Chapters Grounded: The Ballad of Greased Lightning
Unmarked Bits and Violin Cases
The next morning, Apple Bloom raced over to the Cutie Mark Crusaders' clubhouse, which sat nestled among the branches of a giant tree on a remote part of her family's farm. Once there, she met up with her fellow crusaders and proceeded to recount the sad story her big brother had told her the night before.
Scootaloo's face turned white as Apple Bloom described the loss of Greased Lightning's wing. "You mean, like, completely gone? Not even a little nub?"
"I dunno for sure," Apple Bloom conceded, "but it did put an end to Lightnin's racin' career. He probably couldn't even fly after that."
"Couldn't fly?! " Scootaloo's knees weakened at the thought, and she fainted onto the floor.
"Can you imagine?" Apple Bloom pondered, turning to Sweetie Belle. "Spendin' your whole entire life findin' your special talent and becomin' the best there ever was at it... And then losin' it forever?"
A cold chill ran up Sweetie Belle's spine. "I'd rather not think about that," she replied.
Apple Bloom turned and began pacing back and forth across the clubhouse. "We've got to find this guy," she declared. "Where did he go? What did he do? Nopony even knows if he's dead or alive!" She stopped and turned back towards her friends. "There's a story here that needs to be told," she proclaimed, "and by golly, we're just the ponies to tell it!"
"Yeah!" Sweetie Belle agreed. "We'll be investigative journalists, hot on the trail of a real-live mystery! Plus, if we could crack a case like this... We'd earn our cutie marks for sure!"
"Yay! Cutie Mark Crusader Famous Flyer Finders!" Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle shouted in unison, giving each other a high-hoof.
"But it ain't gonna be easy," Apple Bloom cautioned. "We're gonna need all hooves on deck for this one." She sighed as she looked over at a still-unconscious Scootaloo. "Hey, Scoot," she called over, "Rainbow Dash is lookin' for you!"
"What?" Scootaloo sprang back to life at the mention of her hero. "Rainbow Dash? Where?" Noticing the smirks on her friends' faces, Scootaloo could only shake her head. "All right, you guys, what are you up to?"
Sweetie Belle giggled. "We're gonna solve the case of 'The Disappearing Pegasus'!" she explained. "We're gonna find out what happened to Greased Lightning, and write a big cover story about it for the Foal Free Press, and finally earn our cutie marks!"
"Cool beans!" Scootaloo replied. "So, uh, how are we gonna do that?"
"Um, well..." Sweetie Belle quickly realized that she had absolutely no idea. "You tell her, Apple Bloom."
"Well..." Apple Bloom pondered the question for a moment. "First, I think we need more information about this Lightnin' feller—I don't even what he looks like!"
"Let's try the library!" Sweetie Belle suggested. "That's the first place I always go to find out about things."
"Great idea!" Scootaloo seconded. "Maybe Twilight can help us out!"
"Yeah, maybe..." Apple Bloom offered, hoping that Twilight hadn't found out what happened to her superbly-organized newspaper stacks.
"So what are we waiting for?" Scootaloo asked rhetorically. "Let's get this show on the road already!"
With that, the three fillies dashed out of their clubhouse, where Scootaloo's scooter and their trusty red wagon awaited. Scootaloo hopped on the scooter while her friends piled into the wagon behind her, and with a few flicks of her wings, the trio was on their way.
As it turns out, Twilight was just stepping out of the library's front door as the crusaders approached. "Uh oh..." Apple Bloom whimpered, preparing to get the third degree for the mess she had made the day before.
Instead, however, Twilight smiled as the crusaders pulled up to the tree. "Hi, girls!" she greeted the fillies. "Talk about perfect timing, Apple Bloom. I was just on my way to the farm to see you!"
Apple Bloom hung her head. "Look, I can explain—"
"You stumped me with your question about Greased Lightning yesterday," Twilight interrupted, "and as a true scholar, it is my duty to help you find the answer!" Using her magic, she levitated an envelope out of her saddlebag and over to the crusaders. "I sent a letter to my brother last night asking about Mr. Lightning's accident, and he just sent back a response!"
"Really? Wow!" Apple Bloom smiled as she accepted the letter. "That was fast!"
Twilight gave the fillies a wink. "Having a dragon around with a direct link to Canterlot does have its advantages."
"So what are you waiting for, Apple Bloom?" Sweetie Belle pressed. "Open it and see what it says!"
"I was just gettin' to that!" Apple Bloom insisted, breaking the seal on the envelope and pulling out the letter.
The first thing that popped out at the crusaders was a small, thin cardboard square tucked inside the letter, featuring a picture of a pony holding a large, gem-laden golden trophy over its head and the caption "Speedster Showcase: Haytona" along the bottom. "Is that a pegasus card?" Scootaloo squealed. "Awesome! This thing is, like, super-old!"
Apple Bloom looked closely at the trophy-toting pony, a dark-blue stallion about Twilight's age that sported a spiky mop of brown hair, a powerful set of legs, and a confident smirk. "Is that him?" Apple Bloom wondered. "Is that Greased Lightnin'?"
Scootaloo flipped the card over and began reading the text printed on the back. "On a dazzling day in April," she narrated, "the greatest flyers in Equestria made their way to Haytona Beach for the first pegasus derby of the year! With ten laps to go, rising star Greased Lightning grabbed the lead from Cherry Bomb and cruised on home to claim his second straight Haytona victory, dispelling the old adage that lightning never strikes in the same place twice." Scootaloo clutched the card to her chest as she finished, momentarily overcome with emotion. "I hope I get to race at Haytona someday."
"So that must be Greased Lightnin', then," Apple Bloom reasoned. "I doubt they give out that kind of hardware for second place."
"Talk about hardware," Sweetie Belle commented, marveling at the gems on the trophy. "If my sister were here, she'd probably start drooling."
Twilight could only laugh as the three crusaders examined the pegasus card. "Don't forget the letter, girls," she reminded them.
"Right, the letter!" Apple Bloom unfolded the paper and laid it on the ground as her fellow fillies gathered around:
Dear Twily,
Pegasus racing, huh? Gosh, that takes me back... Between my duties for the royal guard and our ongoing real estate saga—do you have any idea how hard it is to find a decent house for sale in Canterlot?—I haven't had much time to follow the derbies lately.
Anyway, on to your question: Greased Lightning's accident occurred roughly 12-13 years ago, during the Fillydelphia Preakness Stakes. The story goes that about halfway through the race, Lightning was driven off the course and into the forest by another pony named Turbo Jet. Turbo always maintained that he had lost control going around a corner while Lightning was trying pass him on the outside, but some ponies claim to this day the move was intentional and that Turbo had been paid off by gamblers who were betting against Lightning.
The accident basically broke everything Greased Lightning had to break. He suffered cuts, bruises, sprains, fractures, contusions, dislocations, a nasty concussion... Plus the wing, of course. He was laid up for a long time, and I remember bawling my eyes out they day they reported the amputation. He put on a brave face and claimed it wouldn't be the end of the world, and that he would one day race again... But in the end, his mouth was bigger than his heart.
I kind of lost track of him after that. He would pop up on the news from time to time, but it was always for the wrong reasons—public drunkenness, arrests for disturbing the peace, etc., etc. The previous captain of the guard told a story about how they got called to lock up Lightning for inciting a barroom brawl, and it took eight ponies to subdue him.
That's all I've got, but hopefully it's enough to get your filly friend started. Tell everypony I said hello, and that if all goes well, we should be able to break away and come visit you all soon. (Tell Rarity to keep the shop closed while we're there, though—I don't think my salary could support another one of Cadance's dress-buying binges!)
Sincerely,
Shining Armor
The sad story put lumps in the throats of the fillies who were reading it... Well, two of them, at least. "Whoa..." Scootaloo whispered, as she finished reading the letter. "So the 'accident' might not have been an accident at all, and might be part of some widespread race-fixing scandal? That's crazy!"
"It's also just a rumor," Sweetie Belle pointed out.
"Rumor schmumor!" Scootaloo shot back. "I'll bet it's all part of an international gambling ring, complete with gangsters and payoffs and smoke-filled rooms and unmarked bits and violin cases! This is gonna be the best story ever !"
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle exchanged eye rolls. "Either way," Apple Bloom declared, "as investigative reporters, it's our job to find out the truth, no matter what it might be."
"So what's our next move?" Scootaloo asked. "Should we get martial-arts training so we can take on all the bad guys that try to stop us from finding out the real story?"
"Er... Maybe later," Apple Bloom said. "Right now, we've got two things to figure out: What happened durin' the accident, and where Lightnin' ran off to afterwards."
"I think we should talk to this Turbo guy," Sweetie Belle suggested. "Maybe he knows something about where Greased Lightning went."
"Yeah!" Scootaloo agreed. "Let's see how good his alibi is!"
"Sounds good," Apple Bloom said, "but we don't know any more about where this Turbo feller is than we do about where Lightnin' is."
"Maybe Rainbow Dash knows!" Scootaloo posited. "She must have raced against this guy at some point—maybe they talked to each other while they were out on the racing circuit."
"That makes sense," Sweetie Belle concurred. "What do you think, Apple Bloom?"
Apple Bloom pondered the idea for a moment. "You girls go on ahead," she finally responded. "I think I'm gonna stay here and take another look at the newspapers in the library." (She was motivated partially by the hope of finding more information about Greased Lightning, and partially by the hope of avoiding Twilight's wrath by straightening out the mess she had made previously.) "Would that be okay, Twilight?"
"Of course!" Twilight answered. "You're welcome to look down there as much as you like."
"Then it's settled!" Sweetie Belle said. "Come on, Scootaloo, let's go find Rainbow Dash!" Sweetie Belle hopped back into the crusaders' wagon, and the two fillies were quickly off and rolling in search of Scootaloo's idol.
"Thanks for everythin', Twilight!" Apple Bloom called out, as she pushed past the unicorn and rushed into the library. "Now stand aside—I got some investigatin' to do!"
Twilight smiled and shook her head as she watched Apple Bloom make a beeline for the basement. "Those three are starting to remind me of... Well, me , back when I was their age," she observed. "That story must have really struck a nerve with them."
Rainbow Dash wasn't home when Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo arrived, but around Ponyville, if you keep your eyes on the sky long enough, you'll eventually catch a glimpse of the town's resident speed demon. After a good twenty minutes of doing just that, Sweetie Belle spotted Rainbow's telltale rainbow mane and tail as the blue pegasus was heading east en route to some suspicious-looking gray clouds that needed clearing. "There she is!" Sweetie Belle shouted. "Step on it, Scoot!"
The filly duo tailed Rainbow Dash all the way to her destination, trying unsuccessfully to catch her attention the entire way. Rainbow, however, was too locked in on her weather chores to hear the crusaders' cries. Spotting her prey up ahead, Rainbow kicked herself into another gear and charted a course straight for the offending clouds. "And boom goes the dynamite!" she shouted, smashing through the middle cloud of the cluster with such force that the shockwave caused the surrounding clouds to dissipate as well. "Another day officially de-clouded, thanks to my incredible awesomeness!"
"Rainbow! Rainbow Dash!" With Rainbow's work done, the shouts of the fillies from the ground finally reached her ears, and the pegasus looked down to see Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle approaching as fast as Scootaloo's wings could carry them.
"Hey there, squirts!" Rainbow greeted the fillies, swooping down to meet them on the ground. "What are you two up to today? Do you want me to take you up so you can take another shot at getting your skydiving cutie marks?"
The two fillies winced at the memory. "Er... No thanks," Sweetie Belle declined. "Actually, we had a question for you: Did you ever meet a pony named 'Turbo Jet' while you were racing?"
"Turbo Jet?" The sudden reference to a pony from her past caught Rainbow Dash off guard. "Yeah, I know Turbo. Why do you ask?"
"We've got some questions to ask him!" Scootaloo chimed in. "Do you know where he lives?"
"Geez... I dunno, maybe," Rainbow Dash offered, combing the dusty corners of her mind to see if she could remember anything. "I think he was out of Baltimare originally, but who knows if he's there now." She shook her head sadly. "Sorry, girls," she apologized, "I don't think I can help you there."
"Awwww..." The two fillies sighed in unison.
"Well, thanks anyway, Rainbow Dash," Scootaloo sighed, turned her scooter around, and began the long journey back to the library. "Rats!" she said. "I thought for sure Rainbow would know!"
"We'll just have to keep looking, I guess," Sweetie Belle said with a sigh.
Rainbow Dash stood and watched the fillies as they departed, feeling bad that she hadn't been able to help, when suddenly an idea popped into her head. "Now hold on just an apple-picking minute!" she shouted, flying over and landing just in front of the two fillies. "Just because I don't know where Turbo Jet is doesn't mean I don't know somepony who does know where he is!"
"Really?" Scootaloo's eyes widened with excitement. "You think you can find out where he is?"
"I've still got a few connections in the derby-racing business," Rainbow Dash said. "I bet I can find somepony who knows where that dim bulb Turbo wound up."
"Would you?" Sweetie Belle squealed. "Oh, thank you, Rainbow Dash!"
"Yeah, you're the best!" Scootaloo added. "I knew you'd come through for us, I just knew it!"
"I'll do it on one condition," Rainbow said. "Answer me this: Why in the world would you want to talk to a washed-up nopony like Turbo Jet? I mean, the guy wasn't any good when I raced against him, and he wasn't any good before then either! What could a colt like him ever have to say that was worth listening to?"
"We're investigating a story for the Foal Free Press about Greased Lightning!" Sweetie Belle replied, not noticing the subtle flinch Rainbow made at the sound of Lightning's name.
"We wanna know the truth about the crash at the Preakness!" Scootaloo revealed. "Was it really an accident, or was it a setup ordered by a super-scary crime boss running a gambling ring?"
Rainbow Dash scrunched up her face, apparently unsatisfied with the explanation. "Okay then," she continued, "question two: Why in the world would you want to write a story about a no-good coward like Greased Lightning?"
"Coward?" Sweetie Belle gave Rainbow Dash a puzzled look. "What do you mean, coward?"
"I don't get it," Scootaloo admitted. "I thought he was supposed to be some super-fast superstar."
"Pfft... Yeah, right," Rainbow muttered. "All I know is, whenever we were supposed to race and find out which one of us was really the best flyer ever... He was always a no show."
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo exchanged confused glances. "Um, didn't Lightning lose a wing in his accident?" Sweetie Belle pointed out. "How could he race you without that?"
"He had plenty of chances to race me before then," Rainbow huffed. "Besides, I told that bum the day he walked out of the hospital that I would race him anytime, anywhere—in the air, on the ground, underwater, whatever. He never had the guts to face me. We even scheduled a meeting during the Canterlot marathon, but the loser didn't show up." She spit onto the ground and rubbed it into the dirt with her hoof. "I don't know whatever happened to him, and frankly, I don't care."
"Really..." Sweetie Belle looked over at the pencil and paper sitting next to her in the wagon. "You wouldn't happen to have time for an interview, would you?"
"Sorry, sport," Rainbow declined. "I gotta go rest up, if I'm going to hunt up some of my old racing contacts."
"Well, can we at least quote you for the story?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"Go right ahead," Rainbow agreed. "If the guy is still alive, I don't mind letting him know exactly how I feel." With that, the blue pegasus leaped into the air and headed home to rest. "I'll let you know what I find out about Turbo!" she yelled back to the fillies as she flew away.
"Thanks, Rainbow Dash!" Scootaloo called out after her hero. She watched until Rainbow had disappeared out of sight, then turned back to Sweetie Belle. "This is gonna be a totally awesome story!" she proclaimed. "I mean, this Lightning guy must have been bad news if Rainbow didn't like him! I'll bet he was the one who was in with the gamblers, and they had the guy whacked because he cheated them and they wanted to send a message!"
Sweetie Belle facehooved. "You've been reading too many of those crazy crime novels from the library," she grumbled. "Speaking of which, we should probably go back and see if Apple Bloom has dug anything up."
"Right on!" Scootaloo concurred, kicking her wings into gear and speeding off towards the library with Sweetie Belle and the wagon in tow.
Grounded: The Ballad of Greased Lightning
Upon returning to the library, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo scurried down to the basement, where they found Apple Bloom sifting through a sea of newsprint that came up to her stomach, still digging for more clues as to where Greased Lightning had gone after his accident. "Any luck?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"Not really," Apple Bloom admitted. "I've been reorganizin' these darn stacks more than anythin' else." She fought her way through the papers to a table on the far side of the room, where she had set aside a paper she had stumbled upon while haphazardly digging through the stacks. "I did find this, though," she offered, bringing the paper over to her friends. "It's from the day after the race. The accident made the front page, with a huge picture and everythin'."
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle gazed down at the image, which depicted Greased Lightning lying on a stretcher, partially covered by a white sheet, as four paramedic ponies loaded him into an ambulance wagon. While it was the same pony the fillies had seen on the pegasus card, he no longer looked as strong and confident as before, and the smirk he wore earlier had been replaced by a look of sheer agony that sent chills down the crusaders' spines.
Scootaloo turned away quickly, unable to stand the sight of the image. "Gosh," she whispered, "that must have been awful."
"Yeah," Apple Bloom agreed. "Just lookin' at that thing made me sore." She made her way over to another stack of papers that she had yet to examine. "So how did things go with Rainbow Dash?" she asked. "Did she know where we could find Turbo Jet?"
"No," Sweetie Belle explained, "but she thought she might know somepony who did, and said she would get back to us."
"Awww..." Apple Bloom groaned. "That could take forever!"
"No way!" Scootaloo said. "Rainbow's the fastest pony who ever lived—she'll come through for us!" She looked down at the sea of paper that Apple Bloom was standing in. "Besides," she added, "it'll take us two forevers to go through all this."
Disheartened by the thought, Apple Bloom swung her hoof in frustration, knocking over another stack of papers in the process, then buried her head in her hooves. "What are we gonna do?" she wailed. "We've only got a few days before the paper goes to press!"
"We can't give up now," Sweetie Belle insisted. "The key to this mystery could be somewhere in this room, and if it is, we're going to find it!"
"But how?" Apple Bloom wondered, sweeping her hoof across the room in a grand gesture. The papers had no semblance of order to start with, and despite Apple Bloom's efforts (or perhaps because of them) they had even less now. "It'll be like lookin' for a needle in a haystack!"
Sweetie Belle took a deep breath. "If this is what it takes to earn our cutie marks," she declared, "then we've got no choice." With that, the unicorn dove headfirst into the newspapers. "Come on, Scootaloo!" she urged. "We've got a zillion papers to go through, and we can't let a perfect night like this go to waste! We'll be Cutie Mark Crusader... Um... Er... Copy... Uh... Comber-Throughers!"
"Yay!" The three ponies cheered in unison, as they began digging through their treasure trove of information.
Nothing could stop the Cutie Mark Crusaders when they thought their cutie marks were within reach, and the trio ended up spending the entire night carefully combing through the papers in the library basement. Twilight, for her part, incorrectly assumed that the crusaders had given up long ago, and went to bed completely oblivious to the work being done a few floors below.
The next morning, Twilight woke up to the sound of somepony frantically banging on her door. "Who in the world could that be at this hour?" she mumbled as she dragged herself out of bed. "Go see who that is, will you, Spike?" she asked her assistant, who was sleeping in a basket at the foot of her bed
"Zzzzz... Sorry... Spike's not... Zzzzz... In right now... Zzzzz..." Spike half-whispered, half-snored in reply. "Please leave... Zzzzz... A message... Zzzzz.... After the tone..."
"Ugh," Twilight grumbled, stumbling downstairs to open the library's front door.
Standing on Twilight's doorstep was a slightly-disheveled-and-edgy Applejack. "Howdy, Twilight," she greeted the unicorn. "I'm awful sorry to be botherin' you like this, but Apple Bloom wasn't in her bed this mornin', and Rarity just came by my place lookin' for Sweetie Belle and sayin' she didn't come back to her shop last night. I was wonderin' if you knew where those fillies went after they left your place yesterday."
"Gosh... No, I'm not sure where they went," Twilight admitted. "In fact, I was so wrapped up in my latest experiment that I never even saw them go."
Suddenly, a loud crashing sound from inside the library caused both ponies to leap three feet into the air in shock. "Land sakes!" Applejack shouted. "What was that?"
"It sounded like it came from... The basement?" Twilight realized that she may have made the same faulty assumption two days in a row. "Come with me," she said. "There's a good chance those fillies never actually left at all."
Twilight and Applejack headed for the library basement, eventually finding Apple Bloom poring over a pile of papers in a sleep-deprived stupor. "Apple Bloom!" Twilight cried out. "Did you even go home last night? How long have you been down here?"
"Not... Long... Enough..." Apple Bloom whispered, as her legs began to weaken.
"Heavens to Betsy!" Applejack exclaimed, rushing over and catching Apple Bloom before she collapsed. "All right, young'un," she decreed, throwing the filly over her back, "it's off to bed with you. You can work on your story later."
"No!" Apple Bloom insisted, trying to put up a struggle but finding herself too weak to fight. "I gotta keep looking... I gotta find out what happened..."
"Applejack's right," Twilight concurred. "Studies show that ponies need at least eight hours of sleep each night to perform at their peak. Getting the proper amount of rest will make you a better and more productive researcher."
"But I... I don't... Don't have... Time..." Apple Bloom protested, her voice weakening as her strength started to fail.
"Now listen here," Applejack instructed. "You're in no shape to do much of anythin' right now. I promise you, little sis: Take a good rest and eat a good meal, and when you come back, you'll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and you'll find what you're lookin' for in no time at all."
Apple Bloom sighed, her will to fight sapped by fatigue. "All right," she agreed.
"Great!" Twilight said. "Now, for my next question: What happened to Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo? Did they already leave?"
"Well... I'm not really sure," Apple Bloom admitted, "but I think Sweetie Belle's over there." She pointed to a pile of papers in a corner of the room, which appeared to be moving slightly.
Twilight walked over and pressed her ear against the pile. "Do I hear... Snoring?" She brushed a few of the papers off the top of the pile, revealing a white unicorn horn and a tuft a purple hair. "Phew!" Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. "That's two fillies accounted for. Now we just need to—"
"I see her!" Applejack interrupted, answering Twilight's question by pointing to Scootaloo's fuchsia-colored tail sticking out from underneath a desk. "Well then, I'd better run along and tell Rarity we found everypony."
Twilight looked over at Apple Bloom, whose strength had given out completely and had drifted off to sleep. "Er... Maybe I should do that," Twilight suggested, pointing at the limp filly on Applejack's back. "You've probably got other things to do."
Applejack chuckled at the sight of her sleeping sister. "I suppose I do," she agreed.
"Hey! Anypony here?" Rainbow Dash's voice suddenly called down from the top of the basement stairs.
The sound of the rainbow-maned pony's voice quickly snapped her number one fan back to her senses. "Yes! " Scootaloo shouted back, bounding out from underneath the desk, zooming past Applejack and Twilight, and racing up the stairs. "I'm here! I'm here!"
"Hey, Scoot," Rainbow greeted the filly, as Scootaloo burst through the basement doorway and skidded to a stop at the blue pegasus's hooves. "You're just the pony I was looking for."
"Really?" Scootaloo's eyes widened. "Did you find out where Turbo Jet is?"
"Yep!" Rainbow Dash reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a piece of paper with an address written on it. "Turns out the stupid foal went back to Baltimare after all. He's living five blocks from his parents!" She laughed at the thought. "I always knew he was a momma's boy."
"This is great!" Scootaloo proclaimed. "Now we can grill this guy and get him to confess to his crimes!" She stood up on her hind legs and hugged Rainbow. "Thanks, Rainbow! You're the best ever !"
"Yeah, I know, but—wait, crimes?" Rainbow scratched her head with her hoof as Scootaloo hurried back over to the basement stairs. "Okay, now I'm really confused," she admitted.
Scootaloo raced back down into the basement, nearly bowling over Applejack and Twilight as the duo were climbing the stairs. "Whoa Nellie!" Applejack yelped, nearly losing her balance as the orange pegasus shot past her. "Be careful!"
Rainbow Dash shook her head as Applejack and Twilight reached the first floor. "I don't get it," she conceded. "What's so interesting about a bunch of noponies like Turbo and Greased Lightning? I mean, I'm twice as awesome as those two put together."
"Oh, you know them," Applejack replied. "If those three think they can get a cutie mark out of it, they jump in with all four hooves, no matter what they're doin'."
"Where's Apple Bloom?" The sound of Scootaloo's voice caused Twilight, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash to turn towards the basement door, where Scootaloo and a revived Sweetie Belle stood looking around frantically. "Did she come up here?" Scootaloo asked.
"We've got to find her quick," Sweetie Belle added, "so we can start packing!"
"Packing?" Rainbow Dash arched an eyebrow. "You're not actually thinking of—"
"Baltimare, here we come!" Sweetie Belle finished Rainbow's thought while exchanging a high-hoof with Scootaloo.
"Now hold on just a minute!" Applejack insisted. "First of all, Apple Bloom ain't in no shape for travelin' right now, and second, y'all are just too young to just go galavantin' over to Baltimare by yourselves."
Now it was Sweetie Belle's turn to arch an eyebrow. "Um... Didn't you travel to Manehattan by yourself when you were even younger than us?" She reminded Applejack.
"Well, I... I mean... I... Uh... That was... Er..." Applejack stammered, stymied by Sweetie Belle's argument.
"Seriously, you two, do you have any idea how far we are from Baltimare? It's a good four hours away, and that's if you're going by flight!" Rainbow said, flicking out both her wings for the fillies to see.
"It's true," Twilight revealed. "Taking the train would route you through Canterlot and San Anponio, which is about as roundabout a route as you can get. It'd take you all day to get there."
"No matter!" Scootaloo proclaimed. "Neither rain, nor wind, nor snow, nor long distances will stop the Cutie Mark Crusaders! We laugh in the face of all-day train rides!"
Scootaloo's line brought a spark of inspiration to her fellow crusader. "I've got it!" Sweetie Belle announced. "We could mail ourselves to Baltimare! My sister has a bunch of boxes at her shop that we could use, and I'm sure it wouldn't take that many stamps."
"Girls, just... No," Rainbow Dash argued. "It's way too far, especially if you're going alone."
Suddenly, a light went on in Twilight's mind. "Why don't you take them, Rainbow?" she proposed.
"Me? " Rainbow Dash sputtered.
"Yeah!" Scootaloo shouted, quickly jumping on the bandwagon. "If Rainbow took us, we'd be there and back in no time flat!"
"B-B-But I can't go!" Rainbow Dash objected. "I've got, like, a hundred zillion other things to do today!"
"Most of which involve relaxing, resting, napping, sleeping, and catchin' some shut-eye, I reckon," Applejack predicted, rolling her eyes.
