondered, earning death glares from the others.

“Oh, he seems so sad.” Fluttershy said, concerned for the dragon’s welfare.

Rarity spotted the problem. She walked right up to the dragon and tapped his arm to get his attention. “Excuse me kind sir, I was walking by and I couldn’t help but notice your terrible fashion problem.”

“I know, it’s terrible!” the dragon wailed.

“Oh yes, a nice gentleman like you should never have to suffer such a misery such as this!” she said, pouring on the flattery, while carefully examining his scales.

“Really?” the dragon sniffled. Meanwhile, Applejack rolled her eyes.

“Yes, and I have just the thing to fix this!” Rarity exclaimed, plucking off a scale from the dragon’s side and slashing off her own tail to just a few inches left. “Here, take it.” she said, offering it to the dragon.

“Really?” the dragon asked.

“Of course.”

The dragon smiled and took the tail, sticking it to the un-moustached side of his snout. He stopped thrashing and that was enough to let the ponies cross the river, except Cobalt, who flew because of a deep-rooted hatred of water.

“Uhh, are ya sure yer okay with yer tail there Rarity?” Applejack asked, looking at her friend strangely.

“Oh yes, I simply couldn’t let such a crime against fashion go unhealed. Besides,” she added, hesitating. “It’ll grow back.”

“So would the moustache.” Rainbow muttered under her breath. Applejack held back a laugh as Cobalt and Rainbow discreetly high-hoofed.

The seven carried on to a section of forest where they heard a stomping noise followed by an enraged roaring.

“Well that can’t be good.” Cobalt sighed, his shoulders sagging.

He was right, as a manticore came snarling out of the shadows where the roar had come from.

Rarity came up to it first. “Sir, I must say that your snarling is quite ungentlemanly and–” was all she could get out before being grabbed and thrown by the manticore.

“Wait.” Fluttershy called quietly from the sidelines.

Pinkie approached it next, laughing at it like it was the funniest joke in the world, but was backhanded away.

“Wait.” Fluttershy tried again.

Twilight tried to run up and use some kind of spell, but got punted like a football into a tree.

“Wait.” Fluttershy whispered, beginning to get slightly agitated.

Applejack tried brute force and simply charged the beast with her lasso ready (no idea where she got that), but the manticore simply slapped her through the air.

“All yours, Rainbow!” she yelled as she flew backward.

“Wait.” Fluttershy called, more loudly.

Dash arial charged the mythical monster, but was grabbed and stuffed into its jaws. As she was to big to eat whole, the manticore simply bit down harder and harder, making her scream in agony.

Cobalt’s vision went red, and before Fluttershy could even say anything, he screamed, “LEAVE HER ALONE!” and launched himself at top speed into the manticore’s gut.

The lion headed beast spit Rainbow out motionless on the ground and lost wind from the impact, desperately clawing at Cobalt to get him off. He was flung next to Dash on the ground, his sides heaving and blood seeping from a claw mark.

The rest were about to charge the manticore again when Fluttershy shed her politeness and screamed, “WAIT!”

Everyone (and thing) stopped, and the only sound was of the crickets chirping and Fluttershy treading across the grass to the manticore.

“Oh, you’re just a bit hurt aren’t you?” she cooed, stroking the manticore’s arm. “Show me where you’re hurting, big fella.”

The sharp fanged monster lifted a paw and whined like a sad dog. The problem was obvious now, a thorn driven deep in to the creature’s pad.

“It’s just a little splinter making you so mad, isn’t it?” Fluttershy asked, and the manticore nodded. “That’s okay, I’ll just take that out and you’ll be good as new.” She then took one big heave and pulled the thorn out, the manticore letting out a stifled mew. It examined its pad, then Fluttershy, then picked her up, licking her affectionately like a cat.

The rest had regrouped, dragging Rainbow and Cobalt, who had lost consciousness due to their injuries. The manticore let Fluttershy down and trudged away into the wilderness.

“I’ve just got one question.” Twilight asked as they looked for a sheltered place to tend to their friend’s wounds. “How did you know about the thorn?”

“I didn’t.” Fluttershy said happily. “Sometimes everybody just needs a little sympathy.”

ONE MINUTE LATER

The five ponies still awake had managed to find a rocky cliff hanging over a grassy area, and set down their two half dead friends. Fluttershy used her medical knowledge to stop the bleeding and clean the wounds, and Twilight made them scab over more quickly than normal with a spell.

Cobalt woke up again, wincing at the pain on his left side as he tried to stand. “Oh.” He groaned. “I think it broke my wing.” He tried to stretch his left wing and flinched, just resisting shouting in agony. His wing was definitely broken.

He managed to get onto his hooves and his vision fell on Rainbow Dash, who was still lying in a puddle of her own blood, that having flowed before her friends could stop it. He could see several scabs where the fangs had pierced her flesh, and inhaled sharply when he saw her mangled wings. They were twisted beyond what should be possible, and covered with blood.

His friends followed his gaze and knew what he was thinking. Rainbow might never fly again.

Her eyes started to flutter open, reassuring everyone that she wasn’t dead, and at once she screamed at the pain that wracked her nervous system. She visibly bit her tongue to hold another outburst, and gradually moved her eyes to her own wings.

She didn’t scream, she didn’t shout, or do anything of the sort. Silent tears began to fall from her eyes and everyone knew she must have been dying on the inside. Her flying was everything to her. Take that away and she was just a weak teenage filly without a job or a dream.
Slowly she staggered into a standing position and stopped the tears, putting on a determined expression.

“Well?” she asked angrily, her voice cracking. “We’ve got a world to save. Let’s get a move on!” The others silently nodded, even Pinkie seemed solemn, and they slowly filed out of the cave.

Their journey finally brought them to their destination. The ancient castle of the royal pony sisters, but nobody felt triumphant, only sad or nervous at what had already happened and what was to come.

Twilight turned to give a pep talk, but when she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out. She settled for a determined nod that was returned by the rest. They entered the hall and walked to the end, where the elements were placed in a circle on respective designs on the floor, all pointing to the center of the circle.

“Well, we’ve found them.” Twilight commented. “Now what?”

“I’LL TELL YOU WHAT!” a ridiculously loud voice boomed from the walls. Really dark blue smoke seeped from the cracks in the walls and into the room, solidifying once again into the dark alicorn. “I WILL SIMPLY DESTROY THEM!” Nightmare Moon stomped her hoof on the ground, making the elements float into the air in slow-mo and shatter.

Twilight’s pupils went pinprick and she gasped, her surprise quickly turning into rage at the thought of coming all this way and suffering the loss of Rainbow’s wings for nothing. She launched herself at the surprised Nightmare, who teleported away along with Twilight and the elements.

Twilight’s friends yelled her name and quickly started searching everywhere.

MEANWHILE IN THE HALL OF JUSTICE (just kidding)

ONE TELEPORTATION LATER

Nightmare Moon and Twilight appeared in what was supposed to be the throne room of the old castle, and the element pieces fell to the floor.

“WHY DO YOU STILL PUT UP SUCH A FIGHT?!” Nightmare wondered. “I HAVE THE ELEMENTS AND HAVE WON!”

Twilight heard her friends coming down the hall behind her and was struck with a sudden realization, making her grin in pre-triumph. “You think you can destroy the elements just like that? The elements can’t be destroyed, as the real elements are not stones, but the spirits that embody them.”

“WHAT?” Nightmare roared.

Her friends entered the room and saw the confrontation. They glanced at Twilight’s expression and immediately understood she was about to make a big move.

“Applejack, telling the truth at the falling cliff, is honesty!” four element fragments flew up around Applejack and lifted her into the air, glowing orange and filling her with energy.

“Pinkie Pie, with her abundant joy even in the face of terror, is laughter!” four more element pieces circled Pinkie and lifted her into the air, glowing light blue.

“Rarity, with her willingness to give, even at the cost of her own happiness, is generosity!” Rarity was lifted into the air by four more element pieces, glowing purple.

“Fluttershy, for her care to those whom others think don’t deserve it, is kindness!” Fluttershy covered her eyes as her yellow pigmented element fragments lifted her skyward.

“Rainbow Dash, never abandoning her friends at any temptation, is loyalty!” Rainbow’s sullen expression disappeared, replaced by wonder as her glowing red element fragments circled her, making the blood trails on her wings and her side and completely fixing her fatally wounded wings.

“And the spirit that binds them all together is me, magic!” Twilight finished, her eyes glowing pure white and a tiara with her lavender cutie mark as its centerpiece appearing on her head.

She floated into the air along with her friends, whose element fragments had become gilded necklaces with the centerpieces being their cutie marks and been strapped around their necks.

“HA!” Nightmare exclaimed. “YOU THINK THAT JUST THE POWERS OF HARMONY ALONE CAN DEFEAT ME? PURE HARMONY CANNOT AFFECT ME!”

Cobalt got struck with realization too. “Which is why they need a little bit of disharmony to go with it!” He quickly brought out the emerald that he’d found earlier and tossed it in the air. It flew toward him like the little force of gravity he generated was enough to do so, and it dissolved into his chest. He radiated cyan for a second, and then his fur and mane seemed to glow a little yellow and his emerald eyes took on a bit of red tint.

He hovered in the air with the other six and grinned. “I am chaos.”

An easily viewable rainbow flowed out of the seven of them, punctuated with occasional lightning strikes from Cobalt’s chaotic force.

“NO! NO! NOOOOO!” Nightmare Moon screamed as the rainbow enveloped her and expanded into a (nonlethal) multicolored explosion.

When the light had cleared from the seven’s eyes, they were back on the ground, still wearing their elements (Cobalt was holding the emerald), and back to normal.

Nightmare Moon, now to be called Princess Luna, had shrunk down to the size of a normal pony, and did not radiate an aura of darkness any more.

“Did we win?” Twilight asked dazedly with a grin, swaying on her hooves, and then falling on her side, utterly too tired to stay conscious.

[Commercial break begin]
It’s radical!
*Chug, chug, chug*
Radical!
*Chug, chug, chug*
Drink it!
[Commercial break end]

The next scene is back in Ponyville where Celestia is commending Twilight and her friends on her work, having heard seven different versions of the story.

“I am sure now that Princess Luna is back to normal, she will not cause anymore trouble, am I right sister?” she asked pointedly.

Luna nodded, embarrassed at her insane actions.

“Now that your duties are over, are you glad to go back to your studies at the Canterlot library?” Celestia asked with a note of amusement.

Twilight bit her tongue in apprehension, as she wanted to stay so badly. “Umm, about that, Princess, I sort of want to stay, is it pos–”

Celestia cut her off, knowing what she was going to ask next. “I thought you might say that. How about this? You may continue your studies here in Ponyville, sending me a report each week about what you have learned about the magic of friendship?”