"Come on, Rainbow," Twilight encouraged her friend. "If you took them, you could make the whole trip in just one day, and I'm sure we could find somepony to cover your weather chores."
Rainbow Dash scowled, and motioned for Twilight to follow her outside, where they would be out of earshot of the fillies. "What are you doing ?" she demanded as the pair reached the library's welcome mat. "Do you actually want those girls to go traipsing across Equestria after this guy?"
"Absolutely!" Twilight said. "A true scholar goes wherever he or she has to go to find the truth, and besides, it would be a great experience for them."
Rainbow Dash slapped her hoof against her face. "I do not want to waste my day going on a wild goose chase just to ask a loser nopony like Turbo Jet about a royal jerk like Greased Lightning," she stated flatly.
"Fine," Twilight agreed, "but you're the one who'll have to explain that to Scootaloo."
"Okay, then." Rainbow followed Twilight back into the library. "Listen, girls," she began, "I know you've got your hearts set on this trip and all, but it's just not gonna work out. I've got a busy schedule today, and I just can't leave Ponyville hanging."
"Awww..." Scootaloo pouted for a moment, then broke out her best puppy-dog face. "Pleeeeeeease? " she pleaded.
Sweetie Belle's reaction, however, was more measured. "Meh," she said, "it's just as well. Rainbow Dash couldn't have got us there and back in one day anyway."
"Excuse me?" Rainbow Dash gave Sweetie Belle an annoyed look. "What do you mean, I couldn't do it?"
"Yeah, really!" Scootaloo exclaimed, similarly aghast at Sweetie Belle's statement. "She could do it! She could probably do it twice in one day!"
Sweetie Belle draped one of her front legs across Scootaloo's shoulders. "Come on, Scoot," she explained, "you heard what Rainbow Dash said. Baltimare's just too far away. No pegasus could make that trip in one day. Even Rainbow Dash would need five hours to—"
"Hey, I said four !" Rainbow Dash corrected Sweetie Belle, her hackles raised by the filly's poor assessment of her skills. "And I could do it in three if I really wanted to!" She boasted.
"But you'd be carrying two fillies," Sweetie Belle pointed, winking at Scootaloo as she spoke. "Plus, with all those pencils and papers, we'd just slow you down."
Scootaloo started to smile, but quickly suppressed it and put on her best sad face. "Aw, shucks," she groaned, scuffing at the floor with her hoof. "You're right, Sweetie Belle—nopony could ever make a trip like that."
"Oh yeah?" Rainbow snapped. "Well, let me introduce you to nopony then!" She struck a confident pose. "I could carry both of you to Baltimare and back without breaking a sweat!"
Sweetie Belle smirked. "Prove it," she challenged the pegasus.
Rainbow Dash glared at Sweetie Belle, her temper boiling over at the audacity of the unicorn filly. "Meet me outside in ten minutes," she dictated, "and we'll just see how long it takes me to drag you two to Baltimare!"
"Yay!" Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle shouted, exchanging another high-hoof. "Thanks, Rainbow Dash!" the pair shouted as they rushed out the front door to pack for the trip.
"Geez Louise!" Rainbow muttered, staring out the front door as the fillies disappeared. "Can you believe those two? Thinking I wasn't good enough to take them to—hey, what's with you two?" she suddenly demanded, as Applejack and Twilight tried in vain to suppress their own smiles.
"As the kids might say," Applejack laughed, "I reckon you just got played... And I'd best get along home before they try the same trick on me to get Apple Bloom to go. Be seein' you, Twilight."
"Played?" Rainbow Dash scratched her head as Applejack carried her still-dozing sister out the door. "What is she talking about? I don't get played! I'm the player , not the playee !"
Twilight could only shake her head and grin.
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo only needed five of their allotted minutes to collect their gear (spending the rest on an ultimately-futile attempt to convince Applejack to let Apple Bloom go, just as the orange pony predicted), and were waiting excitedly as Rainbow Dash re-appeared to take the fillies to their destination. As bad as it made them feel to leave their fellow crusader behind, the pair knew that they had to take advantage of their good fortune before Rainbow Dash changed her mind.
For her part, Rainbow Dash had needed to rush over and borrow a wooden cart from her friend Fluttershy, having no way to carry the two fillies by herself. Although the cart was a bit heavy and not built for speed, when Rainbow Dash's pride was inflamed, a cumbersome cart and two petite ponies were not going to slow her down. "Hang on tight," she instructed, as Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle piled into the cart, "and prepare to be amazed!"
Rainbow Dash leaped into the air with a powerful burst, flinging her two passengers against the back of the cart as she dashed into the sky. The trio quickly cleared the library, raced to the edge of town, and began their long journey across the countryside. Peering over the side of the cart, Sweetie Belle couldn't help but marvel at the rustic scene below them. "Talk about a view!" she said.
"View, nothing!" Scootaloo replied, standing up on her hind legs to let the wind blow her mane. "Do you have any idea how fast we're going? This is so awesome!"
Sweetie Belle nodded in agreement. "At this rate," she posited, "we'll be in Baltimare in no time!"
A victorious smile spread across Rainbow Dash's face. "I hope you're enjoying all that crow you're eating!" she called back.
The conversation eventually lapsed into silence, as the fillies soaked up the scenery while Rainbow Dash worked to maintain her speed. After a while, however, Sweetie Belle realized that with Rainbow Dash as a captive audience, the crusaders had a chance to score their first interview. "Hey, Rainbow," Sweetie asked, reaching for her notepad, "can I ask you a question?"
"Better make it fast!" Rainbow advised Sweetie Belle. "We'll be in Baltimare before you can blink!"
Sweetie Belle took a deep breath. "Why does it bother you so much that Greased Lightning never raced against you?"
Rainbow Dash scrunched up her face at the question. "It doesn't bother me," she insisted. "It just kinda-sorta annoys me, that's all."
"But you're the best ever !" Scootaloo interjected. "Who cares if you didn't race a jerk like Lightning?"
Rainbow Dash groaned. "Try everypony in the freaking universe," she grumbled. Looking out at the landscape that stretched out before her, the rainbow-maned pegasus sighed. "I am the best ever," she reiterated, "but that crab apple Greased Lightning never let me prove it."
As the crusaders looked on, Rainbow Dash began telling the story of her relationship with Greased Lightning. "Ever since I was born, it's been 'Greased Lightning this,' or 'Greased Lightning that,'" she lamented. "Even when I was a little filly like you, ponies would always say, 'Oh, you fly like Greased Lightning,' or 'Keep it up, and you'll be as fast as Greased Lightning someday.'"
"That doesn't sound too bad," Sweetie Belle commented. "They were just being nice."
"Maybe," Rainbow continued, "but it all changed once I really started racing. I was kicking flanks and taking names faster than anypony had ever seen, but all I ever heard was 'Who do you think you are, Greased Lightning?' 'You think you're all that, but you'll never be as fast as Lightning.' 'Get real, Crash, Greased Lightning is, like, a billion times faster than you.' It just made me so... So mad... I just wanted to punch somepony in the face."
"Well, they didn't know what they were talking about!" Scootaloo said.
"I know, but it still burned me up," Rainbow Dash admitted. "I tried to ignore them at first, and just focus on realizing my dream. I trained even harder, flew even faster, and made everypony else look even worse. I even started breaking some of Lightning's old speed records! But the better I did, the more people talked." Rainbow Dash shook her head at the memory. "Nopony believed that I could ever be as good as their so-called 'hero,'" she muttered.
"So what did you do then?" Sweetie Belle asked, as Scootaloo was too captivated by the story to do anything but listen.
"I knew that the only way to shut those ponies' mouths once and for all was to beat Greased Lightning at his own game," Rainbow Dash revealed. "I tried to get into the official pegasus racing circuit, but the ponies who ran it never let me into a real race. They told me I was 'too young,' and that 'a Junior Speedster would just get beat up by the big boys.' After about the fifteenth time I got that answer, I started trying to contact Greased Lightning directly. I probably wrote a thousand letters to the guy, telling him that I was the fastest pony alive and that I would race him anywhere and anytime he wanted to prove it. All that ever got me was a bunch of 'Thanks for writing!' form letters and a couple of autographed pictures."
"Did you ever get to meet Lightning in person?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"Once," the blue pegasus answered. "I was at the end of my wit by then, and still about a year away from the racing circuit's minimum age limit. When the Cloudsdale Derby came to town that year, I decided to confront him and issue my challenge face-to-face, so that he couldn't ignore me anymore. I bought a ticket to watch the racers practice the day before the race, then waited until Greased Lightning came out to train, determined to give him a piece of my mind."
"What happened next?" Sweetie Belle pressed.
"Nothing," Rainbow grumbled, "because the bum never came out to practice! After four hours of waiting, I was so frustrated that I jumped out of the bleachers and stormed the race's staging area, shouting for Lightning to show his ugly face."
"Whoa! You went into the racer's quarters?" Scootaloo exclaimed, amazed at her hero's brazen act. "Weren't you afraid of getting caught by security?"
"Please." Rainbow Dash dismissed the fear with a wave of her hoof. "They're all out-of-shape old fogies that even Turbo Jet could outrun. Anyway, I searched that place high and low, and finally found that bum Lightning taking a nap in one of the training rooms."
"What did you say to him?" Scootaloo asked. "Did you give him a piece of your mind?"
"Oh yeah," Rainbow Dash confirmed, "I really let him have it! I called him a coward for ignoring my challenges, and told him that I would fly circles around him if he ever stepped up to the line against me. I threw in a few more unflattering words before security grabbed me, but before they dragged me off, I made sure to tell him I'd be back."
"Did he say anything back?" Sweetie Belle wondered.
"Not until the end," Rainbow responded. "He kinda looked at me funny, and then he asked how old I was. When I told him, he just turned away and stared off into space like a dork. Before security hauled me away, though, I heard him say one last thing under his breath: 'She'll be here next year.'"
"What happened after that?" Scootaloo inquired.
"Aw, I got tossed in the cooler for the rest of the day," Rainbow explained. "They rung me up for trespassing, harassment, failing to obey a police officer, resisting arrest, yada yada yada... Man, my parents were livid when they found out what happened," she added with a chuckle.
"And that was the last time you saw Greased Lightning?" Sweetie Belle presumed.
"Before he lost his wing, at least," Rainbow clarified. "After I realized that he was right and that I'd be old enough to race in the next Cloudsdale Derby, I spent the next year training my tail off for my chance to beat him, only to lose it anyway after he got busted up in Fillydelphia." Rainbow sighed as she navigated her way through a rocky mountain pass. "I went to see him the day he was released from the hospital, and told him that he wasn't off the hook just because of a lost wing, and that my offer to race anywhere and anytime still stood. He gave me some blather about racing me across the sky someday, but that Canterlot marathon thing we scheduled was the closest I ever got to taking him on."
"Would it really have been the same if you'd beat him after the accident?" Sweetie Belle posed.
"Good point," Scootaloo seconded her fellow filly's sentiment. "Nothing could ever replace flying!"
"It doesn't matter!" Rainbow Dash snapped. "Do you know that to this day, ponies still debate which one of us was the better flyer? That's the thing that still burns me up."
"Why is there a debate?" Scootaloo asked. "Greased Lightning couldn't touch you in a race!"
"I know !" Rainbow shouted angrily. "There shouldn't be any debate! The answer is me ! I am the greatest flyer ever! But because that jerk Lightning wasn't stallion enough to actually race me, I'm stuck hearing ponies argue that he was the better flyer until the day I die!" A single tear of passion escaped the blue pegasus and ran down her cheek. "Greased Lighting never gave me the chance to show that I measured up," she concluded, "and I will never, ever forgive him for it."
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle looked on in silence as Rainbow turned her focus back to her flight. "Did Rainbow just... Cry?" Scootaloo whispered to Sweetie Belle. "I've never heard of her crying before. I didn't think it was possible!"
"Maybe we should leave her alone for a while," Sweetie Belle suggested, looking down at her now-half-full notepad. "This should be enough quotes for our story anyway."
With that, the two fillies went back to staring at the greenery below, waiting as Baltimare drew ever closer and hoping that Apple Bloom wouldn't be mad at them for leaving her behind when they got back.
Grounded: The Ballad of Greased Lightning
Dare I Ask How Many Fathers?
After a much-needed nap, Apple Bloom awoke to find herself tucked in her bed back at Sweet Apple Acres. "Uhhh..." she groaned, rubbing her eyes as she tried to regain her bearings. "What... What happened? How did I get back here?" she asked, despite the fact that nopony else was in the room.
Stumbling out of bed, Apple Bloom shook her head and reached back into her memory, trying to piece together the events of the night before. She seemed to recall an argument with her sister about something, but her exhaustion had erased the memory of exactly what that something was. She knew she hadn't been in her room, though—she had been... Where? It took a moment for the answer to come to her: The library, of course! She had been working with her fellow Cutie Mark Crusaders, on their story about—
"Oh, ponyfeathers! The story!" she sputtered, as the image of Greased Lightning being carted away on a stretcher popped into her mind. "We gotta finish that story!" She bounced out of bed, grabbed her saddlebags, and raced out of the room.
Downstairs, Applejack was taking a tray of freshly-baked apple fritters over to the kitchen table to cool when a yellow blur sped by and nearly knocked her off of her hooves. "Land sakes!" she shouted, trying desperately to keep her balance while maintaining her hold on the fritter tray. "Good gravy, Apple Bloom!" Applejack scolded her sister, who was already heading out the front door. "Watch where you're goin' when you're goin' like that!"
"Sorry, sis!" Apple Bloom called back. "I've got to get back to the library right away! Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle are waitin' for me!"
"Hold your horses!" Applejack ordered, causing her sister to come to a screeching halt just beyond the front porch. "Your friends ain't at the library right now," Applejack revealed, stepping out onto the porch. "They went with Rainbow this mornin' to go talk to that Turbo feller in Baltimare."
"What?!" Apple Bloom's face fell at the realization. "They went without me? But... But we're a team! We're supposed to work together to earn our cutie marks!" A tear began to roll down her cheek. "Why... Why would they just... Abandon me like that?" she sniffled.
"It ain't their fault," Applejack admitted. "They wanted to bring you along, but you weren't in any condition to travel right then, so I wouldn't let them."
"You... You didn't let me go?" Apple Bloom glared at her sister, her sadness quickly overwhelmed by anger. "How... How could you?" she demanded. "This could've been my chance to find my special talent and finally earn my cutie mark, and you... You ruined it! You've ruined everything !" Apple Bloom turned away from her sister, as her eyes began to water again. "Some big sister you are," she huffed.
The intensity of Apple Bloom's reaction caught Applejack off guard. "Gosh, sugarcube, I'm sorry," she apologized. "I know this story means a lot to you and all, but you've been workin' yourself to death lately, and..."
"Oh, forget it!" Apple Bloom snapped, her anger giving way to cold rationality. "I ain't got time to argue—I've got to get back to the library! I've still got ten years of those papers to go through!" With that, the little filly turned away and ran off in the direction of Twilight's house, leaving a stunned Applejack in her wake.
Applejack shook her head. "Golly..." she said to herself. "Apple Bloom still seems awfully moody. I don't know if that Lightnin' feller is dead or not, but his story's sure hauntin' my sister..."
While Apple Bloom was rushing back to the library, her friends Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were just reaching the outskirts of the port city of Baltimare. "We made it!" Scootaloo exclaimed. "So this is what Baltimare looks like..."
Sweetie Belle looked down apprehensively at the soulless rows of brick warehouses below. "Wow... It's so... So... Red..." she observed.
"Yep," Rainbow Dash confirmed, "this place looks the same as it always did: Dreary. I never understood why anypony actually wanted to live here." Doing a quick scan of the area, she spied a large clock atop one of the buildings. "First things first," she decided. "Did we break the three-hour mark?" Swooping down to get a better view of the time, Rainbow's face fell as she saw the position of the clock's hands. "Three and a half hours?" she grumbled. "This stupid thing must be running fast or something!"
"It definitely felt faster than three hours," Scootaloo said. "No worries—I'll bet we break three hours on the way back for sure!"
"...Before we do," Sweetie Belle interrupted, "let's see if we can talk to Turbo Jet."
"Right, right, right..." Rainbow Dash looked down at the hastily-scribbled address she had written on her front leg. "It says here he's living on Ponderosa Boulevard," she informed the two crusaders. "If I remember right, that's just a little south of here..."
Soaring back above the industrial section of town, Rainbow Dash charted a course to a more residential-looking area on the southern end of the city. "I think it's that one!" she yelled to the fillies, pointing down vaguely at one of the streets below as she darted down to ground level to test her hypothesis. "Aw, yeah!" she shouted in triumph, reading the 'PONDEROSA BOULEVARD' sign that validated her guess.
A few more minutes of searching brought the trio to 1158 Ponderosa Boulevard, a small, brown house surrounded by a white picket fence. "I guess this is it," Rainbow declared, unhitching her cart as the fillies hopped out onto the sidewalk. "Kind of drab, but it fits right in with the rest of this crummy town."
Scootaloo immediately bolted for the front door. "Let's do this!" she said to Sweetie Belle. "Time to interrogate this guy and make him confess!"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Rainbow interrupted, quickly flying over to the front door to head off Scootaloo. "First of all," she explained, "if you really want somepony to talk to you, the last thing you want to do is start accusing them of a crime." She turned and rang the doorbell. "Just be... Gentle, okay?" she recommended. "Believe me, you aren't the only ponies who've asked him about this."
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo walked over and stood behind Rainbow Dash, waiting with bated breath for their target to appear. When the door finally swung open, however, the crusaders were disappointed to only see a pair of pegasus fillies standing in the doorway. One of the fillies was dark-blue, much darker than Rainbow, and her blond mane was a tangled mess of curls. The other filly had a purple coloring similar to Twilight's, and wore her dark-brown hair combed straight down, much the way Pinkie Pie's had looked the day she had forgotten her birthday. What made the scene even more disheartening was that both fillies, despite looking slightly younger than Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, already had their cutie marks: The blue pegasus sported a simple shooting star, while the purple one had a strange-looking equation on her flank. "Who are you?" the purple filly asked.
The sight of the two fillies seemed to throw Rainbow Dash for a loop as well. "Um... Hey there... Girls..." she replied. "We're, uh, looking for somepony named Turbo Jet... Is he... Here, by any chance?"
Without a word, the purple filly turned and walked back into the house. "DAAAAAADDD!" she shouted. "Some rainbow pony's here to see you!"
"Dad ?" Rainbow nearly choked on the word. "Seriously? Geez, I didn't think he was that old..."
The blue filly remained in the doorway, staring awkwardly at the rainbow-maned pony before her. "Are... Are you... Rainbow Dash?" she inquired, in a timid voice.
Rainbow's eyes sparkled at the recognition. "Why, yes... Yes, I am," she answered.
"Oh." With that, the blue filly turned around, aimed, and proceeded to buck Rainbow Dash in the chest with all her might, causing Rainbow's eyes to bulge out and bringing the rainbow-maned pegasus to her knees. "Ow!" she exclaimed. "Hey! What gives?"
"That's for never letting my daddy win!" the blue filly informed her larger counterpart.
A gray-coated mare, who appeared a bit older than Rainbow Dash, suddenly appeared in the doorway. "Shooting Star!" she scolded the young blue filly. "We do not go around kicking people who come to our house, do you understand me?"
"But mooommmm ," Shooting Star insisted, as she pointed at Rainbow Dash, "she was mean to dad!"
"I'm sure that your father will deal with that in good time," the gray pony said. "Now, I want you apologize to this nice young lady and tell her you're sorry for hurting her."
The blue filly sighed, and turned to face Rainbow Dash again. "I'm sorry," she muttered, without a hint of repentance in her voice.
"Shooting Star..." The gray mare threatened in a motherly, once-more-with-feeling-or-you're-grounded tone.
"Fine," the dark blue filly grumbled. "I'm sorry if I hurt you, Mrs. Dash."
I'll ignore that 'Mrs.' crack for now , Rainbow thought to herself. "Hey, no problem," she told the filly. "It, uh, takes a lot more than that to hurt a pony who's in tip-top condition like I am!"
The dark-blue filly ignored Rainbow's explanation. "Can I go now?" she asked her mother.
"Yes, you may," the gray pony agreed. She watched as the blue filly skittered back into the house, then turned back to Rainbow Dash. "I'm sorry about that," she said. "Shooting Star can be a bit protective of her dad's legacy."
"What leg—I mean, I understand," Rainbow Dash replied.
"My husband will be with you in just a moment. Please, come in," the gray mare offered. She turned and led the three ponies on her doorstep into a small room, with four chairs arranged around a wooden table in the center. "I have to go keep an eye on my girls, but you and your foals can wait here," the gray mare said.
"My... Foals ?" Rainbow Dash blushed at the implication. "W... Wait!" she called after the gray pony. "You don't understand! They're not mine!"
Scootaloo, on the other hoof, couldn't make a smile big enough to express her joy. "We just got mistaken for Rainbow Dash's daughters!" she squealed to Sweetie Belle. "Best. Day. Ever !"
"It's a good thing we came with Rainbow Dash and not my sister," Sweetie Belle commented. "Last time somepony asked Rarity if I was her daughter, she knocked out two of the guy's teeth."
After another minute of waiting, Turbo Jet, a tan-colored pegasus with a short, black mane and a day's growth of stubble on his chin, finally entered the room. His eyes lit up at the sight of his former opponent. "Well, I'll be," he uttered in disbelief, "if it isn't the Rainbow Dash herself. Gosh, it's been ages, hasn't it?"
"It has," Rainbow Dash agreed, pointing to Turbo's head. "I see you finally took my advice and got rid of that dorky long hair you had."
"Yeah, I had to switch to a combover," Turbo Jet admitted. "Getting old'll do that to you." He looked the rainbow-maned pony up and down. "I've gotta admit, you haven't changed at all," he declared. "You still look like the brash filly just out of flight school I met years ago. The same one, incidentally, that told me I flew like I had a cement block tied to my tail."
"Yeah, well... I, uh, meant that in the nicest way possible," Rainbow offered sheepishly.
Sweetie Belle cleared her throat, deciding that it was time to get down to business. "Greetings, Mr. Jet," she began. "My name is Sweetie Belle, and we are..."
"Oh!" Turbo exclaimed, looking over at the two fillies next to Rainbow Dash. "Are these... Your foals?" he asked innocently. He smiled at Scootaloo (whose head nearly exploded with happiness at the remark), but gave Sweetie Belle a strange look. "Wait... A unicorn?" He leaned over close to Rainbow Dash, a small smirk spreading on his face. "Dare I ask how many fathers?"
"Get outta here!" Rainbow Dash responded, giving Turbo a shove. "They're not mine!"
"Except in her dreams," Sweetie Belle added, gesturing towards Scootaloo as she spoke. "Actually, Mr. Jet, my associate Scootaloo and I are with the Foal Free Press, and we'd like to interview you for our upcoming article."
"You do?" Turbo Jet arched an eyebrow at the strange request. "You want to interview me ? Gosh, I haven't been interviewed in years... What would you like to know?"
Rainbow Dash leaned back over towards Turbo Jet. "Sorry to do this to you, TJ," she apologized in a whisper, "but... They want to ask you about the day you-know-who lost his you-know-what."
Turbo frowned at the realization. "Aw, man, really?" he muttered. "I've told that story a thousand times—couldn't they just look it up somewhere? I got sick of being called a liar years ago."
"They wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth," Rainbow Dash explained. "Look, just humor them for me, would you? They think that writing this story will finally get them their cutie marks, and came all the way from Ponyville just to talk to you. Can't you give them something?"
Turbo sighed. "I suppose," he conceded, looking back over at the fillies. "Okay, you two," he said, "my memory isn't what it used to be, but if you wanna ask about Greased Lightning... I'll do my best."
"Great!" Sweetie Belle replied. "So, let's start at the beginning: When did you first meet Greased Lightning?"
Turbo Jet shook his head and smiled. "I'll never forget that day, no matter how old I get," he began. "It was at the Equestria Junior Championship Invitational, my last race as a Junior Speedster. I'd trained really hard and totally dominated the local Speedster circuit, so I really thought I had a chance to win."
"Did you?" Scootaloo interrupted.
"Are you kidding?" Turbo laughed. "The moment I stepped up to the starting line, I looked over at the guy next to me and thought, 'Holy cloud, I have to race against that ? This guy is all muscle!' I'd heard stories about some awesome flyer out of Cloudsdale, but him? He looked like he should have had his own pegasus card!"
"Was that Greased Lightning?" Sweetie Belle inquired.
"It must have been. All the fillies used that name whenever they screamed at him to marry them," Turbo Jet confirmed, a revelation that made Rainbow Dash throw up a little in her mouth. "He didn't notice, though," Turbo continued. "He didn't acknowledge them, or me, or anypony. He just stared straight ahead and waited for the race to start."
"Did it work?" Scootaloo asked. "Did he win?"
"By about half a mile," Turbo Jet said. "I was kind of star-struck by him, so I didn't get a great start, but I still finished fourth, and I could've been third if I'd have had better cornering technique."
"Talk about your pro racing career," Sweetie Belle requested, doing her best impersonation of an investigative journalist. "How did Greased Lightning affect it?"
Turbo looked down and stared silently at the floor for about thirty seconds. "You know," he finally answered, "up until that day at the Derby, Lightning didn't really effect me at all. He usually beat me, of course, but so did a lot of other ponies. I dunno what Dash here has told you about me, but my daughter Linny says that..."
"Linny?" Rainbow Dash gave Turbo Jet a puzzled look upon hearing the unusual name.
"It's short for Linear Algebra," Turbo pointed out. "I tell you, there aren't enough math books in the world to keep her occupied. My wife tells me it's the universe paying me back for all the classes I cut in school."
That sounds awfully familiar , Rainbow Dash thought to herself, recalling the last time Twilight had tried to talk to her about some dead pony's number theories.
"Anyway," Turbo Jet continued, "Linny doesn't really care much about racing, but she tells me that my average finishing position was about 17th, and I generated an average wingpower score of 12.4."
"Really?" Scootaloo interrupted. "But the average wingpower for racers these days is..."
"14.7!" Turbo Jet and Scootaloo said in unison.
"Yep," Turbo confirmed sadly. "Linny says ponies fly a little bit faster now, but not by much." He offered a melancholy sigh. "The bottom line is, if Greased Lightning hadn't been around... Well, the difference between 16 and 17 ponies beating you isn't much."
"So why didn't you so something about it?" Rainbow asked, hijacking the interview. "Why didn't you try to be, you know, less lame?"
"I did try!" Turbo Jet insisted. "I gave up junk food, I got 10 hours of sleep every night, I did a hundred crunches and pushups every morning and night, I flew to the top of Smokey Mountain and back three times a week... I did everything I could think of to be the best racer possible, and all it ever got me was, well, 17th." He turned and began staring at the wall. "Do you have any idea how depressing it is to realize that no matter how hard you work, there are still twenty ponies who are better than you at your own special talent?" he asked his interviewers rhetorically.
"Gosh, no," Scootaloo replied. "That would be awful."
"Actually, I suppose I owe Greasy for that revelation," Turbo said. "I remember this one time we raced up in Vanhoover—you know, Rainbow, that rally race they have every fall? Well, the night before the race, Greased Lightning goes out partying, and comes back the next morning with the worst case of Roxy Flu that I had ever seen."
Rainbow Dash couldn't help but chuckle at the thought. "I had a couple bad cases of that myself," she admitted.
"Anyway, Greased Lightning comes in the next day, hangover and all," Turbo Jet continued, "and proceeds to absolutely torch us in the race—I mean, he must have beat us all by a good three minutes or so. Me, I get collected in a pileup halfway through the race because Three Wide, as always, decided to stick his nose where it shouldn't have been, and I sprain a wing and wind up dead last. After the race, while I'm stuck in the infirmary getting treatment, Lightning suddenly stumbles in, still holding his trophy. The nurse made some fuss about how he shouldn't have been able to race in his condition, so Lightning looks over at me, shrugs, and tells the nurse, "I guess I'm just good like that." Turbo shook his head, and turned his gaze back to the fillies. "My dream of being the best flyer ever died right then and there," he said. "If I couldn't beat somepony like that at his worst... What could I ever do against anything better?"
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo exchanged nervous glances, unsure of how to respond.
Turbo Jet took a deep breath and tried to regain his focus. "I'm sorry, I'm just rambling," he apologized. "You two aren't here to talk about me—you wanted to talk about Lightning's crash."
"Well, yes... If you want to," Sweetie Belle offered. "We don't want to make you upset..."
Turbo shrugged. "What the heck," he decided. "It's the only thing I'll ever be remembered for. I might as well accept it." He took another deep breath to steady himself, and began his tale. "It happened at the Fillydelphia Preakness," he recalled. "The Preakness isn't a major race on the schedule, and a lot of guys—heck, even me on occasion—would skip it to rest up for the Cloudsdale Derby. Of course, I didn't skip it that year."
"So if nopony cared about the Preakness, why did Greased Lightning race in it?" Scootaloo wondered.
"Lightning didn't miss much of anything that year," Turbo Jet replied. "For a while there, he'd gotten kind of caught up in his own celebrity—all-night parties, famous fillies—and had started to let his concentration and training lapse. Granted, he still flew circles around the rest of us, but his flying times had started to slip a bit. That year, though, he went on a mission to prove he was still the best."
Turbo's answer confused Sweetie Belle a bit. "If he kept winning," she asked, "why did he think he had something to prove?"
"He never talked about it," Turbo Jet explained, "but... Let's just say he could see somepony gaining on him."
"Really? Who was he worried about?" Scootaloo inquired.
"Some hot-shot filly from Cloudsdale who had been smashing all of his Junior Speedster records," Turbo Jet revealed, looking over at Rainbow Dash. "Sound familiar?"
"Really?" Rainbow's voice carried a twinge of surprise for a moment, but her cynicism quickly drowned it out. "Sounds about right. I always knew he was a coward."
"I wouldn't go that far," Turbo countered. "Anyway, I had an exceptionally miserable couple of weeks leading up to the Preakness—I'd crashed out of a couple of races earlier in the year and hadn't yet worked my way back into shape, which meant my average finishing spot dropped to something decidedly below average. Of course, this also meant a serious drop in income, which reduced me to surviving on mulch and leaves, and soured my wife on the whole 'racing as a viable career' idea... All in all, I wasn't in a real good mood at that point."
"Wait... What do you mean, 'your wife'?" Rainbow objected. "You never told me you had a wife!"
"I didn't have one when I met you," Turbo clarified. "My wife became my ex -wife not long after the accident. Anyway, I knew I was in trouble the minute the race started—I could barely keep myself off the ground, let alone keep up with the rest of the pack. I must have been ten laps down by the halfway point, and probably should have been even farther back."
Sweetie Belle opened her mouth to ask another question, but Scootaloo cut her off. "Um, Mr. Turbo?" Scootaloo asked. "Is there a bathroom I could use?"
"Nope," Turbo Jet answered, trying to stifle a smirk. "The house didn't come with one. If you ask nicely, though, the neighbors might you use theirs." He laughed at Scootaloo's shocked expression. "I'm only kidding!" he admitted, gesturing towards the hallway behind him. "It's the first door on the left."
"I see your sense of humor hasn't gotten any better since I last saw you," Rainbow said as Scootaloo scurried off in the direction of the commode.
"So, if you didn't feel very good," Sweetie Belle inquired, "why did you keep racing? Why didn't you just stop?"
"What are you talking about?" Rainbow Dash scoffed. "You don't just stop racing if things don't go your way! You grit your teeth, dig deep, and fight your way through!"
"Couldn't have said it better myself," Turbo Jet agreed. "Besides, if you keep going, you can beat all the guys who couldn't, which meant more prize money."
"I see," Sweetie Belle said. "What do you remember about the accident itself?"
Turbo Jet took a deep breath. "I remember being really, really angry," he recalled. "Not to mention sore, and tired, and depressed... I was just frustrated with how my life had been up to that point, and I desperately wanted to do something about it."
"And that something was wrecking Greased Lightning?" Sweetie Belle hypothesized.
"No!" Turbo Jet stated emphatically. "Well, okay, yes, it ended up that way, but I never meant to hurt anypony. I just... I saw him coming up behind me to lap me again , and something inside my head snapped, and I told myself, 'If you want things to change, then start right now. Give that hot-shot a run for his money, and show him that he can't just walk all over you.'"
"So what did you do? Punch Lightning in the face?" Rainbow asked. "That's what I would have done."
"No," Turbo Jet revealed. "I dug deep, summoned all the strength, determination, and anger I could muster, and I started flying like my tail was on fire." He shook his head and sighed. "Not the smartest decision I ever made," he declared.
"Is that when the crash happened?" Sweetie Belle wondered.
"Just about," Turbo Jet replied. "I did everything I could to fly faster, but Greasy still caught up to me by the next turn. I tried to hold my speed and hug the inside of the corner, but my wings faltered, and I lost control. In the end, I barely turned at all—I just kind of rammed headfirst into Greased Lightning, and we both went down. I face-planted on a rock and blacked out for a few seconds, so I didn't see what happened to Lightning, but when I came to, I saw where he had left the track and crashed into the woods."
"Did you at least stop at see if he was okay?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"No," Turbo said. "As soon as I came to, I did a quick diagnostic check, decided that I didn't feel any more pain than I did before the crash, and went right back to racing." He hesitated for a moment, realizing how callous his statement would sound to a non-racing unicorn. "Back in school, racers were always told that if you crashed in a race, you needed to get back to flying as quickly as possible, and leave the rescuing to the trained professionals," he explained. "Truth be known, though, I would like to have that one back. I didn't realize how bad Lightning was hurt."
"So that's your story, then?" Sweetie Belle pressed. "It was nothing more than a freak accident?"
"Yes," Turbo Jet repeated.
Sweetie Belle looked quizzically at Turbo Jet. Putting the pieces together in her mind, she decided that something in his story didn't quite add up, and that she needed to turn the screws a little to gather more information. "I'll be honest with you, Mr. Jet," she announced, trying to make her voice sound as mature and confident as possible, "I'm not convinced you're telling me the whole story here. You entered this race solely because you didn't have any money, and you said yourself that if you kept racing, you'd make more money than ponies who couldn't. I'm sure you're well aware of the rumors surrounding this crash."
Turbo Jet's eyes narrowed, as he did not appreciate having his moral fiber questioned by a clueless filly. "Look here," he insisted. "I may not have been the fastest or most talented pony in the world, but I always prided myself on always playing fair and acting with integrity!" He banged his hoof on the table for emphasis. "Let me be perfectly clear," he announced. "I have never taken money from gamblers, I have never taken orders from gamblers... Heck, I've never even talked with gamblers! Everything I did during my career was on the up-and-up, and anypony who says otherwise is lying through their teeth."
"Oh yeah?" All of a sudden, Scootaloo burst back into the room. As the pegasus filly reached the table, she reached back and pulled a small slip of paper out of her saddlebag, then spit it onto the table. "Explain this!" Scootaloo demanded, pointing her hoof at the paper.
Sweetie Belle peered around Scootaloo's pointing leg to take a look at the paper the pegasus had produced. "What is that?"
"N-Nothing! Nothing at all!" Turbo Jet responded. He reached for the paper, but Rainbow Dash shoved him away from the table before he could reach it.
"Well, well... What have we got here, Mr. Holier-Than-Thou?" Rainbow Dash asked rhetorically, looking at the numbers written on the paper before her.
"It's a bank statement!" Scootaloo shouted. "It shows that somepony deposited 4,000 bits in that account five days before the Preakness!"
A quick scan of the document verified Scootaloo's claim. "So it does," Rainbow Dash agreed, "so it does." She looked over at Turbo Jet, who had started to break out in a sweat. "Who's lying through their teeth now, hmm?"
"W-What are you talking about?" Turbo Jet stammered. "That slip doesn't prove anything! It doesn't even have a name on it!"
"No, but this does!" Scootaloo reached back into her saddlebag and pulled out another paper, flinging it onto the table with a flourish.
Sweetie Belle examined the new piece of evidence Scootaloo had provided. "TJ," she read aloud, "I trust that this will be enough to cover everything. Please keep this on the down-low—I have enough trouble hanging onto money as it is." She gazed at the unintelligible scribble at the bottom of the note. "Whose signature is that?"
Rainbow joined Sweetie Belle in looking at the signature. "Wait a minute," she said. "I know I've seen that before..."
Scootaloo pointed an accusatory hoof in Turbo Jet's direction. "All right, pal," she demanded, "fess up! Who paid you off? How many bits did Los Pegasus have riding on this? Was this supposed to be a 'kill' or 'maim' operation?"
Turbo Jet stood there in stunned silence, his mouth hanging open and his brain overloaded by the events of the past minute. "Who— Wha— Where did you get this?" he finally asked.
Scootaloo folded her front legs and glared defiantly at Turbo Jet. "A good reporter never reveals her sources!" she proclaimed. "Now spill the beans already!"
"But... But..." Turbo sputtered weakly.
"Listen to the child, dear." Everypony turned towards the hallway entrance Scootaloo had emerged from. This time, however, the voice belonged to the gray mare who had greeted Rainbow and the crusaders at the front door. "These are probably the least hostile members of the media you'll have to deal with, and certainly the cutest," the gray pony continued.
"Honey?" Turbo looked over at his wife, a shocked expression crossing his face. "You gave them those papers?"
"That's right," the gray mare confirmed.
"B-But why?" Turbo Jet asked.
"Because I'm tired of running into ponies on the street and watching them look away and whisper to each other," the gray pony responded. "Because Shooting Star got in a fight last week defending her father's honor from some colt who called you a sell-out. Because Greased Lightning is probably dead and rotting away in some roadside ditch right now." She walked over and put a leg across her husband's shoulders. "Because it's time ," she concluded.
Turbo Jet began to wilt under the purposeful gaze of his wife. "I-I can't," he insisted. "I'm a pony of my word, and I-I promised."
"Well, I didn't," the gray pony stated flatly. "Either you tell them, or I will."
Looking into the gray pony's eyes, Turbo Jet realized that his wife was dead serious. "I guess you're right," he admitted, letting out a deep sigh. "It probably doesn't matter anymore."
The gray mare turned back towards Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. "My husband did accept money from somepony before the Preakness," she revealed.
"No way..." Rainbow Dash whispered, shaking her head. "I always knew you were lame, TJ, but this ?"
"It's not what you think," the gray pony said.
"Well, don't keep us in suspense!" Scootaloo implored, motioning for Sweetie Belle to grab a pencil. "Who ordered the fix? Who bankrolled this operation?"
Turbo Jet paused, and took a deep breath to steady himself. "I got the money from Greased Lightning," he finally replied.
Grounded: The Ballad of Greased Lightning
Turbo Jet's living room fell silent for a moment, as his bizarre confession sunk into the minds of those present. "Wait, what ?" Rainbow Dash finally spoke up. "What do you mean, 'I got the money from Greased Lightning?' Are you saying the idiot paid for his own wipeout?"
"No!" Turbo Jet insisted. "It's... Complicated, okay?"
"Well, I packed two notepads and a whole box of pencils, so that shouldn't be a problem!" Sweetie Belle proclaimed. "We're here for the whole story!"
"Yeah!" Scootaloo agreed. "But only if you're going to tell the truth!"
Turbo sighed. "You got it, squirt," he said. "Remember what I said about never talking with gamblers?"
"Another lie?" Rainbow Dash shook her head. "It's a good thing you're not wearing pants, TJ, because they'd have set the carpet on fire by now."
"I wasn't lying," Turbo Jet declared. "I've never exchanged a single word with ponies like that. It's just that... I came awfully close once."
"Go on," Sweetie Belle encouraged.
"It was two weeks before the Preakness," Turbo Jet recalled. "I'd just crashed out of yet another race over in San Anponio, and wasn't really in the mood to hear my ex give me her 'get a real job' sermon at full volume, so I spent the evening at Tumbleweed's—you know, Dash, that watering hole right next to the track?"
"The one where Three Wide vomited all over that bouncer and spent the next month in traction?" Rainbow Dash recalled with a smile. "Never heard of it."
"Anyway," Turbo continued, "I was about two hard ciders into drowning my sorrows when this guy walks over to me wearing this crisp plaid suitcoat. I mean, I'm talking blindingly plaid, the kind of coat you remember even after an all-night bender. I suppose that should have been my first clue something was up, because he way too well-dressed for Tumbleweed's, but I was too young, dumb, and sloshed to realize it at the time."
"Now you're just dumb," Rainbow muttered to herself.
"So what did Mr. Plaid do?" Sweetie Belle asked. "Did he say anything to you?"
"He sits down next to me," Turbo Jet replied, "and starts talking to me like I'm some old friend. You know, 'hey, how are you doing, saw you in the race today, too bad about what happened, how's the wing doing, etc., etc.'"
"Did you say anything back?" Sweetie Belle pressed.
"Well, I was kind of hypnotized by his coat," Turbo Jet said with a chuckle, "but truthfully, I was just happy to have somepony to talk to, and he seemed genuinely interested in my well-being, so I just let it all out and gave him my whole sob story: The performance issues, the money issues, the marriage issues... Basically, the same story I've been telling you, only with more alcohol and less coherency."
"Did he say anything back?" Scootaloo inquired.
"He did a lot of nodding and 'uh-huh'ing, but he didn't really say anything until I finished," Turbo recalled. "He did offer to cover my tab, though, which I thought was awfully nice."
"And then what?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"He looked in me the eye," Turbo recounted, "and said something to the effect of 'gosh, that sounds like some real rough sledding, but you seem like a nice guy, and I'd really like to help you get back in the game, or at least back in your old lady's good graces.' He said he had some friends back in Los Pegasus that were interested in the racing business, and that they would jump at the chance to sponsor a pony like myself. The figure he quoted me just blew my mind, and he said the sponsorship obligations would be pretty minimal."
"And being the naive dimwit you are," Rainbow Dash concluded, "you took the deal."
"I'll admit, it wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done," Turbo Jet conceded, "but I was beyond desperate by that point. I didn't even think about the 'obligations.' All I could think of was how nice it would feel to eat decent meals and pay my bills on time, and how happy my wife would be—"
"It's good to know you're so concerned about your wife's feelings," Turbo's current wife deadpanned. "Perhaps you'd mop the floors and take out the garbage more often if you knew how happy that would make me."
"Oh... Right," Turbo replied, scratching the back of his head with his hoof as he turned to face the gray mare. "I, uh, knew I forgot something, heh heh."
"So what did Mr. Plaid's obligations turn out to be?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"I never found out," Turbo answered. "The guy started to reach over to shake my hoof, but before he could, some nasty-looking minotaur came up behind him, grabbed him by his coat, and yanked him off of his stool and into the air. I'm telling you, I had never seen a minotaur as big or as mean as this guy was. He had on this black leather jacket with the sleeves torn off, and his arms were just covered in scars and tattoos. Forget meeting this guy in a dark alley—you didn't want to meet this guy, period."
"What happened next?" Scootaloo demanded. "Did he work the plaid guy over?"
"Not immediately," Turbo Jet said. "He held the pony up so that their faces were inches apart, and asked him if he was making another 'business' deal."
"So they must have known each other," Sweetie Belle deduced.
"Oh yeah," Turbo Jet confirmed. "Anyway, this plaid pony... Dang, what was his name again? I'm sure he told me at some point."
"It was probably an alias anyway!" Scootaloo guessed. "I'll bet he was a frontpony for the unicorn mafia!"
"Gee..." Turbo Jet scratched his head and pondered Scootaloo's assertion. "I don't even remember if he was a unicorn or not. All I recall is plaid, lots and lots of plaid... Anyway, this plaid pony tells the minotaur to cut him some slack, and complains about not being able to have a drink with somepony without getting the third degree." Turbo tried to suppress a giggle, but failed. "He called the minotaur Tiny," he recalled. "Apparently it was his actual name, not some cute nickname or something. I can't imagine what that guy's mother was thinking."
"What did the minotaur say?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"Something about taking their conversation elsewhere," Turbo explained. "He threw the plaid pony over his shoulder and carried him out the front door. Of course, at Tumbleweed's ponies took their disagreements outside all the time, so nopony else paid much attention."
"I've got a question for you," Rainbow Dash interrupted. "What the hay were you doing this whole time? Sitting around like a lump on a stool?"
"Honestly," Turbo Jet admitted, "I was still trying to figure out whether any of this was actually happening, or whether I had just drank one too many ciders. About the time Mr. Plaid got the boot, though, I decided that either way, I'd probably had enough. I was reaching for some bits to pay the bartender when I heard somepony behind me say 'You goin' somewhere?' Next thing I know, I'm wrapped in a bear hug from behind by another minotaur, getting the life squeezed out of me."
"How did you know it was a minotaur?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"There was a mirror behind the bar that ran the entire length of the wall," Turbo revealed. "I looked into it as I was getting lifted off my seat, and saw the guy's face above my head." He stopped to take a breath. "This guy looked even nastier than the first minotaur, and all I could see was his head!" He continued. "He was missing half of one horn and at least six teeth, and he wore an eyepatch over his left eye. Or was it his right eye? Whichever it was, he looked like he had just stepped off a pirate ship."
"What happened next?" Scootaloo asked. "Did you get the same treatment as Mr. Plaid?"
"I don't know," Turbo Jet admitted. "I never found out what happened to the guy. Anyhow, this minotaur apparently knew I was a racer, and starts firing a bunch of questions at me—what I was doing talking to Mr. Plaid, was I working for him, had he offered me money, how much money, and on and on... By this point, I was in full 'yes sir, no sir' mode, and just hoping this guy didn't squash me into a pony pancake. Finally, the minotaur decided that I needed to have a word with 'the boss,' and carried me across the floor and into the back room of the bar."
Rainbow Dash smirked. "Gosh Turbo, I never though a blockhead like you would be let into Tumbleweed's VIP suites," she remarked.
"True," Turbo conceded. "You just don't appreciate those kinds of things when you're locked in a minotaur's death grip."
"So what did 'the boss' have to say to you?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"First, we had to find him," Turbo Jet explained. "There was a huge party going on when we walked in... Well, he walked in, anyway. We plowed through a bunch of ponies that were cutting a rug to some dubstep thing, and ended up at some dark corner booth next to the DJ. The minotaur yelled over the music for his boss, and somepony yelled back that he had just left to go back to his hotel, but that we might catch him before we left if we hurried."
"So... Did you hurry?" Scootaloo wondered.
"I humbly suggested that we not bother 'the boss' right now," Turbo Jet answered, "but apparently I didn't get a vote, because I got dragged back through the crowd and out through the back door into the alleyway behind the bar."
Rainbow winced at the mentioning of the alley. "Maybe you should skip over the alley part," she suggested. "Every story I've heard about ponies going back there..." She gestured towards the two fillies. "Let's just say those stories aren't meant for little fillies' ears."
"We're not little fillies!" Scootaloo objected. "We're tough, hard-nosed investigative journalists!"
"Yeah," Sweetie Belle agreed, although her voice gave off a hint of trepidation. "Please continue, Mr. Jet... I mean, as long as the story isn't too scary."
"It gets better," Turbo assured his interviewers. "Anyway, it was too dark for me to see anything when we got out there, but the minotaur yells out that he's got somepony who'd like to talk to the boss. The next thing I know, I'm surrounded by four of the scariest-looking shadows I've ever seen, and wondering if I should bought health insurance when I had the chance."
Sweetie Belle gulped, a little afraid of what was coming next. "Um... Maybe we should skip over this part," she suggested to Scootaloo.
"No way!" Scootaloo insisted. "We need to get this story! Besides, how bad could the ending be if this guy's still here to tell the tale?"
"Okay... If you say so," Sweetie Belle agreed hesitantly. "What happened next, Mr. Jet?"
"The guy holding me throws me on the ground and says, 'Look who I found swapping figures with a certain plaid lover,'" Turbo recalled. "The other shadows all close in around me, and one of them says something about 'teaching me not to hang with the wrong crowd.'"
"You... You must have been scared," Sweetie Belle posited, becoming a little nervous herself.
"Scared does not even begin to describe me by then," Turbo Jet admitted. "I was terrified ! I was about to lose everything I held dear: My career, my good name, my family, and maybe... Maybe even my life." Turbo shook his head at the memory. "I didn't know what else to do, so... I snapped. I started bawling like a baby, and apologizing for every bad thing I'd ever done, and begging for forgiveness... It wasn't my proudest moment."
"And then... They worked you over?" Scootaloo guessed.
"Luckily, no," Turbo said. "All of a sudden, I hear this voice behind the shadows complaining about how they always made ponies cry, and wondering if he should have sent them to sensitivity training or something. The weird thing was... I recognized who was talking."
"Was it 'the boss?'" Sweetie Belle asked.
"Yes," Turbo Jet confirmed, "but more importantly, it was Greasy."
"Greased Lightning was the boss?" Scootaloo cried out in disbelief. "How could he be the boss? He's the one who got whacked!"
Rainbow Dash, in comparison, simply rolled her eyes at the revelation. "Of course that coward would have to roll with a bunch of minotaurs for protection," she muttered.
"Apparently he added them to his posse after his own close encounter with gamblers in Los Pegasus," Turbo explained to Scootaloo. "Anyway, Greased Lightning pushes his way past the shadows and gives me a funny look, then tells the minotaur that he'd grabbed 'Mr. Too-Uptight-To-Break-Any-Rules' and that maybe he should invest in a pair of eyeglasses."
"So you'd fed him your line of baloney before, I see," Rainbow commented.
"I guess so," Turbo said with a shrug. "Anyway, all the shadows back off, and Greasy apologizes for all the trouble, and says something about he can't believe his team thought me , of all ponies, would be trying to fix races."
"Do you think that was one of the obligations Mr. Plaid was talking about?" Sweetie Belle inquired.
"That's about when it hit me, yes," Turbo Jet answered. "Truthfully, though, I was more moved by what Greased Lightning said than by how stupid I'd been. I mean, I'd never had a real conversation with Greasy before—we'd always said hello when we passed each other on the street and stuff, but that was about it—so I had no idea what he really thought about me. I just kind of assumed I was another bug to squash on the way to victory, but... He actually kind of respected me. Granted, he may not have respected me as a competitor, but as a pony... It sounds cheesy, I know, but it meant a lot to me. Of course, it also made me feel like an idiot for nearly getting roped into doing what he thought I never would."
So when did you tell him that you were actually a pathetic fraud who consorted with plaid lowlifes?" Rainbow asked, her voice dripping with snark.
Turbo Jet sighed. "I tried to pull myself together," he explained, "but I wasn't any better at doing that than I was at racing, so... I came clean, right then and there. Everything came out—the injuries, the lack of money, the marital woes, the 'deal,' and above all else the plaid. The whole thing probably looked pretty pathetic, but by that point, I didn't figure I could look any worse."
"And how did Greased Lightning react?" Sweetie Belle inquired.
"He didn't say much," Turbo replied. "I think I kind of stunned him with my confession... I'm not sure he knew what to say. After I finished talking, he stood there quietly for a moment, then said 'we'd deal with this later,' and told one of his security guys to take me over to the train station and ship me back home. That was it—I got thrown over the shoulder of another minotaur, carried out of the alley, and in fifteen minutes, I was on a train headed east."
"But Greased Lightning sent somepony after you later, right?" Scootaloo hypothesized.
"Something , actually," Turbo corrected the small pegasus. He gestured towards the note still sitting on the table. "A few days after the scene at Tumbleweed's, that letter arrived in the mail, along with a check for 4,000 bits. He said to keep it on the down-low, so I told my wife it was from a new sponsorship deal, and never spoke about it again. Until now, anyway."
"That's it?" Scootaloo eyed Turbo Jet with suspicion. "That's all that happened? No mobsters? No conspiracy? No set of cement horseshoes?"
"Thankfully, no," Turbo confirmed.
"Awww..." Scootaloo pouted. "I thought we were going to get an exciting story, not some boring tale like this."
"It's still an exclusive story," Sweetie Belle reminded her friend. "Maybe a less-than-exciting exclusive story, but still an exclusive story."
"I don't get it," Rainbow Dash admitted, scratching her head in confusion. "I mean, a ham like Greasy deciding not to leak this story to the press and bask in the attention? That doesn't seem like his style."
"I wondered about that too, especially after the accident," Turbo revealed. "I mean, he had the story straight from the horse's mouth, and at least four witnesses. He could have dragged me before the Pegasus Racing Federation and ended my career just like I did his... But he didn't. I guess he still thought I was an okay guy."
"Even after the accident?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"That's the crazy thing!" Turbo said. "I went to visit him in the hospital a few days after the crash, feeling all guilty and awkward about the whole situation. I'd already gotten some unflattering mail by that point, plus a tomato in the kisser from an especially-upset fan, and figured Greasy would be livid for having wrecked him after taking his money."
"So... Did he call you a lowlife scum and throw a bedpan at you?" Scootaloo guessed.