In the background both Cobalt and Rainbow facehooved at the sappy, sentimental sound of that phrase.

“Oh, can I?” Twilight asked enthusiastically. Celestia nodded. “Yes please!”

With that resolved, all the others started high-hoofing and cheering.

Amidst this, Celestia leaned her head near Twilight’s ear when the others were looking away. “Keep an eye on that Cobalt fellow. I sense that there is something about him that will bring a change to Equestria.”

Twilight nodded dutifully, and the last scene was of Cobalt and Rainbow giving each other a friendly hug.

ONE ENDING CREDITS LATER

Dreams and Confusion

Cobalt Spikes and Rainbow Dash accelerated through the light rain in a wild high-speed mock race.

“Hah!” Rainbow yelled, grinning in pure delight. “Think you can beat me?”

Cobalt laughed. “Try me! You remember that you called me ‘the only one who can keep up with you’?”

“Psh! You know that I only said that as a dare from Pinkie Pie!” Rainbow countered adding in a light giggle that let him know she was kidding.

Cobalt smiled and turned a little bit toward Rainbow and knocked into her from the side just enough to throw her off balance and angle her flight a little downward into the mud below.

She crashed into the mud and it splattered all over her, leaving her sitting there with a befuddled expression.

Cobalt stopped in midflight and laughed hysterically until he felt something slimy and wet slam into his back. He fell into the mud pit too.

“Dirty move.” He growled playfully as he realized Rainbow had pushed him in as revenge. She cannonballed next to him.

“No, you’re a dirty move!” Rainbow laughed, pushing a wave of mud on him. He closed his eyes as it covered him, and spat out what got in his mouth.

He and Dash started laughing and pushing mud on each other, generally having a good time and enjoying each other’s company.

Cobalt briefly wondered where they were exactly, as he didn’t recognize his surroundings, but that tended to happen when he was going really fast, and he dismissed it as general confusion.

Speaking of confusion, something weird was going on with him. Every time he saw Rainbow Dash, his heart started thumping to the point where if it was silent enough you could hear the individual beats. He became all light headed and smiley when she was mentioned, and he lost track of reality.

He was confused as why this was happening, and he made a mental note about asking Twilight for some explanation.

They stopped laughing and playing, still smiling though, and Cobalt’s brain went into overdrive automatically. He was noticing every detail, the cold of the rain, the flecks of muck caught in Dash’s mane and on her face, and the gradual way her pupils enlarged when she looked directly at him.

Even through the strands of multicolored hair and the smudges of mud on her face, it was still slightly obvious that her cheeks were slowly turning pink, and then moving on to a deep red color.

Cobalt’s heart started hammering and he felt himself leaning closer to her. She mimicked his motions, closing her eyes.

He closed his eyes and leaned closer. Their noses touched, and then…

“COBALT! BREAKFAST!” Twilight’s shout shattered his mind.

He woke up and fell out of the guest bed, tangled in the covers.

A dream.

It had been a dream.

ONE TITLE SEQUENCE LATER

Cobalt stirred some orange juice with a straw thoughtfully at the library’s kitchen table, reminiscing over his recent dreams. They’d been a little whack lately.

His subconscious must be deliberately trying to screw with his waking mind, because it seemed intent on making his dreams inconsistent and erratic.

He had had more of those weird dreams where he was floating in the black space with random splotches of color here and there and the voices. Always with the voices.

And then there was that sinking feeling that he didn’t belong in this colorful world of magic and light. Combine that with the hearing voices in his dreams, and you’d have a pretty good recipe for insanity.

Maybe he was insane.

Does a madman know he’s mad?

If a tree falls in a forest, and no pony's around to hear it...

Cobalt shook his head. He’d had enough of philosophy. It screwed with his mind and turned his brain inside out.

Twilight must have noticed his strange behavior from across the table, unlike his and Rainbow Dash’s usual confident demeanor, and she tried asking about it. “What’s up Cobalt? You seem a bit… detached.”

“Huh?” Cobalt asked, looking up confusedly, his vision a little focused more toward the center than usual. His eyes snapped into focus and he exhaled heavily. “It’s nothing. I do have a few questions though at some things I’ve been feeling. I don’t think I’m sick, but I need some info.”

“Shoot.” Twilight said, putting her forelegs on the table and crossing them.
Cobalt squeezed his eyes shut and opened them slowly. “Okay. I’ve been feeling some whack stuff lately. I think it may be associated with Rainbow Dash.”

“Uh huh.” Twilight murmured, taking mental notes. “And how exactly do you feel?”

“Well, when I’m around her, I feel all warm and fuzzy, and my brain kicks into maximum overdrive, and when she’s mentioned, I feel all lightheaded and dizzy and lose track of everything. It’s just not like me.”

“Hmmm.” Twilight thought, coming over to his side and grinning inside as she put a foreleg around him. “I think I may have an inkling about what’s up, but you’d better ask Fluttershy. She’s good with people.”

“Cool, thanks!” Cobalt threw over his shoulder, having already taken off out the door.

Little did they know that a rainbow form had been watching from outside the window and now flew away. When she was watching, she couldn’t hear their conversation, but could definitely see it. And a little pocket of pure rage had opened up when she saw Twilight touch Cobalt.

“Why am I feeling like this?” she asked herself. “Twilight would never betray me like that, would she?” she dismissed it and decided to nap on a cloud a little bit away from Sweet Apple Acres. Being the napping champion of Equestria, she was asleep in a heartbeat.

A FEW MINUTES LATER

Rainbow tossed and turned, muttering, “No, no, don’t do it!” with her eyes squeezed shut like she was blocking out something terrible. Suddenly her eyes shot open with a gasp and she realized she was waking from a nightmare in a cold sweat. Her surprise melted into anger as she remembered whatever her dream had been about, and she narrowed her eyes and growled, “I’m gonna flay you Twilight Sparkle.” Before taking off in a confused, post-dream state.

OBLIGATORY TRANSITION THING

Fluttershy stood outside her house, humming a familiar bit of music that she couldn't name while putting some seed in a birdhouse.

A rainbow colored blur shot past her, blowing the wind one way, and then a blue blur shot by, stopping right next to her and blowing the wind the other way.

“Hi Fluttershy.” Cobalt said, turning toward her. Apparently he’d surprised her a little too much, as her pupils were enlarged and she was pouring the birdseed onto the ground.

ONE SHOCK RECOVERY LATER

“Hello Cobalt, what brings you here?” Fluttershy asked politely. “I mean, if you actually wanted to be here anyway.”

“Twilight sent me.” Cobalt replied. “She said that I should ask you about something.”

ONE RECAPITULATION LATER

“And then I flew off.” Cobalt finished.

Fluttershy set down the bag of birdseed. “Yes, I know exactly what’s wrong. Do you want to know?”

“Yes!” Cobalt exclaimed.
Fluttershy nodded. “Okay. This may come as a bit of a shock to you, but I believe you have a crush on Rainbow Dash.”

“Oh crap.” Cobalt breathed, falling on his haunches and resting his face on his hooves as he realized that she was probably right. “No. I can’t be.”

Fluttershy giggled. “Sure you can.”

Cobalt looked up at her, his green eyes having gotten huge. “No, you don’t understand. I have no memory. I feel like I don’t belong. What if I turn out to be some kind of killer?”

“That will never happen.” Fluttershy said, slightly assertively in trying to make him feel better, like she was talking to one of her animals.

“Wh- what do I do now?” Cobalt asked, completely shedding his calm, collected, optimistic personality since he felt like a little kid lost in the woods. He didn’t know what to do or where to go from there, having been floored by this news.

“I think the best thing to do is to just wait for the two of you to become closer and then confess your feelings when you feel the time is right.” Fluttershy advised.

Cobalt nodded, feeling a bit better. “Okay, I will. Thanks Fluttershy.”

He flew off slower than usual in the direction of the library.

WITH TWILIGHT SPARKLE

“Aaand that just about does it for the book organization.” Twilight finished, magically sliding the last book in place. “I knew giving Spike the day off was a good idea.” She smiled, knowing the baby dragon was asleep upstairs and no matter what happened he wouldn’t get up until the next day.

She was just about to sit down for a rest when her door was busted open and nearly knocked off its hinges.

“I’m gonna KILL you, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash’s voice yelled from outside, sounding angrier than anypony ever thought possible.

Twilight blinked and immediately felt a solid punch connect square to her jaw, knocking her back against the shelves of books and knocking a few on top of her. She levitated them off her and launched them in retaliation at the enraged spectra colored mare trying to murder her.

Rainbow dodged all of them and shot at Twilight, pinning her against the wall with a hoof and drawing the other back for a fatal punch.

“Calm down Rainbow!” Twilight yelled, more angered than scared by Dash’s actions. “What did I do to make you so mad?”

“You kissed Cobalt right in front of me and everyone and then laughed about it!” tears began to flow from Rainbow’s eyes as she remembered the cold and alone feeling of the dream. “HOW COULD YOU?!”

Twilight’s mind reeled. This was more emotional than Dash had ever gotten ever. And over a dream no less!

“Rainbow, calm down! I didn’t actually do anything, it was just a nightmare!” she protested desperately.

“Yeah, well how can I be sure you won’t completely betray me in real life?” Rainbow growled, her anger still there, just dimmed down a bit, having let out most of her emotion about the dream.

She drew her hoof back a little farther.

“STOP!” a voice shouted from the door. The mares whirled around to see Cobalt standing in the doorframe. “What the hay is going on!”

“None of your business!” Rainbow told him.

“Cobalt go upstairs and wait for a few minutes.” Twilight told him, sounding a little more reasonable than Dash. “I can work this out.”

Cobalt still looked unsure about it all, but he did as he was told and trekked up the stairs and into the room where he slept.

“Rainbow, I think I’ve figured out what’s up.” Twilight reasoned. “Will you just let me talk to you?”

Dash sighed heavily, and let a few tears spill from her eyes in guilt for her actions. “Sure.” She muttered, letting Twilight go and slumping in a sitting position on the floor, her anger completely gone, and replaced by utter emotional defeat.

Twilight dusted herself off and rubbed her sore jaw. “Okay,” she began. “The think you’re feeling right now is called jealousy. It came about when in your dream I kissed Cobalt in front of you. And just for the record, I would never do that.”

“But–”

“Quiet.” Twilight interrupted. “It was just a dream. I have two things to read for you, and you will listen to them.” She levitated a copy of The Definitive Guide To Emotions off the shelf and flipped to a the J's.

“This is the definition of jealousy.” Twilight informed her. “Jealousy is a feeling of resentment toward a pony whom one thinks as a rival. Rainbow, do you think of me as a rival against you for Cobalt’s affection?”