"Nope!" Turbo exclaimed. "His room was filled with friends and family when I got there, and some of them had a few choice words for me, but Greasy? He defended me, even from his own mother! He kept telling them that it was an accident, and that I was a clean competitor who always raced on the level, and that he didn't blame me for anything!" Turbo paused for a moment to wipe his eyes as he recalled the moment. "I had lifelong friends who walked away from me because of that crash," he declared, "but Greased Lightning, a pony I barely knew, was always in my corner. He did a million interviews after he got out of the hospital, and never once said a bad word about me. I never understood it, but I was always grateful for it."
Rainbow Dash grimaced at Turbo's last sentence, and turned away from the conservation. "It's nice to know that moron was so considerate of other pony's feelings," she grumbled sarcastically.
Turbo shook his head. "Look, Rainbow," he offered, "I know you and Greased Lightning had your issues, but he wasn't the gutless coward you made him out to be. He would have killed to get back in the sky and compete against you. He just... He never really adjusted to being grounded."
"Hmph," Rainbow muttered, not even turning to look at Turbo.
"Did you keep in touch with Greased Lightning after the accident?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"Er... Sort of," Turbo Jet answered sheepishly. "He came to a few races in the beginning, and I'd always stop and see how he was doing. After he started going downhill, though, he became a tough pony to track down, never staying in one place for too long. The last time I saw him was... Six, eight years ago? He showed up at my house with a bottle of hard cider and nopony to share it with, so..."
"I met Lightning for the first time about eight hours later," Turbo's wife remarked. "He was passed out on the stairs wearing a lampshade."
"Yeah... He was full of life that night," Turbo remembered. "He said he was on his way to Canterlot to enter their summer marathon, and that Rainbow was going to be there, and that they were finally going to see who was the fastest pony in history, once and for all."
"Right," Rainbow said, as she rolled her eyes. "And we all know how that turned out."
"I don't know what happened," Turbo Jet offered with a shrug. "He left the next morning all pumped up about finally getting back into competition. I never saw or heard from him again."
"Good riddance, I say." Rainbow stomped her hoof for emphasis, then looked over at Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. "So are you two done with your interview yet, or what?"
"We're finished when our interviewee is finished," Sweetie Belle proclaimed. "Now then... Is there anything else you'd like to add, Mr. Jet?"
Turbo scratched his head and rifled through his brain for a few seconds. "I guess not," he finally decided. "That's my story, and I'm finally sticking to it."
"Then I have one last question for you," Sweetie Belle revealed. "If you could speak with Greased Lightning right now, what would you say?"
"Oh wow..." Turbo Jet sputtered, caught off guard by the question. "I don't know... I've already apologized so many times, it wouldn't mean a whole lot anymore." Suddenly, a light bulb went off in Turbo's brain. "If I were talking to him right now," he posited, "then that would mean he was still alive, and he would be out there somewhere doing... Heck, who knows? But if that were true... I'd tell him that I'd like to help him somehow, the same way he bailed me out all those years ago. I owe him at least that much."
"That much plus 4,000 bits," the gray mare reminded Turbo.
"Yeah," Turbo agreed. "That's what I'd tell him."
"Well," Sweetie Belle proposed, "we'll at least put that quote in our article, so that he can read it wherever he is."
"And if we find him," Scootaloo added, "we'll let him know!"
"I'd like that," Turbo Jet acknowledged. "Thanks, girls."
Turbo's wife glanced at a clock hanging on the wall. "It's getting late," the gray mare observed. "Would any of you like a cup of tea or something?"
"Nah," Rainbow declined. "I gotta get these two back home before their sisters start wondering where I took them. Thanks anyways, though."
The gray mare nodded. "I'll show you to the door," she said.
As Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo headed for the door, Turbo Jet reached out to stop Rainbow Dash for a moment. "It was good to see you, Rainbow," he offered. "You know, for what it's worth... You would have destroyed Greasy if you'd ever gotten to race him. He was fast, but I think you were faster."
Rainbow Dash smiled. "Maybe you aren't as dumb as you look after all." She sighed and shook her head. "I guess we'll never know, will we?"
As Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo prepared to return to Ponyville, their fellow crusader Apple Bloom continued her search through the archives of the Ponyville library, looking for information that might lead to Greased Lightning's whereabouts. Unfortunately, after two days of combing through newspapers, and long after giving up on ever cleaning up her mess to Twilight's satisfaction, the filly found that Lightning's trail had again gone cold.
"Great! Just flippin' great!" Apple Bloom shouted in frustration, glaring at the pages of notes she had scattered on the floor. "A bunch of police blotter reports, and a couple of articles wondering where Greased Lightnin' went! This stupid pony ain't been heard from in six years!" She slammed her hooves down in frustration. "I've been through these darn papers so many times, I probably know them better than Twilight," she lamented. "I hope Sweetie and Scoot and having more luck with that Turbo pony than I am—at this rate, I'll never find out what happened to Lightnin'."
"Apple Bloom?" Twilight's voice drifted down from the basement door. "I hate to say it, but I've double-checked the catalog, and we don't see to have any books about Greased Lightning."
"Oh, come on! " Apple Bloom shouted in disgust. "This guy was, like, some really awesome superstar, and nopony tried to write a book about him?"
"It doesn't look like it," Twilight acknowledged, as she started descending into the basement. "Look, sweetie," she began, "you've been down here for two days without much food or sleep. Maybe it's time you—"
"No!" Apple Bloom gruffly interrupted the unicorn. "I ain't got time for that!" The filly stood up and stomped over to the stairs, meeting Twilight at the bottom step. "Maybe you just don't have a book like that here," she huffed. "Can't you check with some other libraries about this?"
"You mean request an interlibrary loan?" Twilight pondered the idea for a moment. "I suppose we could try, as long as they have—"
"Don't just stand there, do it !" Apple Bloom demanded, turning and heading back to the newspapers. "And don't call me Sweetie Belle next time!"
Twilight sighed and trudged back upstairs. "I don't mind helping Apple Bloom with research," she said to herself as she reached the top of the stairs, "but I'd appreciate some appreciation, or at least a little less yelling. She needs to take a deep breath and not get so personally involved in her work."
"I see a pony that is tired and blue," a rhythmic voice behind Twilight spoke up. "Tell me, Twilight, what is bothering you?"
Twilight turned to see a familiar zebra standing in the library, sporting a mane mohawk and wearing a matching set of gold necklaces and earrings. "Zecora!" Twilight exclaimed. "It's nice to see you again! What brings you to town today?"
"A book on Elbonian herbs would be nice," Zecora replied, "but it seems that somepony could use some advice."
"Right as always," Twilight admitted. "It's about Apple Bloom. She's practically on a crusade, trying to figure out what happened to this old pegasus racer named Greased Lightning. I've tried to help, but—"
"She seeks the fallen pegasus?" Zecora turned and headed for the basement door. "Then I should speak to the little miss."
Zecora made quick work of the library's basement stairs, and found Apple Bloom face-down in a pile of newspapers. "A word with you, young Apple Bloom," she requested, "for your words cause others to fuss and fume. You put your heart into your work, but that does not mean you should act like a jerk."
"I know, I know!" Apple Bloom insisted, picking her head up to look at Zecora. "It's just... I need to know what happened to this Lightnin' feller. I know he sank awfully low after he lost his special talent, but... I have to know if he ever came back up! I mean, this guy was a strong, confident, successful pony! If he couldn't live without a special talent—"
"You fear what time will have in store," Zecora translated. "You fear his story will be yours."
"Well, I mean, look at me!" Apple Bloom sputtered, her eyes beginning to well up with tears. "I know ponies two grades below me who have their cutie marks! Me and the other crusaders have tried everything we could think of, and we're still blank flanks! At this rate, I'll never find my special talent, and I'm gonna end up a... A talentless, broken-down, good-for-nothing old mare!" The dam finally burst, and Apple Bloom smacked her face against the floor and began crying her eyes out.
Zecora watched Apple Bloom break down without expression, but the wheels were turning fast within her mind. "It seems, at last, the moment has come," she declared, "to tie the strings which have come undone. To ease the minds of you and your friends, you must know how this story ends."
"Exactly," Apple Bloom sniffled. "It's just that... Nopony knows what happened."
"No pony knows this, that is true," Zecora concurred. "But perhaps a zebra could tell you."
"Wait... Really?" Apple Bloom's eyes lit up. "You know where Greased Lighting is?"
"I do," Zecora confirmed, "for he rests near me, deep within the Everfree."
"What ?" Apple Bloom bounced back up from the floor as a surge of new energy shot through her body. "Well, why didn't you say so? How far is he from your place? Can you give me directions?"
"Patience, young one," Zecora counseled, "for there is—"
"Aw, heck," Apple Bloom interrupted, "if he's near your place, how hard could he be to find?" With that, the filly took off like a rocket for the basement stairs. "Thanks, Zecora!" she called behind her. "You're the best!"
"Wait! Do not enter the forest blind!" Zecora cautioned, as Apple Bloom disappeared through the basement door. "You may not like what you will find!"
Zecora's warning fell on deaf ears, and within seconds Apple Bloom was clear of the library and charting a course for the Everfree Forest outside of town, unsure of exactly where she was going but making great time nonetheless. "Finally!" she said to herself. "Why the hay didn't I just talk to Zecora earlier? She knows everything !" She wondered for a moment if she should wait for her friends to return before embarking on her quest, but decided that she had been waiting for answers long enough, and that she needed to discover the truth about Greased Lightning once and for all.
Back at the library, a stunned Twilight met Zecora at the top of the basement stairs. "Wow!" the unicorn exclaimed. "I don't know what you said, Zecora, but it must have worked! I haven't seen Apple Bloom with a smile that big in a long time."
Zecora shook her head, and motioned for the unicorn to follow her. "Hurry!" she commanded. "We must give chase, for I fear Apple Bloom will pay for her haste. The truth she finds may lift her gloom, but what finds her could spell her doom."
Grounded: The Ballad of Greased Lightning
As the sun began to drift lower in the sky, Apple Bloom's youth triumphed over the experience of Zecora and Twilight, and the yellow earth filly outraced her pursuers to the Everfree Forest by a wide margin. Having no other ideas as to how to conduct her search for Greased Lightning, she quickly traced the path to Zecora's hut deep within the forest, then began searching the woods around the hut in earnest, looking for a sign of the fallen pegasus's whereabouts.
"All right, Apple Bloom," she said to herself, "here's the plan: We're going to find Greased Lightinin,' and finally figure out what happened after he disappeared. If he's alive, I've got a bunch of questions for him: What happened between him and Turbo Jet? How did he recover from losing his special talent? And why the hay does he live way out here in the Everfree Forest?"
And if he's dead? A voice inside the young filly's head asked. What do you do if he couldn't survive being a pseudo-blank-flank?
Apple Bloom choked up a little at the idea. "I'll tell him to rest in peace," she decided, "and then look for a cliff to jump off of."
As lost in thought as she was, Apple Bloom soon lost herself amidst the brush and brambles of the forest as well. Eventually, though, she came to her senses after passing the same patch of poison joke flowers for the third time. "Oh, horseshoes," she cursed. "How do I get back to Zecora's place from here?"
The hoot of a nearby owl alerted Apple Bloom to another concerning fact: The sun had almost dipped below the mountains on the horizon, and her light was fading fast. The young pony knew that getting caught in these woods after dark was generally a bad thing, but reminded herself to stay calm; after all, she had been exploring the depths of the forest long enough to know which direction was out. "Let's see," she calculated. "I want to go north to get out of here, so if the sun sets in the west, and it's on my left right now... I just need to go straight ahead!" She quickly charted a course homeward, pleased with her orienteering.
About twenty-five steps into her return trip, however, Apple Bloom emerged from a line of bushes only to find her path blocked by an enormous chasm, which measured a good twenty-five feet wide and at least fifty feet from top to bottom. The thought of further delay made Apple Bloom a little nervous, but she took a deep breath and tried to steady her nerves. "I'm okay," she reasoned. "This is just a minor setback, and if I'm already on the wrong side of this thing, there's got to be a way around it, and I just need to follow this ridge until I find it."
Picking a direction, Apple Bloom took a few confident steps forward before a loud cracking sound beneath her signaled that she had not chosen wisely. The ground underneath her hooves suddenly gave way, sending the pony on an unexpected trip down the side of the chasm. "Oof! Ow! Ah!" Apple Bloom squealed, as she bounced and barrel-rolled her way down the rocks.
The trip ended with an abrupt landing, leaving Apple Bloom sprawled out at the bottom of the chasm. "Uhhh..." she moaned, picking her head up and shaking the stars out of her eyes. Despite the tumble, all of her limbs still seemed to be in working order, and she managed to lift herself back onto her hooves without any trouble. "Well, this is just peachy!" she grumbled, her frustration trumping her nerves as she looked back up at the ledge. "How am I supposed to get home now?"
Examining the rocky cliff she had just fallen down, Apple Bloom decided that climbing back up the rocks would be tough, but not impossible, and since she didn't have any better ideas at the moment, she decided to test whatever luck she had left. The first few leaps were easy enough, and she soon found herself a good ten feet above the ground. "You can do this, AB," she encouraged herself. "Just put one hoof in front of the other, and—"
A long, loud howl from above stopped the young filly in her tracks. She had heard the howl many times before, at the start of every zap-apple harvest, and while it had always made her smile in the past, it was the last thing she wanted to hear right now. Apple Bloom gulped and slowly looked up towards the top of the ridge, finding a large, wolf-like creature made entirely of twigs and branches looking back at her. The creature stared deep into Apple Bloom's soul with its green, glowing eyes, then unleashed another howl that drew two more wooden wolves to its side.
"TIMBERWOLVES!" Apple Bloom screamed. She turned to run away, but instead stepped off the edge of the rock she had been standing on, and fell to the ground with a splat. The sound of the wolves' wooden claws scratching against the ledge as they arrived for dinner, however, inspired Apple Bloom to bounce back to her hooves in a hurry, and she started sprinting down the chasm corridor as fast as her little legs could carry her.
While Apple Bloom was surprisingly athletic for a filly her age, she was still no match for a pack of full-grown timberwolves, whose number soon swelled to eight as more wolves joined in the hunt. "Oh... Oh no!" Apple Bloom wailed, as the wolves closed in. "Help! Applejack! Zecora! Twilight! Sweetie Belle! Scootaloo! Somepony! Anypony !"
Fortunately for Apple Bloom, a funny thing happened on the way to the afterlife: Just before the timberwolves caught her, the pack abruptly pulled up and gave up the chase, settling for shooting a few threatening growls at Apple Bloom as she made her getaway. While their behavior confused the young earth pony, she decided it wasn't worth stopping and asking about, and just kept on running.
After another thousand feet of sprinting, Apple Bloom suddenly tripped on something lying across the canyon, and faceplanted into the dirt. "Ow..." she moaned, picking herself up off the ground and looking back to see exactly what she had tripped on. Although her light was fading fast, she could still make out a long, green vine that stretched across the entire width of the chasm, with a few small leaves and flowers branching off of it.
Apple Bloom was suddenly filled with curiosity, and she walked over and examined one of the flowers intently. "Are these... Pumpkin plants?" she wondered. Looking around, she discovered that she was actually surrounded by pumpkin plants, and while most of them had not borne any fruit, she spotted a few small pumpkins scattered around the makeshift garden.
As interesting as the scene was, Apple Bloom couldn't help but ask the obvious question: Who would put a pumpkin patch at the bottom of a chasm in the middle of the Everfree Forest? She knew that Zecora maintained a few gardens, but couldn't imagine that the zebra would maintain a plot this big in such a remote location. If not Zecora, though, who?
Fascinated by the mystery, Apple Bloom continued her trek through the pumpkin patch, marveling at the scale of the operation. Rounding a bend in the canyon, Apple Bloom suddenly found herself staring at the biggest pumpkin she had ever seen. From its stem to its base, the filly estimated the pumpkin stood about fifteen feet high, and was even wider than it was tall. "Wow..." Apple Bloom whispered in awe. "I've seen parade floats that weren't this big... Is this thing even real?"
As she approached the large gourd for a closer look, one of Apple Bloom's hooves unexpectedly sunk a few inches into the dirt as she stepped. "Huh?" Apple Bloom lifted her hoof and looked back at what she had stepped on, but it was too late: Without warning, four metal disks surrounding the young filly shot up from the ground, bringing a large net—and by extension, Apple Bloom—up with them.
"Whoa!" Apple Bloom squealed as the net swept her off her hooves and left her hanging in the air. She looked up at the metal disks, which had come together around a larger disk mounted on a pole that stood about eight feet high off the ground. "How the hay does that work, exactly?" she wondered aloud.
A few tugs on the net revealed that the disks were stuck firmly in place, and attacking the net itself gained her nothing but a few rope burns and a nylon aftertaste in her mouth. "Now what?" she grumbled. "I'm a sittin' duck in this here net, just waitin' for somethin' to come and eat me!" She looked up at the full moon that glowed in the sky, and thanked her lucky stars that the timberwolves had turned back when they did. Of course, given all the scary things that went bump in the forest, she wasn't sure how much time their actions had actually bought her.
A threatening growl signaled to Apple Bloom that the question of time was irrelevant, because it had just run out. Righting herself inside the net, Apple Bloom's eyes tripled in size at the sight of the eight timberwolves standing not twenty feet from her position, all staring her down and licking their lips in unison. Unlike before, however, the wolves did not charge forward, but instead approached the filly cautiously, looking around as if they expected to be ambushed at any moment.
"G... Go away! Shoo! Bad dogs!" Apple Bloom shouted, waving her hooves at the wolves in a last-ditch attempt to scare them away. "You... Y'all don't want to eat me ! I... I don't have any nutritional value at all! I'm the pony equivalent of junk food! Plus, you'll make my granny very sad, and my brother, and sister—I mean, have you even met my sister? She's the toughest, orneriest pony in Equestria! She'll hunt y'all down and turn you into kindlin'!"
Apple Bloom's threats were lost on the timberwolves, and they maintained their wary advance. Out of options, time, and bravery, Apple Bloom whispered a short prayer to the royal pony sisters, and unleashed the most blood-curdling scream she could muster. "AAAAAIIIIEEEE!!!!"
"Aha !" Suddenly, a large, pony-like figure wearing some sort of robe sprang out from the shadows, causing the timberwolves to flinch and step back. "I've caught you red-pawed this time!" the figure shouted in a loud, menacing voice, as he glared at the timberwolves. "If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times, if I ever caught you anywhere near my pumpkins again, I'd grind you all into sawdust! But no , you just couldn't stay away, could you?" The figure pointed a hoof in Apple Bloom's direction, but didn't bother to actually look at what was in the net, instead assuming it was another wolf. "Well, it's curtains for your little friend here," he declared, "and the rest of you will get the same treatment unless you hit the road!"
"Curtains?!" Apple Bloom wailed. "Wait, mister, I can explain!"
The lead timberwolf also growled his displeasure to the mysterious pony, as he and his pack were torn between a tasty filly dinner and keeping their wooden bodies intact.
The shadowy pony scowled at the wolves' inaction. "Get off my lawn, you mangy mutts !" He screamed.
Knowing full well that the large pony meant business, the wolves decided to live to fight another day, and quickly turned tail and headed in the opposite direction.
The mysterious pony shook his head as the timberwolves disappeared from sight. "Those wolves haven't bothered me in months," he said to himself. "Maybe they haven't been getting enough fiber in their diet. I know that would make me awfully desperate." He shrugged, decided the issue wasn't worth thinking about, and turned to deal with the "timberwolf" he had trapped. "Now then, what do we do with—" He stopped short, finally realizing that he had caught a young, frightened filly instead of a big, ugly timberwolf. "Wait... Who are you?"
"Stay away!" Apple Bloom pleaded, raising her hooves to assume a defensive stance. "I... I know kung fu!"
The mysterious pony rolled his eyes. "Relax, kid," he said. "I'm not gonna hurt you. I thought you were with the you-know-whats." He gestured in the direction in which the timberwolves had run. "I guess this explains what they were doing here. Now, for my next question: What are you doing here?"
Apple Bloom crossed her front hooves and gave the stranger as defiant a look as she could muster. "My sister told me never to talk to strangers," she declared.
The mysterious pony sighed. "Fair enough, I guess. Anyway, I suppose I should get you out of that net..." The larger pony walked over to the pole that held up the net and tapped a mechanical contraption near the pole's middle, causing the top of the pole to tip until it formed a right angle with its base. This action, of course, had the side effect of dumping Apple Bloom unceremoniously onto the ground.
As the small filly sprang back to her hooves and dusted herself off, she noticed that the strange pony was now illuminated by the full moon, giving Apple Bloom a clear picture of her rescuer. His body was mostly covered by the long, black cloak he wore, but from his face, Apple Bloom could see that his coat was dark blue, only a shade lighter than that of Princess Luna, and that he had a full head of long, dark brown hair (albeit in such an unkempt manner that it would have made Rarity queasy). While his cloak covered up whatever wings he may or may not have, his non-existent unicorn horn signaled to the filly that she was either dealing with a pegasus or an earth pony. Apple Bloom's mind immediately flashed back to the pegasus featured on the card Shining Armor had sent the Crusaders. Could this be the stallion she had been searching for? There was only one way to know for sure.
"Uh... Mister?" Apple Bloom addressed the blue pony, "I do have one question for you..."
The blue pony smirked. "So much for that no-talking policy of yours, eh?" He looked around the area for a second, as if looking for other ponies nearby. "Lucky for you," he concluded, "I happen to be free at this particular moment, so... Fire away."
"Well, you see," Apple Bloom explained, as the larger pony began resetting his trap, "I'm kind of... Looking for somepony out here."
"Oh! You mean the zebra?" The blue pony looked up and pointed off into the distance. "She's a few gallops up the road, as the pegasus flies. Heck, you probably went right past her place on the way here."
"Oh no, I know where Zecora lives," Apple Bloom clarified. "I'm looking for a pegasus named... Greased Lightnin'."
The name caused the blue pony's ears to perk up. "Greased Lightning?" he repeated. "What in the world are you looking for him for?"
Apple Bloom's face lit up. "You know him?" She rushed over to the blue pony's side, nearly springing his trap again in the process. "He's supposed to be out here somewhere too! Do you know where he is?"
A pained expression crossed the blue pony's face. "Well... Yes and no," he admitted.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Apple Bloom demanded. "Do you or don't you know where he is?"
The blue pony finished resetting his trap, and turned to leave. "Come with me, kid," he said, motioning for Apple Bloom to follow. "I'll show you where he is."
Apple Bloom began to follow the mysterious pony through his expansive garden, a little unsure about what to make of her new acquaintance. For somepony who was reportedly bringing her to Greased Lightning, he certainly looked an awful lot like Greased Lightning. Then again, would a meathead like Greased Lightning have the brains to put together an elaborate trap to guard his giant pumpkins, or even know how to grow pumpkins that big in the first place? She needed answers, and at the moment, there was only one pony around to get them from.
Apple Bloom ran up alongside her cloaked guide. "So, Mister," she began, "should I keep calling you 'Mister,' or do you have a real name I can use?"
"My... Name?" The question caught the blue pony a little off guard. "It's, uh... Pumpkin... Pumpkin Pie. Because, well, that's what I do around here. I, uh... Grow pumpkins."
"That's an good name," Apple Bloom offered. "Are you related to Pinkie Pie?"
"Um... No, I, uh... I don't think so," Pumpkin Pie admitted.
"Well, I'm Apple Bloom!" Apple Bloom declared proudly. "Chief execution officer of Sweet Apple Acres, ace reporter for the Foal Free Press, and founding member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders!"
"I think you mean 'chief executive officer,'" Pumpkin corrected the filly, "and... Wait, you're with the press?" The blue pony looked back at Apple Bloom curiously, wondering if he had misjudged her age. "You mean, you write for some sort of... School paper, right?"
"What's wrong with that?" Apple Bloom asked. "We still cover all of Ponyville!"
"Well, I, uh... Never mind," Pumpkin said.
"That why I'm out here!" Apple Bloom elaborated. "We were gonna write a story about Lightnin' for the 30th anniversary of the Cloudsdale Derby, and wanted to see if we could find out where he went!"
"Well, look no farther," Pumpkin Pie proclaimed, stopping and pointing at a large shadow in the distance. "That'll tell you everything you need to know."
"What is that ?" Apple Bloom wondered, walking over to the base of what appeared to be a large stone standing upright in the middle of the chasm. This rock was unlike the brittle brown rocks that made up the walls of the canyon. Instead, the stone was as dark-colored as the night sky itself, and had a smooth, polished texture. "What kind of rock is this?" Apple Bloom inquired.
"It's not just a rock, I'm afraid," Pumpkin revealed. "It's a tombstone."
"A tombstone? But who would put a stone way out—" The revelation the other pony had eluded to struck Apple Bloom like a freight train. "You mean... This is for..."
"Uh-huh." Pumpkin Pie nodded as he spoke. "It's probably too dark to read, but that's Greased Lightning's final resting place."
Apple Bloom looked up at the cold stone before her. "So that's it," she said, as a wave of sadness washed over here. "He's gone. He... He couldn't live without his special talent, so... He didn't."
"Nope. I, uh... I guess not," Pumpkin said with a shrug. "Anyhow, it's getting late, and it's too dangerous to try and get all the way back to town. My place isn't really equipped for visitors, but I'd be happy to take you back up to the zebra's house for the night."
"Don't bother," Apple Bloom said with a sigh. "Thank you for all your help, but... I can find my own way out." Turning away as her eyes began to water, Apple Bloom began trudging back in the direction of the giant pumpkin, her head hung low.
"W-W-Wait a minute, kid!" Pumpkin Pie sputtered, quickly running over and cutting Apple Bloom off. "You can't just wander around this forest alone!" he insisted. "Those timberwolves will eat you alive!"
"So what?" Apple Bloom snapped, pushing past the blue pony. "That's kind of the point."
"That's kind of the—" Pumpkin repeated, a bit stunned, as Apple Bloom's intentions struck him like a freight train. "Now... Now hold on just a pumpkin-picking minute here!" he ordered, stepping up again to block Apple Bloom's path. "Look," he said to the filly, "I'm not going to claim I know anything about how happy your home life is, or how many bullies are picking on you at school, or what you do with your Compadres gang—"
"Crusaders ," Apple Bloom interrupted.
"Whatever," Pumpkin continued. "The point is, you can't just go off the deep end and throw your life away over something as... As trivial as this! I mean, who cares if you don't get a quote from this Lightning dope, and your article has a sad ending? It happens! I'm sure you can put together a great article without it. Heck, journalism probably isn't even your special talent anyway!" He regretted his last sentence as soon as he said it, realizing how disheartening it would sound to any markless pony, let alone the oldest blank flank he had ever seen. "Look, kid, I'm sorry—"
"No!" Apple Bloom interrupted. "You're right! Journalism isn't my special talent! And neither is apple selling, juggling, hang gliding, kite flying, cupcake baking, creature catching, ziplining, bowling, potion making, skydiving, or even arguing!" The weight of Apple Bloom's depression finally became too much to bear, and she collapsed onto the ground. "I might as well face it," she sobbed. "I'm never gonna find my special talent, because I don't have one! I'm gonna spend the rest of my life wearing long dresses, hiding from Diamond Tiara, and getting fired from every job in Ponyville!"