“Well, sort of, but–”

“In that case, I have one more definition to read for you.” Twilight interrupted again, flipping toward a later page. “Love is a feeling that can take hold inside an individual when they feel a strong affection toward somepony else. It can often lead to jealousy (see page 53). Rainbow, I think as hard as it is to accept, especially for you, I really believe that you have feelings for Cobalt.”

Rainbow felt tears well up in her eyes and she started to sob into her hooves in remorse. “I’m so sorry!” she wailed. “You’re right! You’re so right! I-I’m such an idiot! I do have feelings for Cobalt, and I-I am jealous!” she looked up with huge teary eyes. “P-please forgive me.”

Twilight was taken aback at how easily Rainbow admitted her feelings, but she wasn’t in a place to judge. “I forgive you,” she said.

WITH COBALT UPSTAIRS

All Cobalt could really do was sit on the guest bed and try to guess what was going on. He heard a bit of quiet speech and then some remorseful sounding wailing, and then it got quiet.

A few seconds later, Rainbow Dash opened the door with red rimmed eyes. “You can come down now. It’s all good.” She said calmly. “I’ve got to go.” She shot out the door and away into the sky.

Cobalt slowly descended the stairs. “Umm, mind telling me about what just happened?” he asked Twilight when he got down the stairs, completely confused as the last he’d seen was the two mares fighting.

Twilight smiled a little. “Rainbow’ll tell you later. Right now I’ve got a letter to write.”

She summoned a piece of parchment and a quill and wrote a quick letter on it, attempting a magical teleportation spell rather than waking Spike to send it. It vanished in a purple flash.

AT PRINCESS CELESTIA’S PALACE

A letter appeared in a flash of purple light and started to fall right in front of Princess Celestia. She used her magic to catch it before it hit the ground, and then opened it up.

“Dear Princess Celestia,” She read. “Today I learned that no matter what you’re feeling, even if it tears you up inside, you should never let that get in the way of a friendship. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”

Celestia smiled at her student’s progress in her assignment to learn about friendship.

ONE ENDING CREDITS LATER

Author's Note

As I look back at these early chapters, I see that in the beginning, I was really bad at this. I've gotten much better, but that kicks in much later, so I'm just going to keep posting the old ones for now.

The Ticket Master

Cobalt Spikes, Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, and Spike were harvesting apples at Sweet Apple Acres. Or at least Twilight, Cobalt, and Applejack were. Spike was busy looking at each apple in the basket on top of Twilight’s back and tossing out most of them.

“Thank ya kindly for helpin’ with the harvestin’, Twilight and Cobalt.” Applejack said. “I don’t know how ah could’ve done this without y’all.”

“Psh, it’s nothing.” Cobalt said with a small smile. He was more looking forward to spending time with Dash afterward though. They were planning to have their first official race afterward, though he was just happy to see her. After she and Twilight had that argument a few days ago, Cobalt had been trying to be close to Rainbow as much as possible.

As Fluttershy had said, he did have a crush on her, and being around her made him happy.

“Took a little longer than I expected though.” Twilight added.

“Yeah, I almost missed snack time.” Spike complained, pulling a perfect looking apple out of the pile. “Ah hah!”

“Whoa, nice apple!” Cobalt commented. There was a sound like a chainsaw and the apple disappeared.

Twilight facehooved.

ONE TITLE SEQUENCE LATER

Just then Spike’s stomach made a lurching noise. “Ohh,” he groaned. “Bad apple.” He burped out a wisp of green smoke that solidified into a scroll.

Spike held his stomach and unfurled the scroll. “Umm, this says, Princess Celestia is pleased to announce the annual Grand Galloping Gala and is offering two tickets to Twilight Sparkle for herself and a friend.”

Twilight’s eyes grew wide and she nearly choked on her words. “The Grand Galloping Gala?! That’s the social event of the year!”

“The what now?” Cobalt asked, still suffering from amnesia.

“The Grand Galloping Gala.” Applejack informed him. “It’s only the most attended event in Equestria. Ah swear if ah could get in there ah’d be able to sell enough apples to fix up everything on the farm!” she was really getting into it now. “We could fix Big Mac’s saggy old harness. We could fix the barn’s saggy old roof! For the heck of it we could fix Granny Smith’s saggy old hip!”

Cobalt nodded. “Didn’t need all that, but thanks.”

“Oh, could ah please go?” Applejack pleaded of Twilight. “Ah’d do anything!”

A rustling sound was heard overhead and a familiar cyan mare’s head poked out of a tree. “Did I hear Grand Galloping Gala?” Rainbow fell out of the tree and got up off the ground, dusting herself off.

“Yes, ya did.” Applejack said dryly. “Was y’all spyin’ on us?”

“No I’all wasn’t.” Rainbow said sarcastically, flying up to the tree and pulling out a pillow and blanket. “I was napping. It’s important stuff.”

That was only half true. She had been taking a catnap, but she’d also been spying. Not on the whole group particularly, but on Cobalt. She wasn’t sure why, but she was still partially suspicious that Twilight was going to make some sort of move, but she wasn’t going to let jealousy control her actions like last time’s disaster.

“So, what about the Gala?” Rainbow asked eagerly.

“Twilight’s got two tickets and is gonna give one to a friend.” Spike said matter of factly.

Dash let out a cheer and flipped a few times in the air, flinging the blanket and pillow on top of the tree. “Oh this is great! The Wonderbolts perform at the Gala! This is my big chance! I can see it now, they’re doing the show, then the crowd’s attention is drawn by a solitary flier on the edge of the arena. Who is it? Then the figure draws closer… and it’s me! I’ll…”

While Rainbow was doing her spiel, Cobalt and Spike were watching and mumbling to each other.

“Twenty bits that neither get the ticket.” Cobalt muttered.

“What, are you nuts? I’m not taking that deal.” Spike hissed. “Speaking of, why don’t you want the ticket?”

“I don’t know a thing about the social situation around here, I’d probably act stupid and get laughed at. Better just not to go. What about you?”

“What, me? Get all wrapped up in that girly frou-frou nonsense? Forget it bro.”

“Like a man, dude.” They discreetly brohoofed/brofisted.

Rainbow finished her fantasy and before Twilight could say anything, Applejack interrupted.

“Ah’m sorry Rainbow, but Twilight’s already givin’ the ticket to me, isn’t that right?” she shot a pointed glance at Twilight.

“Uhh,” Twilight began to sweat.

“Whoa, if that’s your take on it, let’s settle this with a hoof wrestling contest, here and now.” Rainbow challenged.

“Umm, guys?” Cobalt said, getting a bit worried. Applejack dropped the crate of apples as a makeshift table and she and Rainbow got into a hoof wrestling position (I can’t remember the term in the show, so I’ll just call it hoof wrestling, which is the equivalent of arm wrestling).

They were about to start duking it out, when Cobalt, desperate for an excuse, looked at the position of the sun in the sky and cursed. “Oh man!” he realized. “Dash, I totally forgot, we’ve got double shift today preparing for the rainstorm since Clear Sky and Robinwing are out, remember!”

Rainbow’s eyes widened and she cursed as well. “Oh crud! If we don’t get moving our supervisor from the Weather Council is gonna clip our wings! I’ll deal with you later.” She added as an afterthought, pointing at Applejack.

“Anytime.” Applejack retorted.

Cobalt grabbed Rainbow’s foreleg, which made her heart flutter a little bit, and started pulling her away. “Come on, we’ve got to go!”

The pair took to the skies and zipped off.

“Aww, they are so cute together.” A voice next to Applejack and Twilight said. They looked down to see a white unicorn with a blue mane trotting toward them.

“Hi Rarity? Why are you here?” Twilight inquired.

“I was just looking for a second opinion on my new hair design.” Rarity explained. She held back a bit of her mane to make it look shorter. “Well, what do you think?”

“Ya look like a varmit jackrabbit in a–” Applejack began.

“Yes, thank you Applejack.” Rarity interrupted. “Your opinion is very appreciated.” She let her mane fall. “So is anything else going on?”

“Yeah, Twilight’s got two tickets to the Gala.” Applejack said before Twilight could get anything out.

“The Gala?!” Rarity exclaimed. “Oh my gosh! I’ve wanted to attend that for years! I could¬–”

ONE ANNOYING SONG SECTION LATER

“Sorry, but Twilight’s givin’ the ticket to me.” Applejack interrupted Rarity.

“And whatever could make you say that?” Rarity demanded, giving way to cool, collected anger.

Twilight started to sweat again. “Uhhh.” She hauled Spike onto her back and galloped away right before Pinkie bounced in with a springing noise.

“I heard you talking about the Gala guys!” she announced.

“Wait, how’d ya hear about that from so far away?” Applejack queried in utter confusion.

WITH COBALT AND RAINBOW DASH

“Go, go, go!” Rainbow shouted as she and Cobalt zipped through the doors of the Cloudsdale cloud factory and into the weather pony meeting room.

They dashed into their place in line and carefully tried to look normal without attracting any attention from their supervisor. It didn’t work.

“You’re late. Again.” Their supervisor growled. “Miss Dash, this is your one hundred and fifth tardiness. I am afraid that if you are late more than twenty more times I will have to let you go.”

Rainbow bit her tongue and nodded. “Yes sir.”

“And you, mister Spikes. This is your third violation. I expect better of you, and I believe that your spending time with miss Dash is affecting your performance. I believe that if you two cannot do your jobs responsibly together then you will have to stay away from each other until further notice.”

Cobalt couldn’t hold himself back. “WHAT?!” he exploded. “How exactly is that fair?! Working together we get our share of the work done in half the time!”

“Cobalt no.” Rainbow muttered in an effort to calm her friend. “You’ll get fired.”

“Mister Spikes, I would advise you not to step out of line.” Their boss said threateningly.

Cobalt took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself. “Yes sir.”

“Good.” The supervisor said coldly. “I will give you one, and only one, more chance. You are all dismissed to your duties.”
The fast duo dashed out of their place in line, eager to get away from their supervisor. As soon as they were out of earshot, Rainbow growled, “I HATE that guy!”

“I know.” Cobalt agreed. “Who does he think he is? You have to stay away from each other if you can’t do your jobs right.”

“I wouldn’t do that for all the bits in the world! I like spending time with you!” she blushed. “I mean… uh…”

“I like spending time with you too.” Cobalt began to blush along with her. “Heh, uhh,”

They hovered there in the air facing each other for a few seconds until one of their coworkers flew past, saying, “Hey, are you two lovebirds going to just sit there or are you going to help?”

Rainbow’s blush deepened while Cobalt rolled his eyes at the pegasus in question. “Oh, shut up!”

The pegasus shrugged and flew off.

“I don’t know why everypony thinks that we’re together.” Rainbow complained. “I mean, where do they get that idea?”

Cobalt shrugged. “I don’t know.”

They zipped off and started pushing rainy clouds.

Then Rainbow had an idea. “Hang on dude.” She said to Cobalt. “I’ve got something to do.”

She peered through the cloud layer and quickly sighted Twilight sitting despondently at a table on a restaurant patio. Rainbow parted the clouds right before the rain started and grinned, just waiting for Twilight to notice the surrounding rain.

As she watched, the waiter came out, covering his head. “Ma’am, are you sure that you want to stay out here in the rain?” he asked. Twilight looked up in confusion to see that she was sitting in the middle of the only dry section in a giant rainstorm with Rainbow Dash looking down at her from the hole blocking the rain.

“Hi, best friend in the whole world.” Rainbow greeted her with a smile. Somewhere in the sky Cobalt twitched and felt an overwhelming sense of jealousy.

“Rainbow Dash, why are you doing this?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, I just thought that my bestest friend wouldn’t want to get wet.” Rainbow grinned.

Twilight sighed. “Look, if this is about the ticket, everypony wants it and I need to think about it for a while, okay? So if you could put the clouds back together–”

“On it.” Rainbow interrupted, pushing the gap together and letting the rain pour down on Twilight. The lavender mare was not ecstatic about that.

LATER

Twilight was sitting in the library late at night with Spike, Cobalt hanging with Rainbow Dash at the moment.

“So, have you figured out who you’re going to give the ticket to?” Spike asked.

Twilight twitched and grabbed a throw pillow. She held it to her muzzle and screamed into it in order to muffle the sound and not to wake up half of Ponyville.

“Oookay then.” Spike said cautiously, looking at her funny. “I’ll make a note not to ask you a question. Ever.”

Twilight sighed. “I’m sorry, Spike. It’s just that everypony has such a good reason for going. Applejack for helping the farm, Rainbow for impressing the Wonderbolts, Rarity with meeting the stallion of her dreams, Fluttershy with simply being there, Pinkie with her party thing, it’s just so confusing! It seems like Cobalt’s the only one who doesn’t care. Why wouldn’t he care?”

“Why would he?” Spike countered. “He can’t remember a thing.”

There was a knock on the door and Twilight magically opened it with a weary. “Come in.” She couldn’t say she was surprised when all six of her friends entered.

“All right, Twi. We’ve consulted and come to an agreement.” Applejack announced. “We want to know who ya’ve chosen to go to the Gala.” Twilight shot a dry look at Cobalt. “You too?”

He held up his hooves in defense. “I had absolutely nothing to do with this. These girls did it all on their own.”

A loud sigh escaped from Twilight. “Okay. You want to know? I’ll tell you.” She let her gaze pass over each one of her friends. “You all have very good reasons to go, and I just can’t pick one of you over the others. My decision is that I don't decide.”

All the rest started to feel guilty.

“Ya know what? I don’t want to go.” Applejack said. “If it really makes you that stressed, then I don’t want to make you feel torn like that.”

“Neither do I.” Rarity agreed.

“Same here.” Pinkie declared with a nod. “I could never put a friend through that.”

“I didn’t know that you were so stressed about that.” Fluttershy said, lowering her head.

“Heh, then I guess that means the ticket is mine!” Rainbow exclaimed, flying into the air before Cobalt shot her down with a killer glare. “Uh, what the others said.” She grinned sheepishly.

Twilight smiled gratefully. “Thank you all. Spike, take a note.”

Spike grabbed a piece of parchment and quill. “Ready.” He announced.

“Dear Princess Celestia.” Twilight dictated. “I have put in a lot of thought, and I have reached the following conclusion: if I can’t take all of my friends to the Gala, then I don’t want to go either. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”

Spike finished it and then sent it with his dragon’s breath.

“Wow. That was really cool of you Twilight.” Cobalt said approvingly.

Almost instantly after he finished saying that, Spike burped out another letter. He gripped his stomach with one hand, and held the letter with the other.

“It’s from the Princess.” He announced. “It says, Well why didn’t you just say so?” He then pulled out five extra tickets.

Twilight levitated them and gave them to each of her friends, including the extra from the first letter. “Wow! There’s one for each of us, even Cobalt!” she exclaimed.

Cobalt facehooved while the rest cheered. “Aw shoot.” He muttered. “I’m gonna look like an idiot.”

Rainbow gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder. “Don’t worry dude.” She reassured him. “I mean, who could not like you? You’re the coolest guy I know!”

Cobalt grinned. “I am pretty awesome, aren’t I?”

“Heck yeah!” They brohooved.

The seven ponies exited the library with Spike trailing, and then Spike burped smoke again. It solidified into another letter, which he read in his mind.

Oh, and one for Spike too.

He pulled another ticket out of it, cheering, “Sweet!”

ELSEWHERE

Somewhere deep in the Everfree forest, a pair of evil looking red eyes flickered on.

Griffon the Brush Off

We open to see Rainbow Dash and Cobalt flying around Ponyville playing tag. Cobalt barrel rolled under an overhang, and Rainbow used a streetlight pole as a turning mechanism.

All of a sudden they hear a springing noise, and Pinkie Pie started bouncing around underneath them.

“Ohh! Hey guys! Dashie! Cobalt!” she called up at them. They both froze in their tracks.

Oh shoot. Rainbow thought to herself. I don’t want to be rude about this, but I just don’t want to hang with her! She glanced at Cobalt and read the same thoughts in his eyes. He returned the glance, and together they zipped off at nearly top speed in the opposite direction of the pink mare. Pinkie took off bouncing after them.

Once they had reached the top of a nearby mountain, Cobalt breathed a sigh of relief. Sometimes hanging around Pinkie put a strain on your brain.

And speaking of the devil, Pinkie’s head popped out of a nearby bush. “Hi guys!”

Rainbow and Cobalt shouted in alarm, going pinprick pupiled, and dashed off again, this time to another mountain with a canopy of leaves to hide in.

A whispering feminine voice asked, “What are you guys talking about?” The pair slowly turned around to see Pinkie Pie’s grinning face a few inches away.

They didn’t even say anything this time, just took off. They didn’t stop until they were sitting in the middle of the Ponyville town square, panting with tiredness at having that many long distance sprints in so little time.

“That’s–unnatural!” Cobalt gasped.

“I know! How’s she able to catch us?” Rainbow asked, her eyes wide with understandable fear.

“Hi!” Pinkie cheered from her position next to them.

Cobalt almost had a heart attack. The two speedsters took off using whatever energy they had left and zoomed away from Ponyville.

A few seconds later Dash looked down and her eye twitched. Pinkie was below, galloping along at an unreal pace to keep up with them.

“Dashie! Cobalt!” Pinkie called, with a small bit of alarm tingeing her otherwise cheerful tone.

“We don’t want to hang out!” Cobalt shouted down, completely past any sort of secrecy.

“No! Guys!” Pinkie persisted, a little more worry creeping into her voice.

“For the last time!” Rainbow yelled. “We don’t want to–”

Her sentence was cut short as she and Cobalt slammed into the side of a tall hill due to their distraction. They were lucky they were only going half speed because if they had been going full speed they could’ve broken a bone. As it was, they broke off a few bits of dirt and fell down the side, landing in a shallow pile of dirt.

Pinkie skidded to a halt. “I was just about to tell you to watch out for that mountain!”

Cobalt raised a foreleg from his sprawled out position. “I give up!” he cried, muffled due to being facedown.

ONE TITLE SEQUENCE LATER

“A little to the left. No, that’s too far. Up a little. A little more. Now to the right.” Pinkie directed Rainbow to move a stormy cloud above the parchment shop.

“Remind me why I’m doing this?” Rainbow asked impatiently, true to her nature.

“No reason.” Pinkie said with a demonic grin.

“And what am I supposed to do again?” Cobalt queried from his position on top of another cloud higher than Rainbow’s.

“When I do this,” Pinkie demonstrated waving her foreleg to the right. “You jump on the cloud and make it lightning.”

Cobalt nodded. “Doesn’t make sense, but whatever.”

“There!” Pinkie announced, scaring both pegasi out of their wits. “Leave the cloud right there and hide!” she darted into a bush and Rainbow hid behind a sign.

Spike came out, whistling His World, and holding several scrolls. Pinkie waved her foreleg and Cobalt elbow dropped on the cloud. It released a bolt of lightning that seared the area a few yards away from Spike and terrorized him so badly that he thought the apocalypse was coming and ducked for cover. The three ponies joined in front of him and started cracking up.

“That was hilarious!” Rainbow laughed.

“Awesome!” Cobalt agreed.

“See, I told you!” Pinkie giggled.

Spike glanced up from his tornado drill position, and seeing the buildings weren’t on fire, he started to chuckle. “Okay, you guys got me good,” he admitted.

He started to try to pick up the rolls of parchment, but hiccupped fire breath and instead sent it to Princess Celestia, making the three laugh even harder, Rainbow was banging her hoof on the ground it was so funny.

MEANWHILE IN CANTERLOT PALACE

Princess Celestia looked up in surprise as a scroll hit her in the head. She confusedly opened it up and realized it was blank.

MEANWHILE BACK IN PONYVILLE

Spike tried to pick up the scrolls but ended up sending them all to Canterlot instead, adding to the hilarity of the situation.

MEANWHILE IN THE HALL OF CANTERLOT

Celestia was flooded with letters, and nearly got swamped by all of them.

MEANWHILE BACK IN PONYVILLE (SIGH)… AGAIN

“Wow, I totally misjudged you Pinkie!” Rainbow exclaimed. “I never thought you would be a prankster!”

“Me neither!” Cobalt admitted.

Pinkie grinned. “Well, in that case, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Heck yeah!” Came the unison response.

MEANWHILE IN THE ONE PRANKING MONTAGE LATER

The sun hung low in the sky, creating a nice sunset as the three friends headed home after a fun day of pranking.

“Whew, that was fun!” Cobalt announced.

“More like funny!” Rainbow corrected.

“How about both?” Pinkie suggested.

“Much better!” Cobalt agreed.

“See ya tomorrow for the same thing?” Pinkie asked.

“Duh!” Rainbow answered with a huge grin.

The pink mare trotted away toward Sugarcube Corner, leaving the two pegasi alone.

“So, see you in the morning?” Cobalt asked, becoming a bit awkward being around his crush, just the two of them. He noticed a tint of pink on Rainbow’s face. He bit his tongue as he considered just confessing how he really felt.

“We’ve got the whole day off, why not?” Rainbow interrupted his thoughts, smiling warmly. She thought about it and was about to make her move, but then her mind went fuzzy, and they instead brohoofed and then zipped off in opposite directions, with her silently cursing herself for hesitating and Cobalt doing the same to himself.