"Calm down, would you?" Pumpkin Pie insisted. "You're not going to be a blank flank forever, trust me!"
"You don't understand!" Apple Bloom screamed back. "Do you have any idea how long I've been looking for my special talent? Do you have any idea how much it hurts to have ponies laugh at you, or whisper behind your back, because you're either too useless to have a talent or too dumb to figure out what it is?" Apple Bloom peeled herself off of the ground and gave Pumpkin Pie as angry a look as she could muster. "Do you know what it's like to hang out with your best friends and know that one day, they're going to decide you're a lost cause, and leave you all alone?"
"As a matter of fact, missy—" Pumpkin Pie snapped, before realizing what he was about to say and biting his tongue at the last second. "No, I guess I don't," he admitted with a sigh. "But that's still no reason to give up on life!"
"Why not?" Apple Bloom demanded, thrusting a hoof in the direction of Greased Lightning's headstone. "That's what he did."
Pumpkin Pie turned and looked over at the stone, whose polished surface seemed to glow in the moonlight. He stood silently staring at the stone for a few seconds, unsure of what to say next. "He... He did, didn't he?" he finally agreed.
"That's right!" Apple Bloom said. "Lightnin' didn't just have a special talent, he had a special special talent—he was supposed to be one of the fastest ponies ever! Plus, he had money, fame, adoring fans, no bedtime... He had everythin' you could ever want!" She wiped her eyes and started walking back down the chasm, away from Pumpkin Pie. "If this is what happens to a pony without a special talent, even one who had all that," she concluded, "then I might as well find those timberwolves and get this over with."
"Wait, kid, you've got it all wrong!" Pumpkin Pie shouted. He took a few steps towards Apple Bloom with the intent of cutting her off, but in his haste, he forgot to watch where he was stepping, and ended up getting caught in one of his own net traps. "Oh, for the love of Celestia!" he cursed, frantically struggling to free himself before Apple Bloom got away. "Wait! Stop!" Pumpkin Pie pleaded.
Apple Bloom neither waited nor stopped, of course, and quickly disappeared into the darkness before she broke down completely.
"Oh no!" Pumpkin Pie moaned, as he continued to struggle with his net. "What am I gonna do now?"
In response, a voice deep inside Pumpkin's head began to speak: There's but one way to stop this youth. You must tell her the honest truth .
"I... I can't!" Pumpkin Pie loudly objected, despite the fact that Zecora was nowhere to be found. "We've been through this all before, I can't go back there anymore!" Pumpkin slammed his hooves on his head in frustration. "Now I'm even starting to sound like you!" he bemoaned. "The bottom line is that Greased Lightning is gone! Period! End of story!"
So you would let a pony die , the voice continued, to save your precious alibi ?
"No! I mean... Look, I can't do it!" Pumpkin insisted. "If that kid finds out the truth, and puts it in print... It'll be deja vu all over again! The cracks, the snickers, the raspberries, the pitiful stares..." The blue stallion teared up as he recalled the painful memories. "The Lightning name is mud in Equestria," he announced, "and I can't face that. Not then, and not now."
Perhaps that's true , the voice declared ominously, but heed my rhyme: Young Apple Bloom is short on time. Save her life, or save your pride—this is what you must decide .
Pumpkin continued wrestling with the net, cursing his fate all the while. He thought he had prepared for this moment: The clothing, the garden, the tombstone... He had even rehearsed his story a few times to get the details straight! He was sure he had buried the truth under so many layers of indirection, nopony—not racing historians, not random trespassers, not even nosy reporters—would ever find it. Running into a depressed filly with no will to live, however, was another story altogether, and if the truth would save her...
Pumpkin Pie swallowed hard, and decided he had to intervene, regardless of what the consequences would be. "Kid, come back!" he shouted into the darkness. "You got me, all right? I'll talk! Greased Lightning isn't dead! He's still alive, and I know where he is! Just please, for Celestia's sake, turn around !"
The words echoed through the forest for a moment, but they were met with only silence. A bolt of fear shot through Pumpkin as he imagined a pack of timberwolves descending upon Apple Bloom, and he quickly shifted to Plan B. He placed his front hooves through the holes in the net, and with an adrenaline-fueled pull, he ripped the net off of the metal disks that held its edges, and fell hard to the ground. He quickly rolled over, intending to rise up and chase after Apple Bloom, but instead discovered that the young filly had not only come back, but was standing over him with an unhappy look on her face.
"He's alive, huh?" Apple Bloom said, giving Pumpkin the evil eye. "So you were lyin' to me, and all that goin' on about him bein' dead was just a bunch of malarkey!"
Pumpkin Pie breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes, I lied," he admitted. "I know, I'm a bad pony, I should be ashamed of myself..."
"So how do I know you're not lyin' now?" Apple Bloom demanded. "How do I really know you know where Greased Lightnin' is?"
Pumpkin took a deep breath, and spotted a patch of unfiltered moonlight nearby. "Because I can prove it to you," he declared. Stepping into the faint light, the blue pony reached back with his head, grabbed his cloak with his teeth, and pulled it off.
Apple Bloom gasped at the sight of the pony that appeared from underneath the cloak. The first thing she noticed was the blue pony's cutie mark: Instead of the garden-related emblem she expected to see, the pony sported a simple, yellow-colored lightning bolt on his flank, similar in shape to Rainbow Dash's mark. The second thing she noticed, however, was the pony's wings, or in this case, the pony's wing . Resting on the right side of the pony's body, the wing was ragged and unpruned, but at least it was present and identifiable. The pony's left side, in contrast, sported nothing more than a grotesque-looking scar that spanned the length of the pony's back. "You... Are you..." Apple Bloom stammered.
The blue pony nodded. "These days, I'm just Pumpkin Pie, amateur gardener," he explained, as a few tears appeared in his eyes, "but once upon a time... I was Greased Lightning, the fastest pony in the sky."
Grounded: The Ballad of Greased Lightning
"Uhhh..." Greased Lightning opened his eyes to find himself lying on a bed inside a brightly-lit room with bland beige walls and a matching ceiling. He lifted a hoof to shield his eyes. "Where... Where am I?"
"Glad to have you back with us, Mr. Lightning." Lightning turned to see a green unicorn wearing a doctor's coat standing by the bed, writing some notes on a chart hanging on the wall. "Tell me," the doctor asked, "how are you feeling?"
"Like I got run over by a chariot," Lightning groaned. "What... What happened?"
"From what I'm told," the doctor replied, "you were on the business end of a magic blast from one of the most powerful unicorns in Ponyville." The doctor used her magic to raise an ophthalmoscope to her face and looked into Lightning's eyes. "Your pupils are still a little dilated, so you're probably still feeling the effects of that blast. Still, you're in remarkably good condition for a pony that's supposed to be dead."
Lightning smiled weakly. "I owe it all to clean living."
"Uh-huh." The doctor rolled her eyes. "A couple aspirin and a good night's rest should cure what ails you, though I would avoid operating any heavy machinery for a few days." She turned and headed for the door. "You're also free to have visitors, if you feel you're up to it. I know there's at least one little filly who'd—"
"Oh geez, the kid!" Greased Lightning's eyes snapped wide open. "What happened to her? Is she hurt?"
"She's fine," the doctor assured Lightning. "Her sister was a little hot under the yoke about the whole ordeal, but I think she's feeling better now. Shall I send them in?"
"Yes, please!" Lightning nodded enthusiastically.
The doctor disappeared through the doorway, and within seconds Apple Bloom came barreling into the room. "Mr. Lightnin'!" she squealed. "Are you okay?"
"More or less, I guess," Lightning replied.
"Great!" Apple Bloom reached back into her saddle bag and pulled out her notepad and pencil. "You hit your head pretty hard on the floor when you landed—I was afraid you'd lose your memory or somethin'!"
"Land sakes, Apple Bloom!" Applejack chided her sister as she walked into the room. "The guy just woke up from gettin' blasted by Twilight, and you're already pesterin' him about that story of yours!"
"Of course!" Apple Bloom shot back. "How am I ever goin' to get my writin' cutie mark if the pony I'm writin' about forgets the story halfway through?"
Applejack sighed. "I'm awful sorry about that bump on your head," she said, gesturing to a large bump visible just above Lightning's right ear. "We were all worried about somethin' hurtin' Apple Bloom, and... I kind of told Twilight to shoot first and ask questions later."
"No biggie," Greased Lightning assured Applejack. "I'm used to hard landings by now. That one didn't even crack my personal top ten."
"Ahem!" Apple Bloom shot her older sister a you're-stealin'-my-thunder glare, then turned back to Greased Lightning and started flipping through her notebook. "You said that Rainbow Dash was the reason you were out there in the forest," she reminded her interviewee. "What makes you say that?"
"Right. That's where we left off, isn't it?" Lightning sighed and paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. "Well, like I said... You know how quiet Rainbow can be, and how she tends to keep to herself and never tell anypony how she's thinking?"
Apple Bloom scrunched up her face and looked at Lightning suspiciously. "No."
Lightning chuckled. "Me neither. From day one, Rainbow let the world know that she was the fastest pony in the sky, and I was just a scaredy-pony who didn't have the ba—Er, fortitude to take her on. She never wavered from that position, and she never let up, even after the accident."
"Wait... So you went into hidin' just because Rainbow called you a couple names?" Applejack shook her head and frowned at Greased Lightning. "That ain't no way to deal with a mouthy pony! You just have to ignore them and go about your business. Remember what I said about those bullies at your school, Apple Bloom?"
Apple Bloom sighed. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," she repeated in a rhythmic-yet-uninspired tone.
"Exactly!" Applejack said. "Why, Rainbow's called me more names than a speckled rooster, and I just let them roll off my back!"
"When Rarity calls you names, on the other hand..." Apple Bloom mumbled to herself.
"I tried to ignore Rainbow, believe me," Greased Lightning insisted, "and I would have been alright if it was just her. The problem was, the more popular and successful Rainbow got, the more ponies started to listen to her, and the more times she said I wasn't worth the air I was breathing... The more other ponies started to say it too."
"So you ignore them too!" Applejack declared.
"That's like asking me to ignore clouds!" Lightning countered. "I couldn't have avoided them even if I wanted to, and believe me, I wanted to! No matter where I went—the grocery store, the movie theater, the—"
"The bar?" Apple Bloom interrupted.
Greased Lightning sighed. "Especially the bars."
"So why did you go anywhere at all?" Apple Bloom asked. "Couldn't you have just stayed home?"
"They came after me there too," Lightning revealed. "I got a million letters from ponies, and even a few from griffins, calling me a coward and either asking or demanding that I face Rainbow Dash. And you could forget reading the newspaper—every day brought a new story about the new favorite, with a new quote ridiculing the old favorite." He shook his head. "Everypony and their mother—heck, everypony and my mother—had an opinion, and they usually weren't flattering."
"So if all these folks were chatterin' about you not facin' Rainbow Dash," Applejack challenged, "then why didn't you just face her?"
"Applejack!" Apple Bloom glared over at her sister. "This is my interview, not yours!"
"Well, I just don't understand it!" Applejack admitted, stomping a front hoof for emphasis. "I mean, ignorin' ponies is one thing, but if I really had a problem with Rainbow, I'd hunt her down, tell her exactly how I felt, and we'd settle it pony-to-pony!" She looked back over at Greased Lightning. "If she bothered you so much, why didn't you just take it up with her?"
Lightning hung his head and looked away from Applejack and Apple Bloom. "At the time, I didn't think it would matter."
"Really? Why not?" Apple Bloom asked.
"It wouldn't have settled anything," Lightning explained. "Dash and I are cloud chasers, not marathon runners. I mean, sure, we could have run across Equestria and back, or swam, or crawled, or rode donkeys, or done just about anything, but it wouldn't have been the same. No matter who won, all it would have done is make ponies waste a little more of the world's oxygen saying that if it had been in the air, it would have been different."
"Maybe so, but at least you would've shown everypony that you weren't afraid of Rainbow, and gotten them off your back!" Applejack pointed out.
Apple Bloom spit her pencil onto the floor in disgust. "I thought you wanted me to stop pesterin' Lightnin'," she reminded Applejack. "Now you're the one pesterin' him!"
"She's right, though," Greased Lightning admitted. "She's also smarter than I was—it took me a long time to figure that out myself."
"Is that when you arranged to race Rainbow at the Canterlot Marathon?" Apple Bloom asked.
Lightning nodded. "I'd finally reached my breaking point with all the negativity, and decided that one way or another, I had to put this coward talk to rest. I reached out to Rainbow, we went back and forth a few times on the logistics, and finally agreed to compete in the marathon." A smile spread across Lightning's face as he spoke. "If it wasn't the smartest decision I ever made, it was certainly in the top five," he posited. "As soon as word got out about the race, the conversation changed from 'What's wrong with Greased Lightning?' to 'Will Dash or Lightning prevail?' The hate mail dried up—mostly—and a few ponies even started wishing me good luck, telling me that they knew I wasn't a scaredy-pony all along."
"Of course they did," Apple Bloom said as she rolled her eyes.
"Hey, beggars can't be choosers," Lighting proclaimed. "As far as I was concerned, there was plenty of space for them on my bandwagon."
"So what happened?" Apple Bloom inquired.
"I made one mistake," Greased Lighting explained. "I decided to visit a few old friends before the race, and—"
"What do you mean, 'old friends?'" Applejack interrupted. "I thought you said you lost all of your—whoa!" She ducked as a notebook suddenly sailed over her head.
"Ain't you got anythin' better to do than interrupt us?" Apple Bloom snapped at her sister.
"Fine, fine. If it's that important to you, I'll leave you be." With that, Applejack turned and walked out of the room.
"Finally!" Apple Bloom breathed a sigh of relief as she walked over to pick up her notebook. "Now then, what were you sayin' about old friends? I thought you said everypony hated you."
Greased Lightning chuckled at Apple Bloom's plagiarism. "Careful—the last pony that asked that question got tossed out of here," he joked. "I guess if I'm completely honest, there were a few ponies that stayed in my corner until the end, mostly family members and a few diehard fans."
"So why was visitin' them a mistake?" Apple Bloom asked. "Seeing my friends and family always makes me happy!"
"Oh, it made me happy too!" Lightning clarified. "It just wasn't really what I needed at the time."
"What do you mean?"
Lightning sighed. "Let's just say that feting a drunk by giving him a round is, well, counterproductive."
"Is that what happened at 'the end?'"
Greased Lightning looked down at the bed and nodded. "Three days before the marathon, I went to see my cousin Blue Chip at his place near the Whitetail Woods. Chippy had finally come into a little bit of money after spending a decade working on the Canterlot Exchange, and he invited me out to check out his new home and celebrate the start of better times for both of us."
"And this celebration involved alcohol?" Apple Bloom guessed.
"Uh huh," Lightning confirmed. "Chippy enjoyed a stiff drink almost as much as I did, and his newfound wealth meant he could afford some really good stuff."
"So you got drunk again, and..." Apple Bloom gestured with her front hoof for Greased Lightning to finish the sentence.
"Honestly, I have no idea." Lightning shook his head, and pointed a hoof towards the window. "I woke up four days later in a ditch right here in Ponyville, with nopony else around and no idea how I got there."
"Four days? " Apple Bloom's jaw hit the floor at the length of Lightning's bender. Half of her brain started screaming at her to take a vow of teetotalism right then and there, while the other half urged her to get the name of the liquor he had drank for use in future controlled experiments.
"Yep. Four days." Lightning shook his head. "Which, if you do the math, means I was a day late and a couple of bits short as far as running the Canterlot Marathon."
"And Rainbow didn't buy your excuse, did she?"
"I didn't tell her," Greased Lightning admitted. "I didn't have to. I knew what was coming next. It didn't matter why I'd missed the marathon; all that mattered to everypony was the fact that I'd missed it. It just reinforced what they had all said before: Greased Lightning wasn't pony enough to run against Rainbow Dash. He was..." Lightning began to choke up as he spoke, and a few tears began running down his cheek. "He was too afraid," he finally said. "He was a coward."
"And that's why you were out in the forest," Apple Bloom concluded.
"Yeah. I knew that all the hatred and anger I'd dodged for a past few months was going to come back at me even stronger than before, and... I just couldn't face it." Lightning lifted his blanket up to his face to dry his eyes. "I just kind of snapped, and I turned tail and took off running. I didn't really mean to end up in the forest; it just happened to be in the direction that I was going. All I could think of at the time was that I had to get away. I had to escape."
Apple Bloom's hooves started to tremble. "Did you ever... Ever think of..."
Lightning nodded knowingly. "You can't run forever, literally or metaphorically. Eventually, something happened—a leg gave out, I tripped over a rock, I don't really remember now—and I wound up face down in the dirt. At that point, I decided I didn't want to get up anymore, so... Yeah. I just closed my eyes and waited to die."
"What... What happened next?"
Greased Lightning smiled a weak smile. "I woke up a couple hours later in that darn zebra's hut," he said. "Apparently she found me in a mudhole, dragged me over to her place, and patched me up a little."
"Well, of course she did!" Apple Bloom exclaimed. "Zecora's the best!"
"No argument there," Lightning conceded. "I was a little miffed about it at the time, though. I told her she should have left me out there. She said—well, technically, she rhymed that I would have died had she done that. I, of course, told her—"
"'That's kind of the point.'" Apple Bloom finished Lightning's sentence. "Just like I told you."
"Pretty much. Anyway, without missing a beat, she comes back and says that I didn't really want to die—I just wanted my life to end."
"Huh?" Apple Bloom looked up from her notebook and eyed Greased Lightning quizzically.
"It confused me too," Lightning went on. "But somehow, she made it all make sense." He scratched his chin and stared up at the ceiling. "How did she put it..."
"When you find that your life does not satisfy you, cast it aside and start it anew." A familiar voice drew Lightning and Apple Bloom's attention back to the doorway just as Zecora stepped into the room. "A life can be found when another is lost," Zecora continued, "but death is a line that cannot be re-crossed."
"Couldn't have said it better myself," Lightning said.
Zecora walked over to Apple Bloom. "Your midnight run gave us quite a fright," she noted. "I'm relieved to find that you are all right."
Apple Bloom looked down at the floor. "I'm sorry about runnin' off like that. It' just... I had to find out what happened. I needed to know the truth."
Zecora smiled. "I know that this tale is important to you." She looked over at Greased Lightning. "Forgive my intrusion. Please, continue."
Lightning shrugged. "Heck, from here on out you can probably tell the story as well as I can. But, if you insist... Zecora here suggested that I hang out in the Everfree Forest for a while, and see if that helped me feel better. After all, trees and bushes don't care how well you fly, don't call you a chicken on a daily basis, and don't pick fights with you over who they think is the best racer."
"Plus they give you things like apples!" Apple Bloom added.
"That too," Greased Lightning agreed. "I was kind of skeptical at first—despite all the racing, I never considered myself an 'outdoorsy' type of pony—but Zecora promised to help me with the adjustment, and more importantly, she promised not to tell anypony where I was. I finally figured 'what the heck, it's not like my life can get any worse,' so I agreed to give it a shot."
Apple Bloom nodded. "And you've been there ever since."
"Pretty much," Lightning confirmed. "I spent my first few days rattling around Zecora's hut suffering from alcohol withdrawal and being bored out of my skull, so she showed me an old cave deep in that cavern that I could fix up. I spent the next few days after that rattling around the cave suffering from alcohol withdrawal and being bored out of my skull, so Zecora suggested I take up gardening to give myself something to do. It was a pain at first, but eventually the cider cravings went away, and I stopped thinking about what other ponies were saying about me and started thinking about how to keep those pesky timberwolves out of my garden. The rest, I guess, is history. Until you showed up, that is."
Apple Bloom finished writing down her notes. "So that's it," she whispered as she turned towards Zecora. "He's alive, and he's alive because you saved him!"
"He saved himself, to tell the truth," Zecora declared. "I merely lent a helping hoof."
"No, she's right," Lightning objected. "When you found me, I was drowning in a sea of depression and hard cider, and I'd lost my will to fight. Without you, this story would have ended years ago in the Everfree mud." He paused for a few moments, and wiped a tear from his eye. "You know," he realized, "as often as we've spoken over the years, I've never thanked you for that, so—"
"No need for all that mushy stuff. To see this day is thanks enough." Zecora placed a front leg across Apple Bloom's shoulders. "Your road has teamed with potholes and curves, but I knew that you still had a purpose to serve."
Greased Lightning smiled. "You are one amazing woman, and not just because of your freaky rhyming skills." He looked back over at Apple Bloom. "Well, that's pretty much my story, kid," he declared. "You got any other questions for me?"
"As a matter of fact, I do." Apple Bloom flipped to a fresh page of her notebook. "First of all... Why pumpkins ? My sister says that apples are the greatest gift nature ever gave us—"
"I didn't just say that, I know that!" Applejack shouted from outside the room.
"Mind your own beeswax!" Apple Bloom shouted back before clearing her throat and turning back to Greased Lightning. "So, given that, why would you ever grow anything else?"
"Well, for one thing, apples are really hard to grow when you don't have any apple trees," Lightning replied. "Mostly I stuck with things that I could grow in a single season. The first year I was there, I tried planting darn near every kind of vegetable in Equestria, and while most of the stuff didn't come up at all, pumpkins took to the place like fish to water! I guess the conditions were just right for them."
"Perfect conditions are one thing," Apple Bloom pressed, "but how'd you make them so big?"
"Trial, error, and luck," Lightning explained. "They grew pretty big to begin with, but I experimented with fertilizers, put together an irrigation system, and most importantly, I set up some traps and established an understanding with the local wildlife that I wasn't serving a community dinner. You'd be surprised how big things grow when other things aren't actively trying to eat them."
"Makes sense, I guess," Apple Bloom admitted, "but what about the headstone? And the whole Pumpkin Pie act?"
"That was a recent development," Greased Lightning revealed. "For the most part, I figured I was deep enough in the forest that nopony would ever bother me. Then one night, there was this huge ruckus at that old castle not too far from my place. From the sound of it, a bunch of ponies got together and threw a party or something."
"Er... I don't think they were havin' a party that night," Apple Bloom commented.
"I decided that if ponies were going that deep into the forest," Lightning continued, "then eventually they were going to stumble onto my place, so I'd better be ready for when they did. That's when I came up with the whole Pumpkin Pie shtick, and dug up that stone to use as my cover. I had to have Zecora take it into town to get it engraved, though." He smiled down at Apple Bloom. "I thought I was prepared for everypony, but I never thought I'd be dealing with a filly like you."
"That's the mark of a good investigative journalist!" Apple Bloom proclaimed. She cast a quick glance at her flank as she spoke, hoping her statement was literally true, but there was still no cutie mark to be found. Darn, she thought to herself. I guess it's gonna depend on how good our article is.
"Anything else?" Lightning asked.
Apple Bloom scratched her chin with her hoof for a moment, then shook her head. "Nope, that's all I got right now."
Greased Lightning took a deep breath and looked back over at Zecora. "So, now what?" he asked. "I guess the cat's out of the bag now. For better or worse, I'm back amongst the living."
Zecora nodded. "The time has come to free your mind, and rejoin the ranks of ponykind. You shall rise above your tragic crash, and... You will start by meeting Rainbow Dash."
Lightning winced at the sound of Rainbow's name. "Couldn't we, maybe, you know, save her for later?" he suggested. "My psyche is still pretty fragile right now. I'm not sure I'm—"
"Recall that all the pain you faced," Zecora reminded the pegasus, "stemmed from giving Rainbow too much space. Face her now, pass this test, and finally lay your past to rest."
Greased Lightning stared back at Zecora with a furrowed brow and a pouty face. "Do you have to be right all the time?"
Zecora smiled as Greased Lightning pulled his covers off and rolled out of bed. "Come, young filly, we must make haste," she told Apple Bloom. "Your friends await at Twilight's place."
"The doctor says I should get a full night's sleep, you know," Lightning remarked as Zecora and Apple Bloom headed for the door. "Aw, what the heck," he finally decided. "It's not the first time I've ignored a doctor's orders. Of course, it's also not the first time I've done something this late at night that I've regretted."
Back at the library, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle stared attentively out in the window in the direction of Ponyville's urgent care center, despite it being well past their bedtimes. "I still don't see anypony!" Scootaloo finally shouted. She pulled back from the window and looked over at Twilight, who was passing the time by re-reading some of her library books. "What's taking Apple Bloom so long? Maybe we should go—"
"She's just waiting for the pony that saved her," Twilight insisted. She knew exactly who had saved Apple Bloom, of course—the filly had explained the whole situation at least three times on the way out of the forest—but she had decided to let Apple Bloom be the one to give her friends the exciting news. "She should be along any minute now."
"Wait! Wait! I see something!" Sweetie Belle cried out, pointing a hoof towards a darkness. "A pony! No, wait—one, two, three... Four ponies?"
Scootaloo rejoined Sweetie Belle at her windowside post. "You're right! It's Apple Bloom! She's okay!"
The two fillies raced to the library front door, nearly running over a half-asleep Rainbow Dash as the rainbow-maned pegasus stumbled into the room. "Hey, watch it!" she protested. "Some ponies are trying to sleep around here!"
"Sorry, Rainbow Dash!" Scootaloo apologized, without breaking stride.
"Yeah, sorry!" Sweetie Belle chimed in.
Rainbow Dash sighed and walked over to where Twilight was sitting. "I guess that means Apple Bloom's here, huh?"
"Yes," Twilight said with a nod.
"Great. Can I go home now?" Rainbow yawned and stretched out her wings. "I need all the rest I can get if I'm gonna make up all the time I lost taking those two to Baltimare today."
"Zecora said specifically that she needed you here," Twilight replied.
Rainbow groaned. "Well, she'd better have a good reason for this," she muttered.
Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo crouched in front of the library's front door ready to strike, their tails twitching like cats in anticipation of their prey. As soon as the door swung open, the pair let loose with a shrill cry of "Apple Bloom! " and launched themselves through the doorway. Unfortunately, Apple Bloom was not the one opening the door, and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo ended up doing matching faceplants into Applejack's front legs.
"Whoa! Careful, y'all!" Applejack called out a few beats too late, as the fillies slid down her front legs onto the ground.