ELSEWHERE

The pair of red eyes flickered on again, having been out for a while. The owner of said eyes slowly hauled itself to its feet with slow, jerky, robot-like movements.

“RECOVERY: 89%.” it said to itself. “EVALUATION OF CHANCE OF VICTORY IN FIGHT WITH RIVAL: 48%.” It rotated a clawed metal hand experimentally. “READY TO ENGAGE IN COMBAT. PERFORMING AREA SCAN FOR TARGET LIFE FORM.”

A red radar sweep extended from the thing’s head, twisting in a circular 360 motion. The red light suddenly shut off.

“SCANS POSITIVE. TARGET IN VINCINITY. TARGET, FRIENDS OF TARGET, AND ONE WHOM TARGET HAS EMOTIONAL CONNECTION WITH: LOCKED ON. EVALUATION OF CHANCE OF VICTORY WITH FIGHT WITH ALL OF THEM: 31%. RECOVERY PROMINENT BEFORE ATTACK. BUT WHEN RECOVERED…” The red eyes flashed. “THEY WILL ALL DIE.”

THE NEXT DAY

Pinkie Pie came bouncing down a dirt road wearing an assortment of novelty items, including but not only, a fake glasses, nose, and moustache thing.

She looked up in surprise to see Rainbow, Cobalt, and a griffon conversing in the air.

Rainbow noticed her down on the ground and called out. “Hey Pinkie! Meet Gilda, she was my friend back in Junior Speedsters Flight Camp!” Gilda gave the peace sign. “Gilda this is Pinkie Pie, one of my new friends!”

“Hiya Gilda!” Pinkie called, making a mental note to throw a welcome party later.

“Hey, let’s land.” Cobalt said to the other fliers, who swooped down and set easily onto the ground.

“So why are you here?” Pinkie asked.

“I just found out that Dash here wasn’t living in Cloudsdale anymore so I decided to pay a visit.” Gilda answered. “Why do you look like a walking joke shop?”

“Oh, that’s easy! Dashie and I were going to go pranking like yesterday!” Pinkie explained.

“Um, heh, about that.” Rainbow put in, laughing nervously. “I didn’t know Gilda was going to visit yesterday, and I was wondering if maybe we could do that later so we could hang today. Is that okay with you guys?”

“Yeah.” Cobalt said before Pinkie could get a word out, which was a rare occurrence. “I can tell you guys are good friends.” He zipped off to go do whatever.

“Yep!” Pinkie agreed. “Maybe later then.”

“Yeah, later.” Rainbow agreed. “C’mon Gilda, I’ll show you around.” She took off.

“I’ll catch up with you in a second.” Gilda called after her. Her smile quickly turned into a scowl as she turned to Pinkie. “Look loser. I don’t know who you are, but just remember this: I’m Rainbow Dash’s number one friend and you’re not going to steal that from me, got it?”

Pinkie looked scared for a second, but then her unconditional smile returned. “Of course not! Since we’re all friends around here then we can both be her friend which makes us friends too!”

“Gilda, are you coming?” Rainbow called back.

“Yeah, just a second!” Gilda yelled. She narrowed her eyes and did the whole ‘I’m watching you’ thing at Pinkie. Pinkie responded with a grin that sounded like a squeaky toy.

Gilda sighed exasperatedly and sped off after Rainbow Dash.

LATER

Rainbow Dash and Gilda flew low in the sky, talking and catching up while occasionally getting into mock fights.

Suddenly, in the midst of their conversation, Pinkie Pie bounced into view below them, falling down again, and then bouncing back up on a trampoline. “Hey guys! Is it later yet?”

Gilda shot her a murderous look, but Rainbow started cracking up. “Pinkie, you are so random!”

“Hey Dash, you wanna race to that mountain?” Gilda interrupted, deliberately drawing attention to herself and away from Pinkie.

“Sure.” Rainbow agreed. “If you’re ready to lose.” They dashed off toward to a nearby mountain at racing speed, leaving Pinkie in the metaphorical dust (as they were in the sky).

Pinkie stopped bouncing and started thinking. “Hmm, I’m going to need to get up there.”

AT THE MOUNTAIN

“Beat you!” Rainbow cheered as she tapped the peak of the mountain.

Gilda finished a moment after her. “Well, you always were the fastest.”

“Maybe not anymore.” Dash contradicted, her thoughts turning to Cobalt and her eyes starting to get a dreamy look in them. “He’s as fast as me, maybe faster. He’s awesome.”

Gilda nodded. “So, is this guy your boyfriend?”

Rainbow felt her cheeks burn. “Th-that’s none of your business.”

“And what color is he exactly?”

“Umm, blue. Why?”

“Oh, no reason.” Gilda made a note of that for later.

A loud metal on metal noise interrupted them, and they turned to the sound. Unbelievably, Pinkie was flying toward them on an inconceivably complex helicopter type contraption.

“Hi guys!” she called cheerfully. “Is it later now?”

Dash couldn’t resist the hilarity of it and busted out laughing again. “Pinkie, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it now. You are so random!” she looked down for a second and in that small amount of time, Gilda scooped up a rock, lobbed it into the helicopter rotors, stopped them spinning, and sent the copter hovering down kept suspended by only a few balloons.

Rainbow Dash looked up again in confusion. “Where’d she go?”

“Uh, she said she had somewhere to be.” Gilda lied lamely, but believably enough to convince Rainbow.

LATER THAT DAY

Pinkie kicked a rock down the streets of Ponyville. “I don’t get it.” She muttered to herself sadly. “Gilda’s been trying to keep me away from Dashie all day. But that’s really mean. She’s not a meanie, is she?”

She suddenly heard a sharp tone from behind her, and hid in the brush beside the road as she recognized its owner.

“Why did you bump into me, you klutz?!” Gilda demanded of her cowering offender.

“Umm, I’m really sorry ma’am, I just didn’t see you–” This adversary happened to be none other than timid Fluttershy.

“No excuses!” Gilda snapped angrily. “I want you to run away. Now! And I never want to see your face again!” she towered over Fluttershy. “Got that?”

Fluttershy responded with a small squeal and ran off.

Pinkie narrowed her eyes as Gilda stalked off. “So she was a meanie!” Pinkie started to shake with anger. “I swear I’m so angry I could…” she then shook her head to throw off her vengeful thoughts. “No, I’m going to deal with this my way. Pinkie Pie style!”

ONE TRANSITION LATER

“Hi! Enjoy the party!” Pinkie waved in yet another guest to Gilda’s long due welcome party.

Yeah. That’s what happened. I wasn’t really surprised when I saw that for the first time either.

Gilda stalked over to the entrance to Sugarcube Corner. “What’re you doing, loser?”

“Just your welcome party, silly.” Pinkie informed her cheerfully.

“Ya got cake?” Gilda asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I’m in.”

Gilda entered and the crowd roared. “Welcome to Ponyville, Gilda!” she nodded and commented, “Pretty nice party.”

“Wait till you see the cake!” Pinkie announced, which was the signal to bring it out. The Cakes rolled in a great big cake with lit candles.

Gilda stared at it, uncertain.

“Well, blow it out!” Pinkie told her.

Gilda took a deep breath and exhaled hard. The candles went out for a second, and then flickered back on again. Gilda looked confused, blowing them out again. They lit again.

“Hah! Trick candles!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed from her vantage point beside Cobalt. “I wonder who could’ve done that?”

A LITTLE BIT LATER

The party progressed and Gilda kept getting pranked by somepony, but she didn’t know who. Eventually after a mishap with the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game, she just threw off her cover of politeness.

“You pink loser!” she roared, thrusting off her blindfold and turning on Pinkie. “You knew that I was trying to keep you away from Dash and so you threw this lame party to get your revenge! Well I’m gonna–”

She was cut off by a calm voice behind her. “Gilda, Pinkie didn’t have anything to do with the pranks.” Gilda whipped around to see Rainbow Dash talking. “She just wanted to throw a nice party for you and I set up those jokes for anypony. But if that’s what you think of my new friends, then you can just get lost. I don’t want to be your friend anymore if you’re too worried about being cool to be nice.”

“Wha-what?” Gilda seemed taken aback, as if she’d thought that Dash would back her here.

“Sheesh, what a jerk.” Cobalt muttered.

“You!” Gilda rounded on him. “You better hand over that chaos emerald you found, you amnesiac freak!”

“Emerald?” Cobalt looked more confused than angered at her insults. “You mean this?” he pulled the cyan emerald he’d found in the Everfree forest out of his mane.

“Yes that!” Gilda screeched “Shadow sent me to get that and I will get it to him! He needs all seven!” Cobalt twitched when she said the name Shadow, and fell into a state of memory-recovering unconsciousness, which was probably what kept him from pursuing Gilda when she left. Rainbow caught him as he slumped over, and shot a glare at Gilda that said a thousand angry words in less than a second.

Gilda snatched the jewel off the ground in front of Cobalt in one swift motion. “You haven’t seen the last of me, you losers.” Gilda warned as she stalked out of the door. “Trust me, I will be back!”

She left the shop in a flurry of feathers and a state of chaos.

Once everypony had uneasily left the building, and only the Mane 6, Spike, and Cobalt were left, he began to stir.

“Ohh, my head.” Cobalt put his hoof to his temple. “Did anyone happen to get what just happened?”

“Gilda said Shadow and you passed out, then took your emerald and left.” Spike informed him. “What happened with you?”

“I don’t know.” Cobalt muttered. “I heard Shadow, and a blurry memory came back and made my head hurt so much I had to black out.”

“Whatever sort of memory could do that?” Rarity asked concernedly.

“Umm, I was in… outer space I think? And there was somepony who looked like me near me, but darker. And we were charging a building in outer space?” he didn’t understand that part. “And then when it was over, the other guy, I think I thought he died.”

A collective gasp rose.

“Died?” Twilight asked aghast. She decided to put her next thought out there. “D-do you suppose that the other guy was Shadow?”

“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know.” Cobalt gritted his teeth, hating not knowing. “I guess maybe. I’ll have to remember more to clarify though.”

“I think that was a name from your past, and you should remember it.” Twilight advised him. “I also believe that emerald is a link to your memories, and since Gilda mentioned seven of them, maybe you should try to find all of them. Maybe that could work.”

“It has before.” Cobalt said definitely, then his eyes clouded. “Or, I think it has. Gah, memory loss is so annoying!”

Spike nodded. “I’ll send a note to Princess Celestia asking if she’s found anything like those emerald thingies. Until then, you should just focus on remembering stuff.”

“Yep.” Applejack agreed. “It seems right now yer up a creek without a paddle, sugarcube.”

“It does sound sensible.” Fluttershy put in quietly.

“Oooh!” Pinkie exclaimed, bouncing. “It’ll be so fun like a scavenger hunt!”

“If you’re in, I’m in.” Rainbow said with a determined nod.

Cobalt looked around at all his friends. “Let’s do it.”

ELSEWHERE, DEEP IN THE EVERFREE FOREST

“I got it.” Gilda said, gliding in next to a dark figure and handing him the cyan emerald.

“Good.” The figure said in a deep voice. He held up the emerald and grinned. “One down, six to go.”

Author's Note

I think this one was better than the others before it by a long shot. Seriously, though, the best kicks in way later, so please, once again, bear with me until then.

Boast Busters

AT TWILIGHT’S LIBRARY

“C’mon Twilight, this is the only spell you haven’t done yet, you can do it!” Spike encouraged, leaning forward to make it easier for Twilight to cast her spell on him. Twilight’s horn glowed and sparked purple.

In itchy sensation appeared on Spike’s upper lip and a bushy moustache sprouted on it.

Twilight wiped sweat off her brow and grinned, summoning a checklist and marking the last check box on it. “Sheesh, that’s difficult, but that’s trick 23.”

Spike was stroking his moustache, but it disappeared when Twilight cast the counter-spell. “Hey!”

“Sorry Spike, but this is only for practice purposes only, so it has to go.” Twilight reasoned with a slight smile.

Spike let his shoulders sag. “Fine.”

ONE TITLE SEQUENCE LATER

Twilight and Spike wandered through Ponyville.

“Come one, come all, to see the great and powerful Trixie!” a voice projected out from the town square.

“Who with the what now?” Spike questioned. The two ran to the square where a blue unicorn in a wizard hat and matching cloak was performing cheesy magic tricks in front of a huge crowd, including their friends.

“Watch in awe as the great and powerful Trixie, the most magical unicorn in all of Equestria, shows you her most amazing exploits!” the unicorn, identified as Trixie cried, darkening the sky a little bit and making fireworks appear.

The fireworks depicted a cartoony version of a giant bear and the unicorn fighting. “The great and powerful Trixie vanquished a great Ursa Major with one spell!” the unicorn announced, making the Ursa Major explode into sparks. “That gave her the title of the most magical unicorn in all of Equestria!”

“What!” Spike yelled in outrage. “There’s no way that this unicorn is more magical than Twilight! Twilight’s the most magical unicorn… uh… heh… hi Rarity.” He trailed off as he looked up at his crush and looked embarrassed. “Uhhh, moustache!” he ran off.

Rainbow Dash flew up into the air “Whoa, whoa, whoa! We don’t need somepony around here to be better than us!” she put on a sly smile. “That’s my job.”

“Exactly!” Cobalt yelled from his vantage point in the crowd. “Wait, what?”

“Hmph.” Trixie sneered. “Well, if you choose to play it that way, Trixie will prove to you that anything you can do, she can do better.”

“Is that so?” Applejack called, pulling out her lasso. “Watch this!” she hurled the rope at an apple on a cart and lassoed it, bringing it back toward her and taking a bite.

The crowd roared in approval, sure Trixie was beat.

Trixie simply rolled her eyes and used her magic to make the rope act like a snake and wave back and forth, putting Applejack into a hypnotism-like trance. The rope lunged forward and tied her up, and then an apple jammed itself into her mouth.

Applejack hopped off while Rarity approached Trixie. “You may able to beat that farmpony with your roughhousing, but in civilized fashion, I am superior.”

“Trixie thinks not.” Trixie said, her horn glowing. Rarity looked around, noticing the looks that she was getting.

“What.” Rarity said in nervous apprehension. “What did she do?”

Pinkie hesitantly held up a mirror. Rarity looked into the mirror and screamed, her hair was a vomit-green mess. She ran off, shrieking, “Green! Green isn’t even in this season!” causing a nearby earth pony with a green mane to narrow her eyes in anger.

“Okay, that’s it!” Rainbow yelled, flying up into the sky and bursting through several clouds and getting the moisture droplets to follow behind her.

“You show her, Rainbow!” Cobalt encouraged, a little too loudly.

Rainbow dove back down and spun around a windmill several times, then flew back on the stage, letting the water droplets hit her back and make a rainbow around her, really showing off her color.

“They don’t call me rainbow and dash for nothing.” She announced, grinning.

Trixie sighed. “If I must.” She used her magic to grab the rainbow before it dissipated and spun it around Rainbow Dash, making her dizzy and nauseous.

Dash’s face turned green and her stomach heaved. “Ohhh. I don’t feel too good…” She covered her muzzle and ran over to a flowerpot, stuck her face into it, and sounds of retching were clearly heard. The flowers wilted comically.

A few seconds later she raised her head, her face still tinted green, and smiled weakly. “I think I’m better no–” her stomach heaved again. “Nope!” She started vomiting again.

Then, to add insult to injury, a stormy cloud appeared and zapped her in the flank, causing her to scream in a high-pitched voice.

Cobalt narrowed his eyes and growled aloud. Trixie noticed this and actually got a bit scared. Cobalt bit back his temper and grinned confidently, an insane, fiery look in his eyes. “You may be able to beat us with your home turf, but I have something you will never have. Flight!” He flew around at super speed, making shapes in the sky with his blue color trail.

Trixie knew she couldn’t beat him at his own game on this, so she decided to take away his playing field. She focused all her magic on making Cobalt’s wings useless, and they obliged, refusing to extend and glide.

He desperately tried to flap them and gain some air, but instead he fell like a missile down to earth, crashing into the ground and skidding several feet. He restrained himself from making any noise, but it was hard as he had gashes all along his stomach from cutting himself on the rocky ground while sliding.

He struggled to his hooves and limped off toward the library with a glare back at Trixie, leaving a faint, red spattered trail behind him.

The crowd was appalled at this; they could tolerate their citizens being humiliated, but actually wounding one of them was unspeakable (that’s why that never happens in the show, and why I decided to make this story a bit more grown up).

“Oh come on!” Spike (somehow back now; had probably circled around and come back) called. “Twilight, you’ve just got to show her you're better, you’ve just gotta!” Twilight started to sweat and used her magic to zip his mouth shut, then pulled him onto her back, running away and leaving the crowd staring uneasily at her retreat.

LATER

They met up with Cobalt at the library, him now bandaged.

“Twilight, you know that you can show her up, so why don’t you?” Cobalt asked, wincing as he sat down. Twilight squirmed under the question, she had an answer, but she didn’t like it.

“Uh, so… how did you know how to fix yourself up?” she countered with another question.

Cobalt raised an eyebrow at her dismissing his question, but didn’t ask about it. “Well, I feel like this kind of thing happens a lot to me. I just saw the bandages and knew what to do. Rainbow’s told me it happens to her too during flying practice. She’s gotten cuts and scrapes all over.” He noticed Twilight’s weird expression when he mentioned that Rainbow Dash actually failed some of her tricks. “Uhh, I think I’ve said too much.”

“Anyway, why didn’t you do to the stupid and pompous Trixie what she did to everyone else?” Spike reopened the question.
Twilight started to sweat and avoided the question by running out of the library.

MEANWHILE IN THE HALL OF STUPIDITY

Two young and slightly stupid unicorn colts who had been watching Trixie’s show wandered into the Everfree Forest to go try to find an Ursa Major.

One of them ran into the other and whined. “Oww! Snails, why is it so dark! Give us some light here!”

Snails focused really hard and lit his horn just a little bit.

The two proceeded a little farther and suddenly stopped. Snails spoke nervously. “Snips, is that you breathing?”

Snips froze completely. “No.”

“Then who is it?”

The two looked up slowly and saw a giant bluish bear with stars in its fur glowering down at them. Needless to say they screamed and ran.

AT THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE’S CART

Snips and Snails ran up to Trixie’s cart and started pounding on it. “O great and powerful Trixie, open up!”

The upper door to the cart opened and Trixie poked her head out. “What makes you disturb the great and powerful Trixie’s re–” she cut off when she saw the Ursa Major.

“Stop it like you did before!” the two colts pleaded.

“Uhh,” Trixie started to sweat and cautiously stepped out of the cart. Her horn glowed and she tried all the tricks she’d bragged about, but none of them worked.

“Ummm, the great and powerful Trixie will now… flee for her life! Ahhhhh!” Trixie ran away screaming.

BACK AT THE LIBRARY

Twilight looked up from her reading as Spike burst through the door.

“Twilight, we’ve got a huge problem! In fact, it’s a major problem!” Spike yelled.

“Um, by major, would you happen to mean Ursa Major?” Twilight asked apprehensively.

“WELL DUH!”

Twilight facehooved. “Okay, don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

“Good, because right now it’s whacking everypony around and Rainbow and Cobalt have gotten a few nasty cuts from trying to rescue them!”

Spike pulled her out of the library and in front of the giant bear just as Rainbow was backhanded and dug a ditch into the ground in front of them, unconscious.

The ponies who were running scared suddenly stopped and started pleading for Twilight to save them.

Twilight took a deep breath and focused her magic on a water reservoir that oddly looked like a bottle. It glowed with a soft lavender light and levitated up out of its resting place. It swung down like a pendulum and emptied its contents, then flew through a farmhouse door and out the other door, causing several cows to moo in annoyance. The reservoir then hovered over to the Ursa Major, who dropped Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie and started to drink the milk from the cows out of it.

Twilight released her hold on the reservoir; moving it to the Ursa Major and making her horn start sparking purple with the strain of lifting such a big object.

She levitated the now sleeping Ursa Major into the Everfree Forest, then back into its cave.

She finally lifted her levitation spell and exhaled in exhaustion. “Whew.”

The crowd who had gathered to see this amazing feat cheered in triumph.

Rainbow woke up suddenly and relaxed slowly, seeing that the bear was gone.

“How did ya do that, Twi?” Applejack asked in awe.

“When Trixie mentioned an Ursa Major, I did some reading up on them. But it turns out that wasn’t an Ursa Major at all. It was only an Ursa Minor, a baby.” Twilight informed her friends.

Cobalt’s eye twitched. “If that was a baby, then what does an Ursa Major look like?”

Twilight smiled slightly. “You don’t want to know.”

IN THE CAVE IN THE EVERFREE FOREST

A giant-er purple colored bear with sharp fangs and red eyes stroked its newly returned baby.

BACK IN PONYVILLE

“So back on the question from before, why didn’t you beat Trixie in the first place anyway?” Spike pressed.

Twilight blushed. “I know I’m good at magic and all, but I didn’t want to show it in front of everypony and look like a boastful jerk.”

“We wouldn’t think that of you at all, darling.” Rarity said.