Apple Bloom covered her mouth to hide a giggle, and patted Applejack on the leg. "I'm sorry, sister," she offered in as serious a tone as she could muster without laughing. "Those shots were meant for me."
Sweetie Belle picked her head up, shook the stars from her vision, and hurried over to the real Apple Bloom. "Thank goodness you're okay! We thought you were lost in the Everfree Forest forever!"
"And just when we made a major breakthrough on the story, too!" Scootaloo added. "We went over and tightened the screws on Turbo Jet until he cracked and told us the truth about what happened!"
Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes. "She means that his wife made him tell us."
"That's cool," Apple Bloom replied. "but he probably said it was an honest accident, didn't he?"
Scootaloo looked down and scuffed the ground with her hoof. "Yeah."
"So what about you?" Sweetie Belle asked Apple Bloom. "Did you find anything interesting in those newspapers?"
"No, but I did find something interesting in the forest!" Apple Bloom motioned for everypony to follow her into the library. "Come on, I'll show you!"
All of the ponies (and Zecora) made their way into the library entryway, where Apple Bloom revealed her discovery. "Check it out!" she declared, pointing her front hooves at Greased Lightning. "Introducing... Greased Lightning!"
"Um... Hi, kids." Lightning smiled sheepishly and waved a hoof at the fillies.
"Whoa... For real?" Scootaloo stared up the missing pegasus, her eyes wide open. "You're Greased Lightning?"
Lightning sighed. "I kinda hate to admit it, but... Yeah, that's me."
"What were you doing in the Everfree Forest?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"It's a long story." Apple Bloom pulled her notebook out of her saddle bag, and held it high in the air. "But we're going to put it in the next edition of the Foal Free Press!"
"And it's going to be the best story ever!" Scootaloo predicted.
"And it's going to get us our cutie marks!" Sweetie Belle squealed.
"Yay! Cutie Mark Crusaders Copy Conquerers!" The three fillies shouted as they exchanged a high-hoof.
Greased Lightning looked over at Zecora. "Excitable bunch, aren't they?"
At that moment, Rainbow Dash and Twilight came stepped around the corner and approached the others. "Geez, you three have way too much energy for this time of—" Rainbow stopped short as she locked eyes with her old nemesis Greased Lightning. Her eyes narrowed, her ears flattened against her head, and the smile disappeared from her face. "You."
Lightning gulped, and took a step forward. "Er, yeah, me," he acknowledged. "Look, I know—"
"You've got a lot of nerve showing your ugly mug around here," Rainbow interrupted. "I was hoping the worms had finished feasting on your flank by now, and the girls here could just tell me where your grave was so I could go dance on it."
"Rainbow Dash!" Applejack stepped in front of her pegasus friend. "That is no way to talk to somepony who just saved—"
"Out of my way!" Rainbow shoved her way past Applejack and went nose-to-nose with Greased Lightning. "I've got nothing to say to a punk coward like you," she growled, "but if you'd like to step outside, there are a few things I'd like to do to you."
A cold sweat started dripping down Lightning's forehead as he stared into Rainbow's eyes. "Now... Now hold on just a minute—"
"No!" Suddenly, a magical aura surrounded Rainbow Dash and pulled her away from Greased Lightning. "I will not have you two fighting outside my house and setting a poor example for these fillies!" Twilight declared. "If you have a problem, you will use your words and discuss it like civilized ponies."
"Rats. I wanted to see Rainbow kick some tail," Scootaloo whispered, drawing disapproving looks from Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.
Rainbow Dash mumbled something under her breath, and went back to glaring at Greased Lightning. "Do you have any idea what I've had to deal with since you ran off?" she demanded. "Do you have any idea what you've put me through?"
"Huh?" Lightning stared blankly back at Rainbow Dash, confused by her accusation.
"I've run every race from here to the Crystal Empire!" Rainbow continued. "I've set speed records at zillions of tracks across Equestria! I've crushed the hopes and dreams of thousands of bush-league wannabe flyers under my hooves! I've come, I've seen, and I've taken no prisoners! But just because you were too much of a baby to face me, nopony gives me the respect I deserve! No matter what I do, they all keep saying that you were the faster pony!"
"Wait, what?" Lightning's eyes popped wide open at the revelation. "Really?"
"Yes! " Rainbow Dash shouted. "All my life, all I've ever wanted to be was the best flyer in Equestria, and all my life ponies have told me I was delusional, all because a certain somepony was too lily-livered to give me the chance to show I measured up!"
Greased Lightning stood in shocked silence for a moment as Rainbow's words washed over him. "Well I'll be grinched," he finally said. "Fate really does have a sense of irony, huh?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Rainbow asked.
"Never mind." Greased Lightning shook his head, and took a step towards Rainbow Dash. "I came here because I thought I needed to apologize to you and admit that everything you've been saying about me all these years is true, but I see now that a simple mea culpa isn't going to be enough. I owe you a race, Rainbow Dash, and I'm finally here to give it to you!"
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Oh, so now you're ready to race, huh? Sorry to burst your bubble, pal, but that train left the station years ago."
"I disagree," Lightning declared. "I wasn't ready to face you back then, either physically or mentally. Now, thanks to Zecora and this little filly neighbor of yours, I think I'm finally ready to face my demons, which in this case means you. Plus, check this out!" He waved a muscular front leg in front of Rainbow Dash's face. "I'm in the best shape of my life!" he proudly proclaimed. "Seriously, you have no idea how much money I could have saved back in the day by dumping my trainer and just dragging two-hundred-pound pumpkins around."
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Get over yourself," she advised. "You couldn't beat me now even if you wanted to. I mean, look at you! You're older than the dirt on my hooves."
"Hey, don't go fitting me for a rocking chair just yet!" Lightning cautioned, flicking out his lone wing as he spoke. "I've got plenty of racing left in me—all I need is a chance to use it."
"Forget it," Rainbow insisted, turning away from Greased Lightning. "Beating you now doesn't mean anything anymore. You're an old, washed-up one-wing wonder, and everypony knows it."
Lightning opened his mouth to disagree, but Apple Bloom raised a hoof to stop him. "Gosh, Scootaloo," Apple Bloom said to her pegasus friend, "this isn't how I wanted our story to end at all. I wanted to say that Rainbow and Lightnin' settled their old grudge, not that Rainbow was too chicken to participate."
"Chicken?! " Rainbow spun around at the sound of the word, as her face flushed red and steam began rising from her head. "Who are you calling a chicken?" she demanded.
"Yeah, who are you calling a chicken?" Scootaloo parroted.
Apple Bloom shrugged. "Well, what are we supposed to say? We can try to be all nice about it and say that Rainbow declined Lightnin's challenge, but it's the same thing."
"True," Sweetie Belle agreed. "My sister always says that if it walks like a chicken, and sounds like a chicken, and acts like a—"
"I did not decline this dope's challenge!" Rainbow thundered. "I said there was no point in racing him!"
"Yeah!" Scootaloo added. "This Lightning guy isn't worth the effort! Rainbow Dash is ten times faster than him, I just know it!"
Greased Lightning smiled. "I don't know, Rainbow," he observed. "Looks like you and I still have a few critics out there to silence, and there's only one way that I know how to do it." He extended a hoof towards Rainbow. "I'm willing if you're are."
"Grrr..." Rainbow scowled at Lightning, and swatted his hoof away. "Fine!" she decided. "If you're itching to get your flank beat so badly, than I'll do it! I'll mop up every cloud in Cloudsdale with you mane!"
"Great!" Lightning smiled. "So... When and where should we do this?"
Apple Bloom looked up at the ceiling and scratched her chin for a moment. "I've got it!" she declared. "How about, say, three days from now, at high noon?"
"I think the ponies who are fixin' to race should decide when—" Applejack started to reply, but stopped upon seeing a mischievous grin spread across Apple Bloom's face. "All right, young'un, what're you up to?"
"You'll see!" Apple Bloom turned to Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. "Meet me at the clubhouse at nine o'clock sharp tomorrow mornin'. I've got an idea!"
Grounded: The Ballad of Greased Lightning
If You Build It, They Will Come
The next three days flew by as if they were played in fast forward, and before Apple Bloom could blink, she found herself blazing a trail through the Everfree Forest, leading Greased Lightning to the site of his overdue grudge match against Rainbow Dash. "Hurry up, Mr. Lightnin'!" she shouted as she burst through the brush. "We're gonna be late for the race!"
"Come on, kid!" Lightning begged as he stumbled through the forest wearing a blindfold over his eyes. "Can't I take this blindfold off yet? We'd make better time if I could see where I was going."
"No! It'll ruin the surprise!" Apple Bloom insisted. "Besides, I've got you this far without any problems, ain't I?"
"Aside from the two trees I've run into, the three gopher holes I've stepped in, the five prickly bushes I've walked through, and the fifteen or so stray branches I've taken across the face, yes."
"You're bein' cyclical," Apple Bloom declared. "Anyway, you're all clear to walk straight forward, 'cept for that little rock there."
"That's cynical , and—Ow! " Right on cue, Lightning jammed his left front hoof into a not-all-that-small rock that was sticking up out of the ground. "You mean this rock?" He rubbed his sore hoof around the rock in an attempt to gauge its size. "Good grief! I'd hate to see what you call a big rock."
Apple Bloom shook her head, and turned to continue on her way. "Come on, you big baby. We're almost there!"
"Wait! Don't get too far—" Lightning sighed and began creeping cautiously forward, straining his ears as he used the sound of Apple Bloom crashing through the brush to figure out what direction he should go in next.
After ten harrowing minutes of hoping he didn't walk off of a cliff, the sound of Apple Bloom yelling "Stop! We're here!" was music to Lightning's ears. He quickly reached for the blindfold, but his leg was swatted away by a stray hoof. "Don't touch that!" Apple Bloom warned. "We aren't quite ready yet!"
"Now, Apple Bloom," Applejack spoke up from what Lightning ascertained was roughly the same direction as her filly guide. "The track looks fine and dandy to me, and judgin' from the sticks and leaves in his mane, I'll bet your friend here is itchin' to get that blindfold off."
"But we need to wait until Rainbow Dash gets here!" a second filly spoke up, although Lightning couldn't remember which of Apple Bloom's friends the voice belonged to. "They both have to be here for the grand opening!"
"It's fine, really," Lightning assured Applejack. "As long I don't have to do any more blind walking, I'm cool. Just tell me when you're ready."
Greased Lightning stood silently for the next few minutes, listening to Apple Bloom and her friend argue over ribbons and scissors and other random things, and he began to wonder exactly what was on the other side of his blindfold. A chill went down his spine as he imagined a horde of reporters in front of him, all preparing to pounce and ask him where he had been and why he had been there and why it had taken this long to find his nerve. He shivered again as he pictured a group of irate race fans just itching to shower him with vitriol, and perhaps a tomato or two.
Lightning took a deep breath and tried to steady his nerves. Get a hold of yourself, Greasy. You're supposed to be past this, remember? Besides, you've never known a racing fan, let alone a group of them, to stay quiet for this long, and there definitely aren't any reporters here—the kid's too afraid of being scooped! Try to focus on the race. What sort of track do you think you'll be running on, dirt, stone, or grass? Will it be a simple oval or some sort of crazy road course?
The sudden sound of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object behind him startled Lightning out of his brainstorming session, but the voice of a familiar pegasus put his mind at ease. "For the love of Celestia, Scootaloo, please let me take this blindfold off!" Rainbow Dash pleaded. "I've hit so many trees, I couldn't walk straight even if I wanted to!"
"Not until Greased—oh, hey, he's already here!" a third filly replied. "Well girls, are we ready for the grand opening?"
"I'm ready if you're ready!" the second filly declared.
"Then grab the ribbon!" Apple Bloom cleared her throat. "Fillies and gentlecolts, ponies of all ages, the Cutie Mark Crusaders would like to welcome everypony to our dedication ceremony!"
"Great!" Rainbow interrupted. "Now can I take this stupid thing off so I can see what we're dedicating?"
"In a minute!" Apple Bloom assured Rainbow Dash. "I just wanted to thank everypony who had a hoof in puttin' all this together: Scoots, Sweetie, Applejack, Twilight, Zecora, Fluttershy, and of course, today's honorary grand marshal!"
"We have a grand marshal?" Rainbow arched an eyebrow from behind her blindfold. "Look, can't we just skip all this fluffy stuff and get on with the race?"
"You can't race without a track," Apple Bloom pointed out, "which brings us to the moment of truth! All right, Lightnin', Rainbow, you may now remove your blindfolds!"
Greased Lightning breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled off the blindfold. He found himself standing at the edge of a large canyon, most likely Gastly Gorge given its proximity to the forest and the distance he had walked. Much to his delight, the crowd that had gathered was made up mostly of creatures he had already met: Apple Bloom, her two fellow Crusaders, Applejack, Twilight, Zecora, Rainbow Dash, and a yellow pegasus he didn't recognize that seemed to be trying to hide behind Applejack. The gorge was its usual intimidating self, with its blank gray walls and thorny bramble bushes framing the river that ran along its base. The thing that took Lightning's breath away however, hung in the air at roughly the height of the canyon walls: A large oval track, maybe a quarter-mile or so long, made entirely out of clouds.
"Ta da!" Apple Bloom stood up on her back hooves and spread her front legs wide. "What do you think?"
"Wow..." Lightning whispered in amazement. "This... This is amazing! What a great idea!"
Rainbow nodded in agreement. "Not bad, squirts. Did you really put this whole thing together in only three days?"
"That's right! Of course, we had a lot of help." Apple Bloom pointed in the direction of Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, who were pulling a large red ribbon taut with their teeth. "Would you like to cut the ribbon to open the course?"
Applejack reached into her saddlebag and pulled out an oversized pair of sheep shears. "Unfortunately, we've only got one pair of scissors tough enough to cut this thing," she explained, "so you two'll have to share."
Sharing turned out to be harder than anypony anticipated, as Rainbow Dash and Greased Lightning first had to grab one handle of the scissors with their teeth, then contort their heads to get the scissors in position to actually cut the ribbon. Still, after a few seconds of calibration, the two ponies managed to cut the ribbon amidst a backdrop of cheers.
Rainbow Dash quickly spit the scissors onto the ground once the deed was done. "Good grief!" she sputtered, glaring at Lightning. "Your breath is rank! Seriously, have you ever heard of a toothbrush?"
"I was going to say the same thing about you," Lightning said, as he waved his hoof in front of his nose. "Remind me to find you some pumpkin seeds to chew on when I get home."
"And now, for the rules of today's race!" Apple Bloom looked over at Sweetie Belle, who had pulled a small scroll out of her saddlebag.
"Let's see..." Sweetie Belle looked down at the scroll. "Today's race will consist of five laps, which means that the first pony who makes five complete counter-clockwise trips around the track will be declared the winner. Contestants will line up at the starting line"—she pointed to a black ribbon that had been wrapped around the cloud nearest to the edge of the canyon—"and the race will start when the grand marshal waves the green flag. No pushing, shoving, kicking, head-butting, tripping, clipping, biting, fighting, or flying is allowed. Any questions?"
Greased Lightning raised his hoof. "Can we, uh, test the racing surface before we start?"
"Um..." Sweetie Belle scanned the scroll for a few seconds. "Well, there's no rule that says you can't test the surface, so—"
"Good enough for me!" Lightning dashed past Sweetie Belle and dived headfirst onto the cloudy track. "Now this is the life!" Lightning said as he hugged the cloud tightly. "I haven't even touched a cloud in over ten years. I'd forgotten how awesomely soft they were!"
The rest of the crowd watched silently for several minutes as Lightning pranced, danced, and generally frolicked on the clouds. Finally, Rainbow Dash smacked her face with her hoof, and flew over to where Lightning was somersaulting on the track. "Hey, cloudbrain!" she shouted. "Are you done acting like a baby yet, or do you need another decade?"
"Oh, I've never been more ready!" Lightning proclaimed, as he bounced back onto his hooves. "Let's get this party started already! Where's the grand marshal?" He pointed at the yellow-coated pegasus behind Applejack. "Is it you?"
"That's Fluttershy, you dope," Rainbow explained. "That's a good question, though: Who is the grand marshal of this thing anyway?"
"That's our second big reveal of the day!" Apple Bloom announced. She nodded over at Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, who began banging their hooves on nearby trees for a makeshift drum roll. "Presenting the grand marshal for today's race, a veteran of fourteen Cloudsdale Derbies and a pony with firsthoof experience of competing against—and getting crushed by—both of today's competitors, coming to us all the way from Baltimare... Turbo Jet!"
"What?! " Rainbow and Lightning exchanged surprised looks as a familiar tan-colored pegasus emerged from the treeline.
"Hey guys!" Turbo called out as he waved at the pair. "Check it out! I finally get to cross 'Be the special guest at an inaugural event' off my bucket list!" He hurried over to where Rainbow and Lightning stood. "Gosh, it's been way too long, Greasy. You..." Turbo paused for a few moments as he tried to figure out what to say. "You look good," he finally said. "Really good."
"Only because the zebra made me get a haircut," Lightning chuckled. "And hey, you look like you're doing pretty well yourself." He stretched his neck to look behind Turbo. "Where's the rest of the family?" he asked. "The kids were telling me the other day that you have a whole houseful of fillies now!"
"Well, maybe not a houseful, but they're definitely a hoofful," Turbo Jet admitted.
"Do they race? Have you got a future speedster under your roof?"
Turbo shook his head. "They don't give two whinnies about racing. The pony that Rainbow once said couldn't spell the word 'a' is now the proud father of a math prodigy and an aspiring astronaut. That's why my wife couldn't make it—neither of the kids wanted to come, and she wasn't sure she wanted to leave them with that pink pony working at the snack shop."
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, then shoved her way in between Lightning and Turbo. "As fascinating as it is to listen to you ancient fossils catch up," she told the duo, "Greased Lightning and I have some unfinished business to deal with."
"That's right!" Turbo turned and scanned the crowd for a few moments before spotting Scootaloo waving a green flag at him. "I've got a race to... Uh... Marshal!" He rushed over and grabbed the flag from Scootaloo, then took his position next to the starting line. "Racers, to your marks!"
Rainbow and Lightning hopped up onto the track and took their position at the starting line. "I've been waiting a long time for this moment," Rainbow said as she stared down Lightning. "I'm gonna send you to the glue factory once and for all."
Turbo Jet raised his flag high. "On your marks!"
Greased Lightning smiled smugly back at Rainbow. "You should stop by my place after the race," he offered. "I've got a great pumpkin casserole recipe that will go great with all the crow you're about to eat."
"Get set!"
"I'll see you at the finish line!" Rainbow and Lightning said in unison.
"GO!" Turbo waved his flag, and the race was on.
For all the passion and history behind the matchup, the actual race ended up being anticlimactic. Rainbow Dash jumped out to an early lead, set a blistering pace, and never looked back, cruising to an easy victory. Greased Lightning fought valiantly against his bounty of birthdays and lack of stamina and kept things close for a while, but any hopes he had of an upset vanished by the third lap, and he finished a good half-lap behind his rainbow-maned opponent.
"All right, Rainbow!" Scootaloo cheered as her hero crossed the finish line. "You did it! You beat Greased Lightning! You're officially the fastest flyer ever !"
Rainbow Dash was uncharacteristically silent in victory, and didn't even bother to smile as she turned and hopped back onto the ground. She looked back down the track at Lightning, her eyes boring a hole through her vanquished opponent as he ran.
A long one minute and thirty seconds later, Lightning finally crossed the finish line, at which point he promptly bellyflopped onto the cloudy track. "Hoe... Lee... Cow..." he wheezed. "That... Was... Brutal."
Apple Bloom hurried over to the fallen pegasus. "Mr. Lightnin'? Are you okay?"
"I'm... Not... Sure.. Yet," Lightning admitted.
As Greased Lightning struggled to regain his breath, Sweetie Belle walked over to Rainbow Dash and pulled another scroll out of her saddlebag. "Congratulations on your victory in today's race," she read. "To comm... Commem... Um... Commer..."
"Commemorate," Twilight offered.
"Commemorate. Right." Sweetie Belle cleared her throat and continued. "To... Uh... Do that for this occasion, the Cutie Mark Crusaders would like to present you with this trophy." She looked expectantly over at Scootaloo as she spoke.
"What's that look for?" Scootaloo asked.
"Don't you have the trophy?"
"I thought Apple Bloom had it!"
"What? I don't have the trophy!" Apple Bloom exclaimed.
Scootaloo's face fell at the revelation. "Don't tell me we left it at the clubhouse! We worked all night on that!"
Sweetie Belle sighed, and looked up at Rainbow Dash. "Well... We would present you with this trophy, if we had it."
Rainbow Dash shrugged. "It's okay, girls. I'm sure it was totally awesome." She looked back at Greased Lightning, who had finally peeled himself off of the clouds and hopped down onto the ground. "You!" she shouted, as a scowl appeared on her face.
Lightning smiled sheepishly back at Rainbow. "I guess that settles it," he conceded. "You really are—"
"What was that out there?" Rainbow interrupted, once again going nose-to-nose with Greased Lightning. "That was pathetic! I've had more competitive races against snails! Were you even trying out there?"
"Hey, I was—" Lightning tried to respond.
"Look at you!" Rainbow poked at Lightning's stomach with her hoof. "You weren't prepared for this at all! With a pudgy paunch like that , even a slowpony like TJ could have beaten you!"
"Hey!" Turbo Jet objected.
Rainbow ignored Turbo and continued berating Lightning. "I said I wanted to race Greased Lightning, not a grease ball! But no, I get a fat slob who's been overdosing on pumpkins for the last hundred years!"
"Huh?" Apple Bloom scratched her head as Rainbow ranted, noting that Lightning didn't look out of shape at all. "But Mr. Lightnin' isn't—"
"Hold on, kid." Greased Lightning held up his hoof to silence Apple Bloom. "So now I'm fat instead of old, eh?" he asked Rainbow. "I guess those pumpkin workouts weren't enough after all. Let me get this straight: If you wanted to race me, but this race didn't count... Does that mean we're gonna need a rematch?"
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sure, like you could ever work yourself back into real racing shape. But yeah, if you ever did get off your lazy butt—"
"It's a deal!" Lightning proclaimed. "Maybe I wasn't good enough to beat you today, but give me another month or so to really work back into shape, and I'd be a bit more of a challenge!"
"Another month?" Apple Bloom wailed. "But our article goes to press tomorrow!"
"No biggie," Scootaloo insisted. "Between your interview, our interview, and today's race, we've got loads of material to work with. I'll bet we can put together a killer article!"
Apple Bloom took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "I guess you're right," she admitted. "But we'd better get started soon!"
As the Crusaders begin brainstorming for their article, Turbo Jet tapped Greased Lightning on the shoulder. "So what now, Greasy?" he asked. "What's your next move?"
'Well, besides preparing to kick Rainbow's tail in round two"—Greasy threw a smug grin at Rainbow Dash, causing the rainbow-maned pegasus to roll her eyes again—"I'll be working on my new business venture. Check this out!"
Lightning ran over to Applejack and plucked her hat off her head. "Hey!" Applejack shouted. "What're you doin' with that?"
All heads turned and watched as Lightning put on Applejack's hat and bit off a tall piece of straw that was growing on the canyon's edge, leaving the stem protruding a good eight inches out of his mouth. "Hi, friends," he called to the assembled crowd using a heavy-but-cheesy Appaloosan accent, "Pumpkin Pie here for Pumpkin Pie's Prize Produce Products! If you're looking for that extra-special something to make a extra-special meal, or just want to spice up your borin' old dinner routine, head on over your local market and grab one of our mouth-watering pumpkins! They go great with any meal, they're chock full of healthy nutrients, and they're gare-ron-teed to be the best-tastin' around! So what are you waitin' for? Pick up one today, and tell 'em ol' Pumpkin Pie sent you!"
Everypony simply stared at Greased Lightning, their eyes and mouths wide open at the sight of the stallion's shilling. "Yeah, I know, it needs some work," Lightning admitted. "I need a real writer to fix up that pitch, not to mention a real actor to pull off that hick schtick convincingly."
"Um... Well... I mean..." Turbo Jet stammered as he tried to find the right words. "It's great, Greasy, but... Pumpkins? Why pumpkins? Do you have a garden or something?"
"You mean the kids didn't tell you?" Lightning exchanged a knowing smile with Zecora, then walked over and threw a hoof across Turbo's shoulders. "Come with me, TJ—I've got something to show you."
"Wait!" Apple Bloom scurried over to Lightning and Turbo before they could move. "Before you go, is there anything else you'd like to say for our article?"
"Well..." Lightning brought a front hoof to his chin and stared down at the ground as he pondered the question for a moment. "I probably owe an apology to the world for my vacation from reality, and I suppose my critics need to know that I'm ready to face them. Most of all, though, Equestria needs to know one thing." He flashed his most confident smile. "I'm back. Finally."
Apple Bloom added the quote to her book. "What about you, Rain—" She stopped as she turned around and discovered that Rainbow Dash had fled the scene during Lightning's business pitch and gone back to Ponyville. "I, uh, guess Lightning gets the last word then," she decided.
"Actually," Lightning realized, "I need to say one more thing." He motioned with his hoof for Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle to come over and stand next to Apple Bloom. "Girls..." He paused for a few moments as he tried to think of the right words, then scrapped the plan and just went with what was in his heart. "Thank you."
"You're welcome!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed. "So, um... what are we welcome for?"
"For caring," Lightning explained. "For deciding that some old, washed-up, long-lost pony was worth looking for. Let's face it: I wasn't coming out of that cave of my own accord. I'd gotten used to life alone in the forest, and that's probably where I would have stayed forever. I guess I was as selfish as I was afraid—I was too wrapped up in my own misery that I didn't realize what leaving did to other ponies, like Rainbow. But now, I've got a chance to make amends to everypony now, and that's all thanks to you three." He smiled at Apple Bloom. "You know, kid," he noted, "with everything you've had do to put this story together, maybe you and I were wrong. Maybe journalism really is your special talent."
"Really? You think so?" Apple Bloom shrieked. "All right! Girls, did you hear that?"
"I did! I did!" Sweetie Belle squealed. "This is it! We're finally going to get our cutie marks!"
"Well, what are we waiting for, ponies?" Scootaloo shouted. "Let's go break this story and leave the world of blank flanks behind forever!"
"Yay! Cutie Mark Crusader Famous Flyer Finders!" The three Crusaders exchanged a high-hoof and began racing in the general direction of their clubhouse back on the Apple farm.
"Hold on now!" Applejack shouted as she gave chase to the fillies. "Don't go runnin' off through this forest by yourselves!"
Greased Lightning laughed as the Crusaders headed for the treeline. "Kids these days, huh? Now then, about those pumpkins..."
Zecora watched as Lightning and Turbo turned and made their own way into the forest, then smiled and bowed her head. "At last the story will be told, and put to rest the ghosts of old," she declared. "Thanks to his three newfound friends, this pegasus will rise again."
"I'm happy for him," Twilight said. "And who knows? Maybe this will finally be the thing that earns those fillies their cutie marks."
Zecora thought about the idea for a moment, then shook her head. "As writers, they are not the worst, but... They must improve their spelling first."
Grounded: The Ballad of Greased Lightning
Epilogue: Three Months Later...
"Come on, y'all!" Apple Bloom shouted, as she and her fellow Crusaders raced down a crowded city sidewalk. "We're almost to the finish line!"
"This is gonna be awesome !" Scootaloo proclaimed. "I can't wait to see how Rainbow Dash tears these wannabes' hearts out!"
"But she was stuck in traffic at the last checkpoint!" Sweetie Belle reminded her friend.
"Yeah, and Lightnin' was leadin'!" Apple Bloom chimed in. "I'll bet he ends up winnin' the whole thing!"
"You're crazy!" Scootaloo shot back. "That old geezer'll run out of steam long before the finish line!"
"No way! He wasn't even breathin' hard!" Apple Bloom hard. "He's got more than enough juice to—YAH!" She and her friends slammed on the brakes as Twilight and Applejack suddenly materialized before them.
"Apple Bloom!" Applejack glared down at her younger sister. "What did I tell you about stayin' near me? Canterlot is no place for a filly to just go runnin' off like you did!"
"But Applejack," Apple Bloom pleaded, "I wanted to catch the end of the marathon!"
"I'm know you're excited about the race and all, but that's still no excuse," Applejack stated firmly. "From now on, we're stickin' together like caramel on a candy apple."
"Then get your candy apple in gear, and let's go!" Apple Bloom turned and continued her race to the finish line, followed by Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle.
Applejack smacked her hoof to her face in frustration. "Fillies," she grumbled.
The finish line for the marathon sat directly in front of Canterlot Castle, surrounded by streamers, balloons, and excited spectators. "There it is!" Apple Bloom shouted as she and her friends approached the castle. "We haven't missed it yet!"
The Crusaders rushed down to the ropes that separated the fans from the course. "Let's see who's in front!" Scootaloo said. "Sweetie Belle, pass me the binoculars!"
"I don't have the binoculars!" Sweetie Belle replied. "Apple Bloom does!"
"What do you mean? I ain't got 'em!" Apple Bloom.
"But I left them for you at the last checkpoint!" Sweetie Belle insisted. "Remember? I put them on that flat rock when I went to the little fillies' room. They were right next to the hay fries!"
Scootaloo's face fell. "Don't tell me we lost the binoculars and the snacks!"
"I've got them," Applejack announced and she as Twilight caught up with the filly trio. "Y'all need to pay more attention to—"
"Great!" Apple Bloom interrupted, bouncing over to Applejack's saddlebag and snatching out the binoculars with her mouth in one leap. She immediately jumped up on a nearby mailbox, pressed the binoculars to her face, and focused her gaze on a hill off in the distance that the runners would soon be climbing.
"See anything?" Scootaloo asked.
"Not yet."
Looking up at her fellow Crusader, Sweetie Belle noticed that something was slightly out of place. "Er... Apple Bloom? I think your cutie mark is falling off."
"Huh?" Apple Bloom lowered her binoculars and looked down at her right flank, where a half-attached sticker of a small pumpkin was hanging on for dear life. "Ooh, good catch," she said, reaching down to smooth the sticker back onto her coat. "We gotta keep up appearances, you know."
"Uh-huh." Sweetie Belle nodded as she reached back to polish the pie sticker on her own flank. "After all, we got three whole bits for being in that newspaper ad."
"Focus, pumpkin head!" Scootaloo shouted. "Who's winning?"
Apple Bloom looked back through the binoculars. "Hold on... I think I see somethin'..." She paused for a few seconds, then leaped into the air. "It's Lightnin'! " she screeched. "He's still leadin'!"
"What? No way!" Scootaloo jumped up on the mailbox, snatched the binoculars away from Apple Bloom, and looked through them for herself. "That's impossible!" she declared.
But Scootaloo was wrong: Greased Lightning, running like a pony possessed, was the first pony to top the hill and and make his way for the finish line. Rainbow Dash appeared a few seconds later, but she was in third place behind a brown-coated earth pony who was doing all he could to keep her behind him. "Get out of the way, slowpoke! " Scootaloo screamed to no avail.
The rest of the assembled crowd cheered as the racers approached the finish line. "Woo! Go Lightnin'!" Apple Bloom shouted.
This time, there would be no late-race fade, no piano falling on Greased Lightning's back, no stray mental baggage weighing him down. If anything, the single-wing pegasus seemed to be getting stronger with every step, pulling away from his competition as they battled for second place. Despite the ponies gathered all along the course and the flashbulbs going off from all directions, Lightning's expression remained unchanged: nostrils flared, teeth gritted, eyes focused squarely on the finish line. He wanted this one badly, more so than he had wanted any victory in his entire career.
Behind Lightning, Rainbow Dash's temper finally boiled over from the defensive maneuvers of the colt just in front of her. "I have had it with you!" she raged. "Move it or lose it!" She reached out and grabbed the colt's tail with her teeth, then flung him out of the way with one powerful swing of her head.
"AAAHHH!!" the colt screamed as he tumbled into the crowd.
"Yeah!" Scootaloo cheered at Rainbow's honorable and sportsmanlike gesture. "Now hurry up and catch that old geezer!"
"It's too late!" Apple Bloom proclaimed. "Lightnin' is gonna win!"
A load roar went up from the crowd as Lightning broke the tape that stretched across the finish line, and the winning pegasus suddenly found himself mobbed by deliriously happy ponies. It took a few moments for Lightning to break out of his serious mindset and realize what was happening, but his determined scowl was quickly replaced by the biggest smile he had made in a long time. "I... I did it!" he shouted. "I won! I really won!"
"You sure did!" Apple Bloom confirmed as she leaped off the mailbox and onto Lightning's back. "You showed them all who's boss!" she squealed as she wrapped him a big hug.
"Thanks, kid," Lightning said as he wiped a tear from his eye. "I couldn't have done it without you."
As Lightning celebrated his victory, Rainbow Dash and her brown-coated adversary crossed the line to finish second and third respectively. The irritated colt immediately got in Rainbow Dash's face. "You cheated!" he accused. "You grabbed me and threw me out of the way!"
"Well, I wouldn't have had to move you if you had gotten your pokey flank in gear!" Rainbow fired back. "I would've beat Lightning by a mile if I hadn't had to stare at your sorry rump all the way across town!"
"Yeah? Well, I would've destroyed that geriatric jerk if you hadn't been breathing down my neck the entire time!"
"Get real! You ran out of gas halfway up that stupid hill! You were lucky I didn't run you over then and there!"
Lightning chuckled as the two ponies continued to argue. "Now, now, you young'uns better mind your manners," he offered in a mock-serious tone.
"Go soak your head!" Rainbow replied.
"Yeah, get lost!" the brown colt added. "Isn't it time for your nap?"
Lightning smiled, shook his head, and turned his hooves towards the sky. "Kids these days. No respect for their elders!" The line drew a hearty laugh from the ponies assembled around him.
A mint-colored earth pony wearing horn-rimmed glasses suddenly pushed his way next to Lightning. "Mr. Lightning? We need you in the tent for the winner's press conference."
"Oh boy." Lightning took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then looked back at Apple Bloom. "Now for the hard part."
"Aw, this'll be nothin'!" Apple Bloom proclaimed confidently. "Go in there and show them what you're made of!"
"I'll try." Lightning knelt down to let Apple Bloom climb off his back, and then followed the green pony through the crowd towards a large tent.
Inside the tent, Lightning found himself staring out a a pack of twenty to thirty members of the press, their pencils and quills at the ready, with nothing between him and the scribes but a large table with a pink tablecloth. He felt his hooves start to shake, and he closed his eyes and tried to psych himself up for the session. You can do this, Lightning, he told himself. Just be funny, be honest, and above all, be yourself.
Lightning opened his eyes, put on his best smile, and leaned in towards the table. "All right, guys. Bring it on."
A gray-coated pony sporting a fedora stood up in the back of the room. "Tell us about the race. How do you think you performed?"
Talk about a softball question, Lightning thought to himself. "Well, considering that I won, I'd say the race was excellent!" A few stray laughs went up from the crowd, which eased Lightning's nerves. "Honestly, the race couldn't have gone any better if I had tried to script it. I got a great jump off the line, hung with the lead pack for most of the race, and then saw a clean path to the front, made a move, and stayed up front the rest of the way."
"How were you received by the other racers?" an orange unicorn next to the table asked.
"It felt a little icy," Lightning admitted. "but I think most of it was this thing." He reached back with a hoof and tapped the scar on his back. "After all, the one-wing look isn't exactly in fashion. The crowd was really great, though—I heard them cheering along the whole course, and I even signed my first autographs in years!"
A bespectacled reporter in the middle of the pack raised her hoof. "How does today's victory rank among your previous ones?"
"Right at the top," Lightning answered without hesitation. "I know, I know, I wasn't flying, I wasn't competing on the circuit, and I wasn't even going that fast, but after all this time, after everything I've been through, to be standing here today is pretty special." He paused to wipe his eyes. Darnit Greasy , he chastised himself, pull yourself together! You know these ponies feast on weakness! "Sorry, guys," he apologized. "I'm getting sappy in my old age, I guess, but you never know when you're going to be in this position again."
"Do you think this settles the debate over whether you or Rainbow Dash is the fastest pony?" a lime-green pony at the back of the room called out.
Lightning shook his head emphatically. "No way! I've raced her six times in the past three months, and this is the first time I've managed to beat her. I was just looking up her records the other day, and honestly, I'm just glad to be mentioned in the same breath as her. I mean, seriously, who wins eight consecutive Talladega Treks? I never made it through that place without crashing!"
"So you think Rainbow Dash is the faster pony?" the green pony continued.
"Yeah, I do."
Another hoof went up from the middle of the press contingent. "There was an editorial in last week's Canterlot Chronicle calling for you to withdraw from the marathon before you embarrassed yourself. Would you like to respond to that?"
Greased Lightning opened his mouth to reply, then stopped and reconsidered what he was about to say. "Nah. I'll let the race speak for itself."
A wrinkled reporter chomping on a cigar stood up in the front of the room. "That was an awfully strong performance for somepony your age. Would you like to comment on the rumors that you have been using performance-enhancing substances in your training leading up to the race?" he asked without smiling.
Hah! I was prepared for this one, Mr. Grumpy Pants! Lightning smiled at the questioner. "It's absolutely, positively, 100% true!" he declared, chuckling at the gasp that arose from the audience. He bent down and snagged a conveniently-placed can that sat underneath the table. He placed the can next to him on the table, making sure that the logo was facing the press. "As part as my training regimen," he proclaimed, "I've been eating three servings of Pumpkin Pie's Prize Produce Products every day! These babies are power packed with all the vitamins and nutrients you'll ever need, and I personally recommend them to anypony, whether you're training to be the world's fastest flyer or just looking for something good to eat!"
Lightning's answer earned him a bunch of bewildered stares from the gathered scribes. So much for being my own celebrity spokespony , he thought.
Another hoof went up from the gallery. "One of your business partners was just arrested for insider trading on the Canterlot Exchange. How do you feel about being associated with an accused criminal?"
"Blue Chip is my cousin , not just my business partner," Lightning pointed out with a slight edge in his voice, "and we're standing by him. I'm not going to judge a pony for a mistake when I've made so many of them myself."
A purple pegasus wearing a coffee-stained polo shirt stepped forward. "You haven't given us many details about your disappearance since you surfaced in Ponyville three months ago. A lot of ponies want to know: Where have you been all this time?"
Here we go, Greasy thought to himself. "Well, I can't tell you everything, since I've promised a couple of fillies that they could ghostwrite my tell-all biography whenever I got around to putting it together. For now, let's just say I've spent the last few years in isolation deep within the Everfree Forest, undergoing intense occupational therapy."
The purple pegasus arched an eyebrow at the vague answer. "Occupational therapy? What does that mean?"
"Well..." Lightning again pointed at his non-existent left wing. "When I lost this thing, a lot of other stuff went with it: My confidence, my nerve, even my reason for living. It took six years of digging in the Everfree soil and one unexpected visit from a friend to find them all again."
"Are you concerned that your behavior will set a bad example for our youth?" another reporter chimed in.
"Well, I hope that—"
"Were you forced into exile because of gambling problems?" a pegasus along the back wall asked.
"No, I—"
"What would you say to the ponies who were deprived of seeing you compete by your disappearance?" somepony along the far wall shouted.
"Um..."
The questions started coming faster now, each one more personal and more biting than the last: "Were you afraid of racing against Rainbow Dash?" "What do you say to ponies who think your return is bad for pegasus racing?" "Are you ashamed about having to beat a bunch of amateurs today to feel better about yourself?" "Do you consider yourself a coward?"
Greased Lightning looked around the room nervously, but saw nothing but serious faces demanding answers. He started to sweat as the questions piled up around him. How am I going to get out of this one? he wondered.
Right on cue, a loud voice cut through the din of the questions with a single word: "FIRE!!! "
"Fire?! " The questions suddenly turned to screams as everypony in the tent jumped up and scrambled for the exits. Greased Lightning attempted the same maneuver, but instead tripped over one of the table legs and fell to the ground. As he picked himself up, however, a thought struck him: He recognized that initial screaming voice...
Lightning stood up and looked back over the table. The reporters had all left the premises, but a single pony still stood in the center of the tent: Rainbow Dash. "Those idiots nearly trampled me on their way out of here," Rainbow said as she shook her head. "They're bigger scaredy ponies than you are."
Greased Lightning couldn't help but laugh as he realized what had just happened. "You're not supposed to do that in a crowded room, you know."
"Yeah, well, you looked like you needed some help."
Lightning nodded. "I did. Thanks, Rainbow."
"Don't mention it." Rainbow jumped into the air and folded her front hooves as she looked down at Lightning. "I just hope you realize that the fastest pony ever isn't always going to be around to bail you out."
"Maybe not," Lightning agreed, "but I'll always know where to find her."
Rainbow smiled, and turned towards the exit. "Take care of yourself, grease ball."
"I will!" Greased Lightning waved as Rainbow Dash flew off, then turned to make his own escape.
"Hold it right there, Mr. Lightnin'!" a voice called out, freezing Lightning in his tracks. "We've got one last question for you!"
Lightning looked back to see Apple Bloom standing in the center of the tent holding a pad of paper that had been dropped on the ground by its previous owner. "Mr. Lightnin," she began, trying to sound as official as possible, "now that you're back from retirement, how long do you think you'll keep racin'?"
"This is probably my last race, actually," Lightning admitted. "Things are getting pretty busy at the pumpkin patch, and I've got a lot on my plate now, what with managing the payroll, building up our distribution network, brainstorming more ideas for our marketing campaign..." He chuckled at Apple Bloom's disappointed expression. "I'm kidding! I'll never stop racing—after all, it's what I do best."
"That's good to hear!" Apple Bloom looked back at her flank, where her pumpkin sticker was starting to fall off again. "I hope I find out what I do best someday," she sighed.
"Don't worry, kid." Lightning walked out from behind the table and placed a hoof across Apple Bloom's shoulders. "You'll find out someday, and when you do, you'll never want to do anything else. Trust me on this one."
Apple Bloom looked up at Greased Lightning and smiled. "Thanks, Mr. Lightnin'."
The pair's heartfelt moment was rudely interrupted by a loud rumbling from Lightning's stomach. "Dang, I am starving !" he declared. "Let's find your friends and get the heck out of here. Lunch is on me!"
"Sounds like a plan!" Apple Bloom left her notepad on the ground, and she and Lightning exited the tent together.
Author's Note
Alternate Ending: Greased Lightning ends the press conference by slipping on a pair of headphones and humming "I'm the pony, I'm the pony, I'm the pony," to himself.
Thanks for reading!
Grounded: The Ballad of Greased Lightning
Taking a seat at his new desk, Featherweight cast a quick glance around the dark, drab basement that was now his domain. "I'm really glad you all decided to keep working on the school paper!" he said to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who smiled back at him from across the desk. "Without you all, I'd be stuck writing all the stories myself!"
"Aw, it's no problem, Featherweight!" Apple Bloom replied. "We're just glad we finally get to do some real reportin'!"
"Not to mention," Scootaloo chimed in, "we're finally out from under Diamond Tiara's hoof."
"So what's our first assignment, Chief?" Sweetie Belle inquired.
"Hmmm..." Featherweight scratched his chin with his hoof. "Well, next week is the 30th running of the Cloudsdale Derby. Maybe you could do a preview for it!"
"That sounds cool!" Scootaloo agreed. "I know everything about everypony who's in that race—this'll be a cinch!"
"Ooh! Ooh!" Sweetie Belle exclaimed. "Will Rainbow Dash be in it? We could do a story on how she prepares for the race!"
Scootaloo shook her head. "Sorry, Sweetie Belle," she said, "but Rainbow Dash gave up running in that derby years ago. She says it's too easy and not worth her time."
"Well," Apple Bloom suggested, "she still might have a good perspective on the event—you know, havin' run it a bunch of times and all. She'd still be a good pony to talk to about the whole thing."
"Great!" Sweetie Belle said. "I'll do it!"
"Wait a minute!" Scootaloo objected. "I wanna interview Rainbow Dash!"
"But we need you to write about the rest of the field!" Apple Bloom pointed out. "Me and Sweetie Belle don't keep up with pegasus racin' like you do. We'll need your expertise for predictions and stuff!"
Scootaloo sighed. "Fine," she agreed. "So what are you going to write about, Apple Bloom?"
"Let me think..." Apple Bloom racked her brain for a few moments. "I got it! Since this is supposed to be a big anniversary, I could do a piece of the history of the event! I could look up some old articles, and talk to Granny Smith, and—"
"Sound great!" Featherweight said. "We can dedicate a whole section to the race!"
"So what are we waiting for, ponies?" Scootaloo asked her friends. "Let's get out there and make some news!"
"Yay! Cutie Mark Crusader Cloudsdale Competition Chroniclers!" The three filles exchanged a high-hoof and headed for the door.
"Hi, Twilight!" Apple Bloom called out, as she burst through the front door of Ponyville's treehouse library.
Twilight looked up from the letter she was writing. "Oh, hello, Apple Bloom!" she replied. "What's got you so excited?"
"I'm here on an assignment from the newspaper!" Apple Bloom explained.
"The newspaper?" Twilight flinched at the revelation. "You're not still writing that Gabby Gums column, are you?"
"Oh no, nothin' like that!" Apple Bloom clarified. "We're writin' a whole bit on the upcoming pegasus race, and I was wonderin' if I could look through the newspaper archives you had downstairs to learn about the race's history!"
Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. "That sounds innocent enough," she said. "No problem, Apple Bloom—come with me, and I'll show you where we keep the old papers."
Twilight led Apple Bloom down the basement stairs, through her makeshift lab, and eventually to a small, windowless room filled with stacks of old newspapers that were piled almost to the ceiling. "Spike and I went through the whole collection last month," Twilight explained. "We've got everything cataloged and indexed by date, so finding old articles on the race should be a snap!"
"Great! Thanks, Twilight!" Apple Bloom raced into the center of the room and started looking over the paper piles.
"I've got to get back to my letter to Princess Celestia," Twilight said, "but let me know if you need anything else!" With that, Twilight turned and headed back upstairs, leaving Apple Bloom surrounded by a treasure trove of information.
"Hmm..." Faced with the task of scanning thirty years of copy without a search engine, Apple Bloom pondered her next move. "Well," she reasoned, "the derby runs about the same time every year, so any papers from this month are bound to have something on the race!" Scanning the stacks, she spotted a few dated six years ago this month, and carefully pulled them from their spot so as not to bring the entire stack of papers down onto her head.
Spreading the papers out on the floor, Apple Bloom began searching for any mention of the Cloudsdale Derby. She quickly found a couple of articles that mentioned that year's upcoming race, and eventually struck pay dirt in the form of a front-page article describing the derby proceedings in great detail. Unsurprisingly, the winner of said derby was Ponyville's own Rainbow Dash, and a large picture of the rainbow-maned pegasus holding her trophy above her head took up half of the front page.
"Miss Dash has never had much use for drama and intrigue," Apple Bloom read aloud, "and today's event was no different, with the outcome decided by the halfway point of the race. The rest of the field should be applauded for their valiant effort, but as one stallion put it after the race, 'It's Rainbow's world right now, and we're just racin' in it—for second place.'"
Deciding that eloquent prose about Rainbow's awesomeness wouldn't help her—they could get enough of that straight from the horse's mouth—Apple Bloom started scanning the article for any historical tidbits that might help her with her own piece. Finally, she spotted an interesting morsel buried on page two of the story. "This victory marked Miss Dash's sixth consecutive triumph in the Cloudsdale Derby," she read, "breakin' the previous record of five straight victories set by the famed flyer, Greased Lightnin'. This is also the fourth such record of Lightnin's that Rainbow Dash has matched or beaten in the past year, and it brought the debate over Equestria's greatest flyer to a roarin' boil among those in attendance."
"Greased Lightnin'?" Apple Bloom scratched her head in confusion. "I've never heard of anypony by that name. How great could they have been?"
Apple Bloom continued reading the article. "Lightnin's backers insist that were it not for his tragic accident while trainin' for his own six-peat several years ago, the speedy colt would have pushed his records beyond the reach of any other racer. Dash fans, for their part, point to her own successes, earned at a much younger age than Lightnin's, as proof that she would have broken his records no matter what they had ended up bein'. Miss Dash, as usual, was not shy about sharin' her own feelings about the debate, offerin' a succinct 'Lightnin' Schmightnin!' when asked about it."
Suddenly, Apple Bloom got an idea. "I know!" she said. "I'll write a story about all the great fliers that have competed in the Derby, and where they are now! I can talk to Rainbow Dash, and see if I can find this Lightnin' feller, and there were probably tons more great racers who competed before them. It'll be perfect!" She reached for another set of papers from a different year. "Let's get cracking!"
Unfortunately, in her excitement, Apple Bloom was less careful with the paper piles than before, and her removal of the papers from the middle of the stack caused the entire pile to start wobbling. "Uh oh," Apple Bloom said as she realized her mistake. Anticipating the fall, the filly covered her head with her hooves. Instead of tumbling down on Apple Bloom's head, however, the pile fell off to the side, crashing into another paper stack and setting off a chain reaction that took out nearly every paper pile in the room; leaving a stunned Apple Bloom sitting in the middle of a sea of newsprint.
Apple Bloom sighed. "This is gonna take a while."
After several hours of researching her story, and another several hours of re-stacking papers, Apple Bloom emerged from the basement of the library, a bit weary and sporting a few new paper cuts.
Twilight looked up from her writing desk. "Goodness, Apple Bloom!" she said. "I thought you'd left hours ago! What were you doing down there?"
"Discoverin' that journalism is a contact sport," Apple Bloom grumbled.
Twilight glanced out the window at the glorious sunset outside. "It's getting late," she noted. "Have you eaten anything today? I can have Spike fix you something, if you want."
"No thanks," Apple Bloom declined. "I'd better get back home pronto. Granny Smith'll be worried sick if I miss dinner." She turned to go, then had another thought. "Hey Twilight," she asked, "did you ever hear of a pegasus named 'Greased Lightnin'?"
"Greased Lightning?" Twilight racked her brain for a few seconds. "Gosh, I'm sure I've heard that name before, but I just can't place it. Who was he?"
"Some pegasus who used to race a lot," Apple Bloom explained. "He was supposed to be awful fast, and—"
Something clicked in Twilight's brain. "Oh, that Greased Lightning!" she remembered. "Now I know where I've heard that name! My brother was a huge fan of pegasus derbies back when we were young, and Greased Lightning was one of his favorites."
"Do you know whatever happened to him?" Apple Bloom asked. "All the papers downstairs talked about him havin' some sort of accident, but I didn't find any stories that had any details about it." She conveniently left out the fact that the reason she hadn't found any articles was because she had knocked over all of Twilight's meticulously-ordered-but-precariously-balanced paper stacks.
Twilight racked her brain for a few more seconds, but came up empty this time. "Sorry, Apple Bloom," she apologized. "I usually zoned out whenever my brother talked about anything athletic."
"It's no big deal," Apple Bloom replied. "I'll ask my sister Applejack when I get home—she's bound to have heard of this guy on the rodeo circuit!" With that, the young pony headed for the door. "Thanks, Twilight!" she called over her shoulder as she exited the tree.
"You're welcome!" Twilight replied as she turned back to her writing,
The Apple family was already sitting down to dinner by the time Apple Bloom made it back to the farm. "Hey, everypony!" Apple Bloom greeted her kinfolk as she raced into their farmhouse. "Sorry I'm so late!"
Applejack smiled mischievously as Apple Bloom took her place at the table. "It's about time you showed up," she teased. "Me and Big Macintosh would have been forced to eat all of Granny Smith's fresh apple pie ourselves! Ain't that right?" Applejack nudged the large red pony sitting next to her.
"Eeyup," Big Macintosh agreed, without changing his facial expression.
"What were you doin' out so late, anyway?" Applejack inquired, as Apple Bloom carved out a piece of pie for herself.
"I was doin' research for my next article for the Foal Free Press," Apple Bloom explained.
Applejack and Big Macintosh did a double-take in unison. "The newspaper?" Applejack finally asked. "You're not still—"
"For the thousandth time, no , I'm not doin' any more Gabby Gums columns!" an exasperated Apple Bloom insisted. "I'm writin' a story on some of the great fliers who have raced in the Cloudsdale Derby."
"Phew!" Applejack wiped the sweat from her brow. "That's a relief!"
"It would be, if I could find out what happened to some of them," Apple Bloom remarked. "Speakin' of which, Applejack, do you know anythin' about a pegasus named Greased Lightnin'? I figured you might have heard of him on the rodeo circuit somewhere."
"Greased Lightnin'?" Applejack scratched her head with her hoof as she considered the question. "Sorry, little sis," she finally admitted, "I don't reckon I've ever come across anypony by that name."
"Really? Darn," Apple Bloom muttered.
Big Macintosh's ears, on the other hoof, perked up at the sound of the name. "Lightinin', you said? I remember him—he was awful fast back in the day. It's a cryin' shame things ended the way they did."
"You know what happened to him?" Apple Bloom's eyes lit up at the revelation. "Well, don't just sit there, tell me! I couldn't find it in any of the papers!"