“Yeah, as long as ya didn’t go braggin’ about it like somepony we know.” Applejack shot a pointed glare at Trixie, who was sitting in the crowd.

Trixie looked left, then right, as if she was expecting somepony to stand up for her, then growled. “You haven’t seen the last of the great and powerf–”

“Ah shut up will ya!” Rainbow yelled.

Trixie growled one last time and used a magic smokescreen to visibly run away.

“And as for you.” Twilight said, rounding on Snips and Snails, who were slowly slipping away. They turned around and started cowering.

“W-we were just trying to give Trixie a chance to prove herself and she turned out to be a fraud a-and PLEASE DON’T HURT US!” they stammered.

“I think they deserve number twenty three, don’t you agree, Twilight?” Spike suggested.

Twilight narrowed her eyes in mock anger. “I think you’re right Spike, number twenty three it is.” Her horn started to glow again, and the two colts squeezed their eyes shut while Spike leaned forward.

Big bushy moustaches sprouted on all three of them, and the two colts opened their eyes. All three did a triple high hoof/five, yelling, “Sweet!”

All would’ve been well after that, if not for an explosion and the sound of crackling flames in the distance.

The crowd fled in chaos again, while the Elements, Cobalt, and Spike turned to see what was going on. A shiny blue figure hovered through the air over a row of buildings and landed in front of them, wreathed in flames.

“Who the hay are you and why are you destroying our home?” Rainbow asked it threateningly, while Fluttershy hid behind the rest of them and the others looked at it in bewilderment, all except for Cobalt, who was itching for a fair fight with something his size. He got into a battle stance.

“I AM THE TRUE SONIC.” The thing said in a monotonous voice. “I AM METAL SONIC.”

“Who with the what now?” Spike asked for the second time in one day.

“I HAVE COME TO DESTROY THE ONE NOW KNOWN AS COBALT SPIKES.” The thing that had identified itself as Metal Sonic announced, pointing one clawed finger at Cobalt. “NOW WE SHALL DUEL TO THE DEATH.”

“You mean your death.” Cobalt said. “You ready for this, Rainbow?”

“Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?” Rainbow asked, brushing some fresh blood off her foreleg. “Let’s do this!”
The two sides charged each other.

Metal Sonic hummed with the unmistakable sound of charged electricity, and Cobalt made the mistake of trying to buck him. Electricity flooded his system, and he screamed in pain, nearly blacking out.

“Cobalt!” Rainbow yelled. “You piece of–” she hurled herself faster than she’d ever tried to go before at Metal Sonic out of rage.

Metal Sonic backhanded her, which she was really sick of having done to her. Cobalt had clung to consciousness just long enough to see that, and would’ve passed out if rage hadn’t flooded his system and given him an extra boost of adrenaline.

He summoned up the last bit of energy he could get, and flew high up into the air. Metal was too focused on Rainbow to notice him diving down and accumulating speed.

Metal began to lower a laser blaster at Rainbow’s head.

The mach cone began to form around Cobalt.

Metal locked on target.

Cobalt’s cheeks were pulled back from the rush of the wind around him.

Metal started to tense his robotic finger.

A millisecond passed, and then a huge explosion was heard for miles around, followed closely by the expansion of a dark blue ring.

Cobalt had created a sonic rainboom, pulled up at the last second, and then sky uppercutted Metal Sonic high into the air.

Pinkie followed the path of Metal until it passed behind her, then held up both forelegs and yelled, “It’s good!”

Cobalt flew back down into Ponyville, using the long street leading up to where his friends were as a landing strip and letting the boost from his sonic rainboom fade.

Fluttershy let her jaw drop. “A sonic rainboom. I-I’ve heard of them before in legend, but I’ve never actually thought one existed.”

Cobalt nodded as if he liked what it was called. “Sonic rainboom, eh?”

“Yeah, but there weren’t any of the pretty colors with it.” Pinkie pointed out.

“True,” Cobalt agreed. He grinned. “Call it... a sonic boom.”

“Sounds good to me.” Twilight said.

“That's for sure!” Applejack let her feelings about the name be known.

“But what about Rainbow Dash?” Rarity asked, nodding to their friend, who was struggling to her hooves.

“Oh Celestia.” Cobalt muttered, running over to his friend and desperately checking for injuries.

“Jeez, I’m fine.” Rainbow assured him weakly. “I don’t need a second dad.”

“Sorry.” Cobalt said, giving her a big hug. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“But on the topic of the thing that just nearly killed her,” Twilight interrupted. “What the heck was that?”

All of them stared at Cobalt as if he would have the answer.

“What, me?” he asked, shrugging. “In case you haven’t noticed, I have no flipping memory.”

“Sheesh, memory loss, enemies, chaos emeralds, it seems our lives are getting crazier every day.” Twilight commented.

“Hey, it was part of the package deal, signing up to be an element of harmony.” Rainbow reasoned.

“We didn’t sign up,” Applejack said dryly.

MEANWHILE IN THE EVERFREE FOREST

A cloaked colt approached a hut in the middle of the woods, knocking on the door.

A sleepy looking zebra opened the door. “Who is it here, disturbing my rest? At nighttime for this, it is not the best.”

The colt ignored her question. “I take it you are Zecora?”

“Yes, that is me, but who would you be?”

“I need a big favor of you.” The colt announced, his light blue eyes darting left, and then right furtively.

“It seems you are the object of a hunt. Tell me what it is that you want.” Zecora asked wisely.

“Take this.” The colt pulled a glowing green gem out of his saddlebags. “And give it to who you think owns it.” The cloak’s hood fell off, revealing a yellow pony with a darker yellow mane.

“Ah, now that you have taken off your mask, I will do the thing which you ask.” Zecora said with a nod. She calmly took the gem and brought it inside her hut, leaving the colt to dash away in a hurry.

Author's Note

Oddly, I actually remember writing this. Huh...

Bridle Gossip

“Honestly Cobalt, this stunt is going to get you injured or worse!” Twilight protested her friend’s ludicrous flying trick idea.

“Uh, no!” Cobalt corrected her, strapping on a crash helmet. “I am so going to nail this one.” He readied the wooden plank on the edge of the stairs.

“I still think that trying to slide down the stairs on a board and vault out the door is nuts.” Twilight informed her speed-craving friend.

Cobalt facehooved. “Do you trust me or not?” he asked, giving her a burning look.

Twilight sighed. “Yes, I trust you. You can’t blame me for worrying though, can you?”

Cobalt grinned. “Not at all.” He shifted his weight forward ever so slightly and started sliding down the stairs. About halfway down he trick jumped and started grinding on the railing.

Twilight covered her eyes. She just couldn’t bear to watch somepony break a limb on a stupid trick.

Just as Cobalt was nearing the edge of the railing, the door slammed shut and somepony outside screamed, “Hide yourselves! She’s coming!”

Unable to stop, Cobalt smashed into the door and fell onto the floor. “Ow.”

ONE TITLE SEQUENCE LATER

Cobalt, Spike, and Twilight wandered through the empty streets of Ponyville trying to find out what the hay was up. Oddly they couldn’t find anything at all, which was strange considering Ponyville’s usual nature of being the foremost in bustling and ponies out and about.

“Yeesh, it’s like a ghost town out here.” Cobalt commented.

Twilight shivered as a cold gust of wind blew past her. “Didn’t need that image.”

They suddenly got snatched into the bakery with a hurried, “Quick, in here!”

All three stood up and blinked a few times to readjust their eyes to the darkness. They looked confusedly at their other five friends and Applejack’s little sister, Applebloom, the yellow filly with the pink bow (from chapter 2), cowering and shivering.

Cobalt cleared his throat. “So, will someone tell me WHAT THE HAY IS GOING ON!?”

“Shh!” was the reply.

Pinkie continued that thought with, “She’s coming!”

“Who?” Spike pressed.

“She comes here every month and just wanders around!” Fluttershy informed them in a tiny voice.

“It’s Zecora!” Applejack and Rarity said in unison.

Cobalt facehooved. “Rainbow, please tell me you’re not scared of this.”

Rainbow Dash let out a high, nervous laugh. “O-of course not, d-dude.” She was proved wrong when there was a rustling noise and she gasped, launching herself up to the rafters and staying up there. “What was that?!”

“A’m not scared.” Applebloom announced.

“You watch your mouth there, little sister.” Applejack snapped. “The big ponies are talkin’.”

“No, I’m with her.” Cobalt argued.

“Me too.” Twilight agreed. “What has this Zecora ever done to you?”

“Um, well, she sometimes mutters what I think are curses.” Rainbow called from her post in the roof.

Cobalt facehooved once again and flew up to the roof, grabbing his friend and pulling her down, which made her start blushing profusely from him making physical contact with her in a non life threatening situation.

A clopping noise sounded from outside the door and everypony silenced themselves in nervous apprehension.

Eventually the clopping went away and almost everypony breathed a heavy sigh of relief. But only almost.

See, when Applebloom had been silenced and inadvertently called a little filly, she’d snuck out of the store and was now following Zecora back into the forest.

“H-hey!” Applejack exclaimed, looking around in alarm. “Where’s Applebloom?!”

“Maybe she decided to hide up here when she saw Dashie do it!” Pinkie suggested, reaching down from the roof and subsequently losing her grip and falling.

“This isn’t good at all.” Rarity stated the obvious.

“Well, are we going to discuss it or go and find her?” Spike demanded, earning a nod of approval and a mad dash for the door by the others.

INSIDE THE EVERFREE FOREST

Oh boy, Ah’m really in too deep now. Applebloom thought to herself as she commando crawled through the underbrush in pursuit of Zecora, who was now heading back for wherever she lived.

She grinned triumphantly though at outsmarting her sister and all the other ‘big ponies’. That’ll teach ‘em to call me little!

As if her thoughts of Applejack had summoned her out of thin air, Applebloom heard her sister yell her name.

“Applebloom! Get on back here right now!” Applejack called angrily.

Unfortunately she had caught not only Applebloom’s, but Zecora’s attention too, who whipped around and widened her eyes, noticing what the Mane Six and Cobalt were standing in.

“Beware, beware, you pony folk, those leaves of blue are not a joke!” she called.

What? Is she actually puttin’ a curse on them? Applebloom wondered.

“Yeah, well, you and your dumb curses are the ones who had better beware!” Rainbow yelled, putting on brave bravado when what she really felt like doing was curling up into a tiny ball and huddling on the ground.

Zecora retreated into the cover of shadows, and the ponies carefully backed away, calling it an unofficial truce.

LATER

Twilight woke up in her bed, ready to begin their morning’s routine. They’d decided to leave what had happened yesterday alone and not think about it.

She yawned and stretched, thinking that she’d better wake up Cobalt from his perch on top of the bookshelf. She’d never understood why he like to sleep in odd places like that, but he’d told her that it was that it was the closest he could get to ‘roughing it’.

“Cobalt.” She murmured, still drowsy. All he did was twitch and muttered something about deviled eggs. Or was it egg devils? She giggled a little bit and tried to use her magic to rock the bookcase.

Nothing happened.

Twilight raised an eyebrow, her magic always worked. Focusing again, she tried the same trick, convinced she was just over thinking the innate magic.

Still nothing happened.

Twilight was getting worried. Had she gotten worse at magic overnight? Or was something wrong with the tool used to cast it? She quickly dashed to a mirror and examined her horn. Gasping, she observed that instead of being like it normally was, it had turned blue spotted and floppy.

ONE SCREAM LATER

Cobalt walked into the room, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Morning, Twilight. You’re looking beautiful today.”

Twilight gritted her teeth, things were bad enough already without him making stupid jokes. “Stop kidding around.”

Cobalt looked offended. “Why would I kid about something such as that?”

“Is it a full moon or something?”

“Only if you want it to be.”

Twilight’s eye twitched. “SPIKE!”

Cobalt used his far superior speed to wrap his foreleg around her neck before she could move. “Come on, let’s not bring him into this.”

“Um, Twilight dear? I have a teensy bit of a problem.” Rarity, who had apparently just walked in, called from downstairs. That was followed from the distinctive shout of Rainbow Dash and a crashing noise that rocked the floor.

LATER

Twilight had assembled the elements, Spike, and Cobalt in an emergency meeting.

Rarity had her hair poofed out to unrealistic proportions, Twilight’s condition was already stated, something was up with Cobalt’s head, no matter what she did Rainbow couldn’t stop crashing, Pinkie’s tongue was also blue spotted and constantly stuck out, Applejack was microscopic, and Fluttershy seemed to be the only normal one out of the group.

“Okay,” Twilight said calmly. “I’ll open with this. WHAT THE HAY IS GOING ON?!”

“I don’t know, but as long as Dash is at my side, I don’t care.” Cobalt, who had now decided that he loved Rainbow Dash, said, sidling up to his companion.

Rainbow had decided no matter how much she liked Cobalt she just couldn’t take this, gently pushed him away and took two steps to the side, tripping over her own hooves and falling over in the process.

“Ah for one think it’s that varmit Zecora’s fault!” Applejack had to yell to be heard.

“She was putting nasty curses on us yesterday.” Rarity commented.

“Pht phhht!” Pinkie agreed angrily.

At that moment Spike happened to walk in on the bust out laughing scene. He, obviously, busted out laughing. “You, you all, bwahahaha! Oh, this is rich! What happened to you?”

“Zecora freakin’ cursed us yesterday!” Rainbow snapped. “Now something’s wrong with us all!”

“I notice nothing wrong with you.” Cobalt told her, lovingly nuzzling her cheek.

“Get offa me already!” Rainbow sidestepped again.

“Okay, I can tell what’s wrong with all the rest of you, but what’s up with Fluttershy?” Spike asked about the timid mare who had been silent up till then.

“Um, I don’t really want to talk about it.” Fluttershy answered in a voice even deeper than Morgan Freeman’s. Everypony stared at her with a look that clearly said ‘what now?’

Fluttershy blushed, embarrassed.

“Wait a minute, ah told Applebloom to meet us here. Where’d my little sister go?” Applejack demanded.

Twilight’s eyes grew wide and her pupils shrank to pinpricks. “Oh sweet Celestia. She went to see Zecora, didn’t she?”

Rarity gasped. “We’ve got to find her!”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Spike called before anypony could leave. “Before you go…” he pointed at each of his friends in turn and came up with funny names, earning ‘heys!’ and ‘whats!’. “We’ve got Hairity, Appletini, Flutterguy, Rainbow Crash, Spitty Pie, Lover Spikes, and, uh, I can’t think of one for you.” He addressed Twilight.

“Whatever!” Rainbow growled, hating the name, as it was the one she’d been bullied by as a filly. It stung, bringing back painful memories. “Can we go now? I’m sick of just sitting here!”

“Ride ‘em cowbow!” Applejack heliumed.

“Whatever you say, shorty.” Rainbow grumbled, as the was the one who had to carry her.

Five seconds after they left, Spike exclaimed, “I’ve got it! Twilight Flopple! I’m writing that down.”

DEEP IN THE FOREST

“There it is!” Twilight pointed.

“Great! Let’s bust in there and force her to change us back!” Rainbow exclaimed, sick of being unable to fly.

“I want my old mane back!” Rarity whined.

“Uh, I sort of don’t like this voice.” Fluttershy mumbled.

“Small is the pits!” Applejack complained.

“Frankly, I don’t mind.” Cobalt shrugged. “I see more clearly now than I ever did before."

"Shut up, Cobalt!" Rainbow groaned.

“Come on, let’s remember, there is probably a perfectly rational explanation for all of this, and we’re only here to get it.” Twilight reasoned, still unconvinced that their predicament, however funny it was to others, was simply explained. (This doesn’t make sense as she does magic and yet she won’t believe something is magic, but that’s the episode plot and I’m rolling with it.)

Pinkie took this as an opportunity to put in her song she’d been working on, and started spitting at Fluttershy in an attempt to get her to perform it. The two seemed to have a silent conversation that went something like this:

Fluttershy: No!

Pinkie: Oh come on, it’ll be cool.

Fluttershy: Just, no! It’s embarrassing!

Pinkie: Pleeease!

Eventually Fluttershy sighed in consent and started using the lowered voice to do the vocals, which I can’t remember so look up the episode yourselves.

ONE MILDLY GOOD SONG LATER

“Impressive.” Cobalt assented, giving an approving nod.

“Ah, this is a very good brew, good for making Applebloom stew!” The group heard from inside the hut.

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Wow. I had my doubts, but I guess Zecora really is evil.” She muttered, then lowered her voice to a whisper. “On my count. One, two, three!”

The seven busted open the door and charged inside, Twilight yelling, “Surrender Applebloom and change us back, or prepare for a fight!”

Zecora gazed at the scene, her surprise turning into a slow boil of anger. “Why have you broken down my door and are now breaking inside and spilling my brew on the floor!” she gestured to a spilled pot. “Though you finding me I do not know how, but deeds such as this I cannot allow!”

Twilight flinched as her conscience took a stab; this whole thing didn’t really seem to add up at all, and they were breaking and entering based on assumption alone.

In the most unexpected occurrence ever, Applebloom walked in through a doorway carrying a bottle of something in her mouth, but that was promptly dropped so she could talk, and what she did say was, “Applejack, what are you and your friends doin’ here?” she sounded more surprised than anything else.

“Applebloom?” Cobalt raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m surprised you’re alive, but you do look quite striking in that pink bow.”

Applebloom glanced at Zecora. “He got it too?” the only response was a swift nod.

“Wait, wait, wait. Got what?” Rainbow demanded.

“Do you remember yesterday, when in fear you ran away? Those blue flowers you stood in, they were not your friend. They can cause you to be physically or mentally strange, and poison joke is their name. It is very similar to poison oak, but the temporary effects are much like a joke.” Zecora informed them.

“So, those things weren’t curses?” Twilight asked, feeling a twinge of guilt.

“No!” Applebloom beat Zecora to the punch. “Zecora was coming to town to get the supplies to make the antidote but everything was closed when she got there. That’s why I got some and brought it here.”

“Um, we’re really sorry about what happened today, and we perfectly understand if you don’t want to, but could you please let us use the antidote?” Twilight asked with a sheepish grin.

“I will since you apologized and you are forgiven, and besides, I need to talk to your friend.” She nodded to Cobalt.

LATER

The seven sat relaxing in a tub of pinkish liquid in the local spa, completely cured of the poison joke. Pinkie just couldn’t shut up about how hard it was to shut up.

“I just really hated it when I couldn’t talk and I was all spitting everywhere and it’s just so great to be able to talk about stuff and–” she was silenced when Rainbow placed a hoof over her mouth. “Pinkie, please. Is he cured yet?” she gestured to Cobalt.

“Lemme check.” Twilight volunteered. “Hey Cobalt!” he opened his eyes from a much needed doze. “What?”

Twilight snickered. “Do you love Rainbow Dash?”

Upon hearing this, Rainbow squirmed and seemed to be trying to sink into the earth.

Cobalt blushed. “Uh, well, um, is that a trick question?” he demanded.

“Yep, he’s back!” Pinkie agreed, performing a trintuple (times thirty) front flip and cannonballing.

“Where’s Applejack?” Rarity asked. “We didn’t happen to lose her, did we?”

“Nope!” Applejack called from on the floor. “Ah’m fine!” she six in the big tub looked down and saw Applejack sitting in a wooden bucket, having grown back to normal size.

Zecora trotted up to Cobalt and put a hoof on his forehead, nodding as she felt his aura. “Your mind is clouded, you see through closed doors, but I get the feeling this is yours.” She pulled a glowing green gem out of her cloak.

Cobalt choked on his own spit. “W-what?! Another chaos emerald? Where’d you get that?”

“A pegasus came by a few days ago and told me to go and find who this belongs to.” Zecora informed him.

“Can I have that for a second?” Cobalt asked eagerly, thinking maybe some of his memory might return.
He took it and tossed it from hoof to hoof. “Nothing.” He sighed. “Thanks anyway, Zecora.”

“Um, I wouldn’t say nothing happened.” Fluttershy said in her usual soft, feminine voice. She pointed at his flank and then blushed at how way far that could’ve been taken out of context (ya know, in a sexual sense).

Cobalt glanced back. “Whoa, what?” he gasped as his flank exploded in white light, but when it died down, his cutie mark was… different.

Applejack spat out some water. “What in tarnation?”

“A cutie mark appearing in two parts?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “That is so sweet!”

His mark had changed so that instead of only having the cyan emerald around a gold ring, the green emerald had been added in a small portion of a perfectly circular pattern.

Cobalt looked thoughtful. “Huh, maybe since, and keep in mind that I’m seriously extrapolating here, since my mark seems to gain one emerald for each one I come in contact with, if I can touch all seven it’ll be complete.”

Twilight nodded. “That’s sensible, well one more reason to find all of them, I suppose.” She sighed. “Wow we’ve got a lot on our plate. Okay, well, if we can make a plan then we’ve got it covered.”

Cobalt grinned. “No thanks, I’m just going to wing it.” He flapped into the air. “Get it? Wing it!” Everypony groaned at his terrible pun.

Author's Note

Yay, I'm actually making chapters again! Well, that's a bit of a lie. I'm uploading them here again. This is actually from like a year and a half ago... wow. Anyways, I'm going to try to get back into uploading these here every now and then, so please leave your thoughts!