"Are you sure?" Big Macintosh pressed, as a conflicted look crossed his face. "It don't make for real good dinner conversation."
"Yes !" Apple Bloom reiterated, standing up on her chair and leaning over the table. "I need it for my story!"
"All right, then." Big Macintosh sighed, then took a deep breath. "Well, like I said, Greased Lightnin' was real fast. He flew circles around just about anypony he went up against. He won most every race he entered, and set himself a bushel of speed records."
"I know that already!" Apple Bloom interrupted. "What about the accident?"
Big Macintosh sighed again. "It happened durin' the Fillydelphia Preakness," he continued. "It's a tough off-road course that even cuts through the Everfree Forest for a spell. Lightnin' entered the race as a warmup for the Cloudsdale Derby, which was comin' up in just three weeks. The Derby was gettin' a lot of attention, since it was supposed to be the first meeting between Lightinin' and some young filly who'd been makin' a lot of noise up in Cloudsdale." Big Mac paused to take a bite of apple pie. "I reckon you can guess who that was," he offered.
"You mean Rainbow?" Applejack deduced. "Shoot, I don't remember hearin' about that."
"It was a while before she moved to Ponyville," Big Macintosh explained. "Anyhow, Lightnin' was doin' his thing in the Preakness, dominatin' it like always, when about halfway through the race, he crashed."
"Crashed?" The tale had Apple Bloom on the edge of her seat. "What happened?"
"I don't rightly remember exactly," Big Macintosh admitted. "He got tangled up with somepony he tried to pass, I think, and just went crashin' out through the trees. He wound up in the hospital for a good solid month."
"Gosh," Apple Bloom offered. "That musta been horrible."
"It gets worse," Big Mac noted. "It took the paramedic ponies half an hour to find Lightnin' after the wreck, and when they did, he had a wing bent so far the wrong way it'd make you sick. The doctors did the best they could, but in the end, they had to amputate."
"What ?!" Apple Bloom shrieked. "You mean they just... Took it off?"
"Eeyup," Big Macintosh confirmed. "That was the end of Lightnin's racin' career. His whole life, really. He stopped carin', started drinkin', squandered all his bits, got locked up a few times, and eventually just disappeared. Nopony's seen him for quite a few years now."
Apple Bloom's eyes widened. "Do you think he... He..." She was cut off by the lump forming in her throat.
"Some ponies think he did," Big Macintosh replied. "Me? I think he'd died long before then. He was never the same after he lost his wing."
Applejack shook her head. "That ain't no way to go," she declared. "I mean, even after losin' a wing and all, he didn't have to let it go to his head like that. You ain't really dead 'til they shovel the dirt in your face. I'll bet he coulda found somethin' to do with his life, if he tried."
"I suppose," Big Macintosh conceded, "but it ain't as easy as you think. It'd be like Rainbow losin' her wings, or you losin' Bucky and Kicks back there." Big Mac gestured to Applejack's hind legs as he spoke. "What do you do when your special talent, the thing you do the best and enjoy the most, gets taken away?"
Applejack paused for a moment as she gave the question some thought. "You've got a point there," she admitted, "but I'd still figure somethin' out!"
"I know," Big Mac agreed, "but Greased Lightnin' never could."
Apple Bloom stared down at the barely-eaten piece of pie in front of her as a million thoughts raced through her mind. She had dedicated her whole life to finding her cutie mark and discovering the talent that made her special. To have it taken away so suddenly like Greased Lightning, and be left with nothing? The thought alone made her sick to her stomach. She pushed her plate away. "I'm not hungry anymore," she declared, jumping down from her chair.
"I warned you," Big Mac said as Apple Bloom trudged up to her bedroom. "Not the best story for workin' up an appetite."
Sleep did not come easy for Apple Bloom that night, as her thoughts kept coming back to her big brother's tale of lost talent and broken dreams. Fatigue finally won out, however, and Apple Bloom drifted off to sleep and slipped into a dream of her own...
In her dream, Apple Bloom found herself at the school playground on a typical sunny day, chatting with her fellow crusaders, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, as they sat at a picnic table. Suddenly, a bright, white light appeared on the flanks on the three ponies, and in a spectacular display of lights, music, and pyrotechnics, three cutie marks appeared: a microphone for Sweetie Belle, a tricked-out scooter for Scootaloo, and... Was that a circuit diagram on Apple Bloom's flank? Frankly, she was too excited to even care.
"Yay! We did it! We got our cutie marks!" The ponies sang, dancing around in a circle as some of their classmates gathered around to marvel at the new marks.
Without warning, however, a large shadow covered the three excited fillies, causing them to stop dancing. Turning around, the ponies found themselves face to face with a purple, amorphous blob rising up from ground.
The blob glared menacingly down at the three ponies, who were too paralyzed by fright to even move. "NO CUTIE MARKS FOR YOU!" it thundered, reaching down and snatching up Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo with an enormous, sticky arm. As the two fillies shrieked and tried to escape, the blob raised the ponies high over what appeared to be its head, then reached over with another tentacle and peeled off the ponies' new cutie marks as if they were stickers. "THOU SHALT BE BLANK FLANKS FOREVER!" the blob proclaimed, launching the markless ponies across the playground and into a nearby trash can with a shot that would have made Michael Jordan stand up and clap. "AND NOW, FOR YOU!" the blob announced, moving in on Apple Bloom.
"AIIEEEEEE!" Apple Bloom screamed and tried to run away, but the blob was too fast, and she was quickly wrapped up in another sticky tentacle. "No! Please!" Apple Bloom pleaded. "Anythin' but that!"
"PREPARE TO KISS YOUR SPECIAL TALENT GOODBYE," the blob cackled, reaching for the mark on Apple Bloom's flank...
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" Apple Bloom shot out of bed with a start, covered in a cold sweat. She looked around frantically for a few moments, breathing a sigh of relief as she realized she was safe in her bedroom. "Golly," she whispered, "what a terrible nightmare."
Not being overly anxious to go back to sleep, Apple Bloom wandered over to her bedroom window and stared out at the sky. As she watched a shooting star weave its way through the Ursa Major constellation, her mind drifted back to her assignment for the Foal Free Press, and the sad story of one of the Cloudsdale Derby's greatest champions. Was he still out there? She wondered. Had he ever found a way to cope with the loss of his talent, or had he died a broken and defeated pony? Somehow, someway, she had to find out.
Walking over to her desk, she grabbed her notepad and pen and stuffed them into her schoolbag. Her path was clear: Find out the truth about what happened to Greased Lightning, and tell the world once and for all how the story really ended.
Grounded: The Ballad of Greased Lightning
Apple Bloom stood dumbfounded, paralyzed by the sudden sight of the pony she had been searching for. "You're... You're alive!" she finally managed to say.
Greased Lightning rolled his eyes. "I suppose, if you want to call this living," he conceded.
Apple Bloom began trembling with excitement. She had been following Lightning's trail for two days, chasing him through every book and newspaper in Twilight's library. All the while, she had prayed to Celestia that he was still alive, and that he held the secret to life without a special talent. Finally, the moment she had been waiting for was at hoof: Greased Lightning now stood before her, waiting to be interviewed. A million questions quickly flooded her mind, but as she reached back to get a pencil and pad of paper from her saddlebag, she knew exactly which one she would ask Lightning first. "First of all," she demanded, "where have you been ?!"
"Here, mostly," Greasy replied, waving a front hoof around the canyon. "Traveling really isn't my thing anymore, and growing stuff out here—and then protecting it—is a full-time job and then some. Who knew so many things in this stupid forest ate pumpkins?"
"So you've been out here, all alone, by yourself, with no other ponies, for six years ?" Apple Bloom asked.
"Well, yeah," Lightning said with a shrug. "By the way, if this interview is going to take more than thirty seconds, we should probably get out of the garden before it gets any darker. We can talk more at my place."
"Good idea," Apple Bloom agreed. "Applejack says that in this forest, you're always bein' watched. I don't want to get scooped on a story like this."
"Personally," Lightning commented, "the forest can watch all it wants. I'm more worried about its teeth than its eyes."
Greased Lightning's "place" turned out to be a cave carved into one of the inner walls of the chasm, just a short walk from the pumpkin patch. The cave itself resembled a gardener's shed more than a home, with seed pouches, buckets, and various tools scattered around the floor, and the smell coming from a stack of fertilizer bags in one corner of the room was enough to make a normal pony sick. Being a farm pony herself, however, Apple Bloom felt strangely at home in the cave.
"I know, I know, it's a bit of a fixer-upper," Greased Lightning admitted, "but hey, the price was right."
Apple Bloom made a beeline for a flat rock in the middle of the cave, which appeared to serve as some sort of table. She brushed aside a couple of unwashed bowls, then grabbed her notepad from her saddle bag and slapped in down on the rock. "Let's get down to business," she demanded. "Tell me about your childhood."
"My childhood?" Lightning gave Apple Bloom a funny look. "I thought you were a reporter, not a psychologist."
"I'm here for the whole story," Apple Bloom proclaimed, "so we need to start from the beginnin'."
"Um... Okay," Greased Lightning said with a shrug. "There isn't much to say, really. I was born and raised in Cloudsdale, my parents worked at the weather factory, I was consistently mediocre in school—"
"Well, what about that?" Apple Bloom pointed at hoof at the lightning bolt on Lightning's flank.
"You mean you haven't heard that story?" Greased Lightning sighed. "I guess I really have been forgotten, huh? Anyway, I got that when I was—" He hesitated as he remembered exactly who he was talking to. "Gosh, I forget now," he fibbed. "I was leaving school one afternoon, and I heard somepony screaming on the playground out back, so I flew over to see what was going on."
"Was somepony in trouble?" Apple Bloom asked.
"Oh yeah, somepony was in trouble. A bunch of older kids were standing in front of the school's flying coach, and he was reading them the riot act at one hundred decibels." Greased Lightning chuckled as he recalled the incident. "Apparently he was timing them all as they raced to some far-off cloud and back, and let me tell you, he was not impressed. I remember him saying that they hadn't broken one-and-a-half minutes yet, and that Fireball had run that course in under a minute back in his younger days."
"Fireball?" Apple Bloom arched an eyebrow at the unfamiliar name.
"You don't know who Fireball is either!?" Greased Lightning mouth nearly fell on the floor at the filly's ignorance. "You're kidding, right? Fireball's a legend in Cloudsdale! He was my all-time favorite racer back when I was a foal! He just dominated everypony! Heck, he was..." Greased Lightning paused for a moment, as he tried to find the best way to describe his hero. "I guess you could say he was me before I was."
"Oh wow." Apple Bloom made a mental note to look up Fireball when she got back to the library, hoping he would be a lot easier to find than Greased Lightning.
"My sole goal in life was to be just like him," Lightning continued. "I use to run around the yard pretending that I was racing at Haytona, and then make my mom interview me in the 'winner's circle.' Anyway, when I heard the coach drop Fireball's name, I decided that I was gonna be just like Fireball, and I walked right up to the crowd and said I could cover the distance in under a minute. Never mind the fact that the I hadn't been flying all that long—I thought I could do it, and I told everypony so."
"So what did the coach say?" Apple Bloom asked.
"He said something like 'I'll bet this foal could fly faster than any of you' to the other kids," Lightning replied. "I stepped up to the starting line, chest stuck like I was some big shot, and waited for the signal to go."
"So how do you do? Did you beat Fireball's time?"
Greased Lightning shook his head. "Just missed it," he revealed. "I clocked a one-oh-two. I was all mad about it, and wanted to try again, but as soon as I got to the finish line, the other kids swarmed me, all saying how awesome a run it was, and how fast I went. Eventually the coach pushed through them and started giving me the third degree, asking who I was, where I was from, where I learned to fly, stuff like that. Eventually he asked me if I thought I was fast, and I told him I was lightning fast—it seemed witty at the time—and he told me that I flew like a bumblebee, and that I should come to flying practice the next day and see what fast really looked like."
Lightning paused for a moment to take a deep breath and wipe a tear from his eye. "That was the day it all began," he stated. "I decided right then and there that I was going to be the fastest pony in the sky, faster than anypony who had ever lived."
"And that's when you got your cutie mark, right?" Apple Bloom guessed.
"Well, truthfully, I'm not sure exactly when it happened," Lightning admitted sheepishly. "I raced home to tell my mom I was going to flying practice, and she told me my cutie mark had appeared." He looked back at the lightning bolt on his flank. "I got lucky, I guess. After a day like that, I would have been really disappointed if my special talent had turned out to be rainbow-making or something."
Apple Bloom nodded in agreement. "So what happened next?"
Greased Lightning smiled. "From then on, I was riding a rocketship to the top of the mountain," he declared. "I put every ounce of sweat and blood and tears I had into being the best. I was running with the high school ponies by the time I was twelve, and ended up breaking every record that Cloudsdale High had to break, most of which Fireball had set back in the day. It felt a little surreal, to be honest—I mean, this guy was my hero, and I pretty much erased his name from the record books."
"Did you ever get a chance to race against him head-to-head?" Apple Bloom asked.
"Eventually." A smile began forming on Lightning's lips. "I jumped to the big show right out of high school, and made my official debut in Neighagra Falls two weeks later. Fireball was pretty old by then, and was only a part-time racer, but hey, he was still the greatest racer ever to fly ! I was really nervous about meeting him, but he turned out to be a really nice guy. He said he'd been following me for a while, and was really looking forward to seeing my speed."
"How did the race turn out?" Apple Bloom asked. "Did you beat him?"
"Actually, nearly everypony did," Greased Lightning revealed. "Like I said, he was way past his prime by then. I don't think he ever beat me in a race. Heck, I had more competitive races against slowponies like Crazy Train and—"
"And Turbo Jet?" Apple Bloom suggested.
Lightning froze in place for a few seconds at the mention of Turbo's name. "You know," he realized, "it's been longer than I thought since I've thought about TJ. But yeah, he falls in that category. He was the living ponification of the phrase 'nice guys finish last.'"
Apple Bloom arched an eyebrow. "Nice?" She sputtered. "He's the reason you lost your wing!"
"Ponies crashed all the time during a race," Greased Lightning countered. "Just because he wrecked me doesn't make him a bad guy."
"So you don't think it was—"
"Intentional?" Greased Lightning shook his head. "No way. I heard all the theories about gamblers and fixed races and stuff, and I know it's happened before, but not here. It was an accident, plain and simple."
"How can you be so sure?" Apple Bloom pressed, leaning over the rock to close the distance between herself and her subject. "Was it somethin' you saw during the race?"
"Honestly, I don't remember the race at all." Lightning gave Apple Bloom a sheepish smile and reached back to scratch the back of his head with his hoof. "I went to bed the day before and woke up two days later with a broken—well, everything . I don't remember the race, the crash, nothing."
"You don't remember anythin'?"
"Well, I mean, I hit my head pretty hard when I went down. Still, you've probably heard the story a hundred times already. Apparently I got a little too close to Turbo coming around a corner, his wing gave out, and he knocked me into some trees lining the course." Greased Lightning sighed and looked down at the floor. "I should have known better and backed off before we reached the turn. TJ was really hurting going into that race, and he couldn't have held an inside line if his life depended on it."
"That doesn't mean anythin'," Apple Bloom huffed. "He could have been hammin' it up to give himself a convenient excuse. How do you really know he wasn't some shady hack who accepted bits on the side to keep himself afloat?"
"Because that wasn't the way Turbo operated," Lightning declared. "If there was ever a pony who always played the game on the up and up, it was him."
"What makes you say that?"
"It was the way he handled his business." Greased Lightning turned away from Apple Bloom and looked over at the wall as he spoke. "A lot of ponies talk a good game about playing fair and respecting others and stuff like that, but he actually lived it. I remember this one time we were in Maretinsville, and about halfway through the race, Three Wide, like he always did, decided to take his name literally, and ended up causing this huge crash that wiped out eight or ten guys. Well, the guy he hit first was this big old pony named Diesel, who was this big, ornery cuss out of Mustangia with a seriously bad attitude. Not the kind of pony you want to irritate, if you catch my drift."
Apple Bloom nodded. "So how did Diesel react?"
"Oh, he took it about as well as we expected," Lightning recalled, as he turned back towards Apple Bloom. "He came tearing into the locker room after the race with steam shooting out of his ears. He was swearing up a storm and looking to have a 'discussion'"—Lightning made air-quotes with his front hooves—"with Three Wide about what happened."
"What did Three Wide have to say?"
"Nothing. TW knew darn well what Diesel planned to 'discuss,' and he made himself scarce in a hurry. The rest of us made sure to give Diesel his space—except Turbo Jet. That crazy dude walked right up to Diesel and apologized for wrecking him!" Greased Lightning couldn't help but laugh at the memory. "It turned out that Turbo had crowded Three Wide too much when he tried to pass, and clipped him on the wing."
"What did Diesel say to that?"
"Well, he took a few seconds to think about what TJ said—" Lightning paused a few moments for effect "—and then spun around and bucked out a couple of Turbo's teeth. He beat TJ up pretty bad before we could pull him off." Greased Lightning shook his head. "I still can't believe TJ fessed up like that. He knew that Diesel was looking for a punching bag, and he could have just kept his mouth shut and let Three Wide take the blame and the beating. No one would have thought twice about it, even if they knew the truth—heck, I'll bet half the ponies who raced with TW wanted to smack him at one time or another."
"But Turbo didn't," Apple Bloom noted.
"Nope. He told his tale and took his lumps." Lightning turned and looked off towards the cave entrance. "That told me and everypony who saw it what kind of pony Turbo Jet was. He was somepony you could always count on to tell the truth."
"So when he crashed into you..." Apple Bloom left the sentence open for Lightning to complete.
"He told me he couldn't make the turn. That was enough for me."
Apple Bloom spit her pencil out onto the stone table. "You seem awfully—" It took her a few moments to find the right word. "Calm about this whole thing," she concluded. "Weren't you at least angry about getting wrecked?"
"Not at first," Greased Lightning admitted. "I'd been hurt before, and it was always a matter of resting, letting things heal, and getting back into the air. No harm, no foul, I figured."
"So what happened when you found out your were going to lose your wing?"
Greased Lightning took a deep breath. "That was tough," he said. "I'd spent my entire life working to be the fastest flyer around, and everything that I had in life—fame, fortune, and most of all, fun—I owed to my speed. I lost more than my way of life that day. I lost my reason for living, and it took me a long time to find another one."
"Speakin' of which," Apple Bloom asked, "what happened after the accident? How in the world did you end up out here?"
"It's a long story," Lightning admitted. "The first month after the accident was pretty crazy. I was stuck in the hospital and couldn't do much, but everypony and their brother wanted to know how I was feeling, and what I was feeling, and what the future held... I'll bet I did an interview with every media outlet on the planet. It was kind of tiring at the time, but it was nice to think that so many ponies cared."
"Did things calm down after you left the hospital?"
Greased Lightning smirked. "It got crazier , if you can believe it. I didn't have anything else to do, so I hit the all-night clubs pretty hard. Gosh, I was out almost every night for..." Lightning looked towards the ceiling and scratched his chin with his hoof. "I couldn't even put a number on it," he finally declared.
"To forget about your wing, right?" Apple Bloom guessed.
"Oh, no!" Lightning shook his head emphatically. "I didn't do it to forget—I did it to remember ."
"Remember? Remember what?"
"Well, I may not have been able to race like a champion, but I could still party like one. Even without the wing, going out and painting the town red was the one thing I could still do that made me feel like a winner."
Apple Bloom's ears perked up. "Wait, so you did a lot of partying when you were racing?"
"More than I'd like to admit, yes."
"Hold on a minute." Apple Bloom flipped back to a previous page in her notebook. "'I put every ounce of sweat and blood and tears I had into bein' the best,'" she read, looking back up at Greased Lightning with a slight frown and a furrowed brow. "I don't see how stayin' out partyin' would make you any faster."
"Yeah..." Lightning laughed nervously, his face turning a bit red at the contradiction. "I, uh, I kind of let myself go for a while."
"Why?"
"Believe it or not, Fireball inspired me," Greased Lightning revealed. "He asked me one time if I ever stepped back and took a few moments to smell the roses while I was winning. He told me his biggest regret was that he was always working towards the next race, the next opponent, the next year, and never really appreciated things as they happened. He said that as his career wound down, he realized that he wasn't having all that much fun racing anymore, and that he might have been happier with his career if he taken the time to enjoy it."
"So you decided to enjoy your career while you still had one," Apple Bloom concluded.
"And how ," Lightning confirmed. "I realized that I was spending all my time trying to stay at the top of the mountain, just like Fireball, and I wasn't taking any time to enjoy the view. I started indulging myself a little, which eventually turned into indulging myself a lot . My and my crew spread some bits around and brought the party to every city on the circuit—the best nightspots, the best spirits, and of course, the finest-looking mar—" Greased Lightning suddenly remembered that he was talking to an underage filly, and cut his sentence short. "Uh, what I mean is that we enjoyed some mild refreshments and had intellectually-stimulating discussions about important issues with some female friends."
"That doesn't sound like fun," Apple Bloom commented. "That sounds like the time when Twilight came to our school and started talkin' about form policy."
"Foreign policy," Lightning corrected the filly, "and for now, just know that we enjoyed our nights out. Heck, I think I was on the back page of The Equestrian Enquirer for about two months straight."
"So how does partyin' lead you to a cave in the Everfree Forest?" Apple Bloom demanded. "My family always said the forest was the last place you wanted to be at night."
"Well, my source of income disappeared the day I became a one-wing wonder," Lightning revealed. "Once the money ran out, the partying—and the friends—didn't last too much longer. I went from the life of the party to just another lonely drunk on a stool." The pegasus went silent for a few seconds, as visions of ponies he once knew flashed through his mind.
"Are you okay?" Apple Bloom asked.
"I'm alright," Lightning confirmed. "It's just... I still can't believe some of the ponies who stopped taking my calls when things got bad. Training partners, business partners, even friends who I had known since high school! All of them disappeared the minute my life started falling apart. I even had a steady marefriend—okay, a couple of steady marefriends—drop me like a hot potato after I lost my wing." Lightning shook his head. "Most of the guys on the circuit tried to keep in touch, but eventually they all went back to racing, and left me to drown my sorrows in hard apple cider."
"And then came the arrests?"
"Pretty much. It was the same old story most of the time. One drink would turn into ten, and then some mouthy barfly would start talking trash about how bad I was, and since I couldn't settle the dispute with my wings, I used my hooves instead."
"What did they say to you?"
Lightning shook his head. "You're not old enough to hear most of it. Still, things like 'you're overrated' and 'you couldn't hold a candle to this pony or that pony' got me in plenty of trouble."
"Really?" Apple Bloom glanced up from her notebook and looked over at Greased Lightning in disbelief. "That sounds pretty weak to me."
"Well, everything sounds wittier when you're marinated in alcohol," Greased Lightning countered. "Besides, everypony knew whose name to drop to get my blood boiling."
"Really? Like who? Turbo Jet?"
"No," Lightning said, his tone becoming more serious. "I knew I was better than most ponies—Turbo Jet, Three Wide, even Fireball. There was one pony, though, that I could never really say that about."
"You think there might have been somepony better than you?" Apple Bloom's eyes popped wide open at the suggestion. "What was his name?"
"Her name," Lightning corrected his interviewer. "A couple of ponies were called 'the next Greased Lightning,' but she was the only one who really deserved the title. She started her career the same way I did, actually—by breaking every speed record Cloudsdale had to claim. Of course, this time it was me getting wiped from the record books instead of Fireball."
"Wow. So what was her name?"
"I tell you, she was like nopony I'd even run into before," Lightning continued, ignoring Apple Bloom's question. "Talk about a pony with an edge—she had a take-no-prisoners attitude, a serious problem with authority, and above all, she had speed to burn! She would tell you how badly she would beat you before the race, inform you as to how badly she was beating you during the race, and then remind you how badly she beat you after the race. And believe me, she was not afraid to mix it up with the big boys—she even picked a fight with Diesel a couple of times!" Lightning shook his head. "She was a really sore loser too. I heard she got mad at some track and field event because she thought somepony had crowded her and cost her the race, and she grabbed a ball and chain from one of the hammer throwers and nailed the guy who crowded her from three hundred feet away! " The pegasus laughed at the story. "She got her revenge and broke the Equestrian hammer throw record at the same time."
"What was her name? " Apple Bloom practically screamed.
"Come on now," Lightning replied. "You have to know who I'm talking about, right? I mean, you might be too young to remember me or Fireball, but you can't tell me you've never heard of Rainbow Dash!"
"Oh! I know Rainbow!" Apple Bloom confirmed. "She lives ten clouds down from the farm!"
"Huh?" Greased Lightning's jaw hit the floor. "She's living in Ponyville now? What in the world is she doing there?"
Apple Bloom shrugged. "I dunno, but that's where she is."
"Well I'll be..." Lightning stared down at the floor for a few moments. "I told you that how I got here was a long story," he finally offered as he looked back toward Apple Bloom, "but I guess the truth is that I'm out here because of her."
Apple Bloom nearly spit her pencil across the room. "Really? Rainbow Dash is the reason you disappeared?"
"Well, not the reason," Lightning clarified, "but certainly the biggest one."
Apple Bloom's hooves began to tremble as potential headlines popped into her mind. Run Out On A Rainbow: Local pegasus drives legend into exile! Lightning strikes: Racer says Rainbow "the biggest" reason he walked away! Greased Lightning tell-all earns writer Pulitzer Prize AND cutie mark! Of course, it remained to be seen how Rainbow Dash might feel about such a story, and as both she and Lightning knew, Rainbow didn't get mad, she got even. Still, this kind of bombshell was the opportunity Apple Bloom had been waiting for, and besides, she could just write a second article telling Rainbow's side of the story.
Apple Bloom reached back into her saddlebag and pulled out a fresh pencil, then gave Greased Lightning the most serious-looking glare she could muster. "I want to know how, when, where, and why Rainbow Dash pushed you all the way out here," she declared. "Tell me everything ."
Lightning took a deep breath. "Well, like I said, Rainbow—"
"Hold it right there, varmint! " A voice suddenly echoed through the cabin, causing Greased Lightning to flinch and Apple Bloom to jump three feet into the air.
Greased Lightning quickly stepped in between Apple Bloom and the cave entrance. "Who's there?" He demanded, unable to see the intruders standing outside his home.
In response, a bright-pink laser came shooting out of the darkness, striking Lightning square in the chest. "Ahhhh! " Lightning screamed, as the force of the blow flung him against the back wall of the cave. He came to rest in a crumpled heap at the base of the wall, and the last thing he saw before losing consciousness was a frightened Apple Bloom running to his side just as three ponies he didn't recognize stepped into the cave.
