This year, the small town of Loch Azure was chosen to supply the factory in Cloudsdale with water, and Rainbow Dash was asked to supervise the operation. And if you can think of a better way for her to give the signal to start than performing a sonic rainboom above the team of pegasi and spelling BEGIN with a rainbow, then you must have a monumental imagination. When Rainbow Dash heard the sound of the large bell, she flew down and was surprised to find that the pegasi were flying in circles over a lake, not a reservoir. She walked over to Professor Lactic, the unicorn in charge of the anemometer.
“Haven’t you heard?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the slowly forming tornado. “There’s no fish in Loch Azure. It’s the only fresh water body in Equestria devoid of marine life. Accept for the Loch Azure Monster.”
“OK, I remember now,” groaned Rainbow Dash.
She recalled the legend of the monster lurking in Loch Azure that was so frightening, it scared all the fish away.
If it’s anything like the serpent in the Everfree Forrest, Rainbow Dash thought as the anemometer showed 630WP, there’s nothing to worry about.
Of course, even if there was a sea serpent in that lake, it would have taken a wing power number of 3200 to lift it up to the sky. Loch Azure’s pegasi managed to get 890WP. Rainbow Dash was secretly delighted that they hadn’t broken Fillydelphia’s record. A green and red pole had been stuck in the lake to tell them when they’d sent enough water to Cloudsdale. As soon as the level dropped to the red half, Prof Lactic rang the bell.
“Great work, everypony!” Rainbow Dash said to all the pegasi after they’d terminated their tornado. “So, who’s the leader here?”
Two sets of eyes nearly popped out when the answer was revealed.
“Hi, Rainbow Dash.”
“Oh. Hi, Lightning Dust.”
“So, are you still in the academy?” asked Lightning Dust.
“Yeah… the next semester’s coming in a month,” replied Rainbow Dash. “So, this is your home, is it?”
“Yep. Me and Azurey are neighbours,” Lightning Dust smiled half-heartedly.
Rainbow Dash wished she hadn’t rented a room in Loch Azure for the night. Hanging around her former lead pony was very awkward for both of them.
In Ponyville the next morning, Scootaloo was up bright and early waiting for Rainbow Dash to return. Rainbow Dash told her that she would take her up to the sky so she could step on her first cloud, and they’d decided to wait until Cloudsdale got a fresh supply of water. Scootaloo glowed broadly at the sight of the brand new clouds that were drifting across the orange morning sky. For two hours, Scootaloo wandered impatiently around town. Silver Spoon had seen her pacing in front of the spa and she told Diamond Tiara, whose mother had sent her rather than a butler to go to the market and pick up a frying pan rather.
“Wanna have some fun with her?” asked Diamond Tiara.
So the two of them went to find Scootaloo, who was now walking laps around the fountain.
“Hey, Scootaloo!” shouted Silver Spoon. “You better take it easy!”
“Yeah! You don’t want to look too tired when Rainbow Dash gets here!” jeered Diamond Tiara. “Or she’ll think you’re weak!”
Scootaloo started wetting her mane with water from the fountain. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon chuckled as she ran over to a shop window and started fixing her face.
Scootaloo spent so long looking at her reflection, that she didn’t see Diamond Tiara hang her newly acquired frying pan on a fishing rod and Silver Spoon blow up the paper bag she was carrying it in. They crept to Scootaloo’s left, Diamond Tiara suspended the flying pan over Scootaloo’s head, and Silver Spoon got ready to stomp on the bag. But right before she did, Scootaloo’s reflection in the window changed. There in front of her was Silver Spoon with her hoof over the inflated bag.
“Hey!” she yelled right before the bag was burst.
“Aw! What gave us away?” moaned Diamond Tiara.
Gilt Eyes sauntered into view grinning triumphantly. He’d flipped the reflection using his magic to show Scootaloo what Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were up to.
“I don’t think your mom would be too happy if she found out you’ve been playing around with her new frying pan,” he smirked.
Diamond Tiara went in a different direction with her teasing.
“Oh, well. It wouldn’t have worked anyway,” she said. “Scootaloo wouldn’t have hit it. She can’t even fly.”
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “You’ve been playing that card forever. ‘Oh, Scootaloo’s as flightless as an ostrich.’ ‘Oh, Scootaloo’s hardly even a pegasus.’ Blah, blah, blah.”
“I’ve heard you grabbed a cloud once and fell right through it,” accused Diamond Tiara.
Scootaloo barely even remembered the time she’d jumped into the air in a state of fright and grabbed the end of a cloud, which snapped off. But before she could deny it, Rainbow Dash swooped down and carried her into the sky.
“Ready to step on your first cloud?!”
“Yeah!”
“That’s the spirit! Let’s go!”
Right above the store was a wide, flat cloud; perfect for a young pegasus to walk on.
“Here we are,” said Rainbow Dash, flying up to the side of the cloud.
Scootaloo didn’t waste a second. She jumped off of Rainbow Dash’s back and landed with a poof on the cloud.
“Oh, yeah. This is a nice and smooth one,” Rainbow Dash grinned, admiring their lucky find. “I once had a lap race with Gilda around a cloud like this. Naturally, I had done fifty by the time she’d done te- Scootaloo?”
Rainbow Dash looked around. Scootaloo was nowhere in sight.
Gilt Eyes had gotten into an argument of his own with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. They were suddenly interrupted by a loud scream. They looked up and there was Scootaloo falling out of the sky yelling for help and trying in vain to beat her wings to safety. Rainbow Dash was nowhere in sight, and neither was any other pegasus.
“I gotcha, Scootaloo!” called Gilt Eyes, and his horn lit up like a million fireflies.
Scootaloo slowed down. Gilt Eyes was straining himself to bring her to a soft landing. He’d never used his magic on anything bigger than a chocolate cake before. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon didn’t dare break his concentration. Soon, Scootaloo’s hooves lightly touched the ground.
“Thank for that,” sighed Scootaloo to the panting Gilt Eyes.
Rainbow Dash flew down looking horrified.
“Holy jumping jumbo jets!” she exclaimed. “What happened, Scoots? Did ya fall off?”
“No,” replied Scootaloo. “I fell through.”
“You mean you just passed through it like it was just air?” Rainbow Dash inquired. “That’s impossible. Only unicorns and earth ponies can’t touch clouds.”
“It’s a sign,” smirked Diamond Tiara, any concerns she had earlier gone.
Scootaloo had to fight the temptation to grab the frying pan and wallop Diamond Tiara with it.
“You’re sure you didn’t just fall over the side?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“I’m…”
Scootaloo hated to say it in front of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, but her experience was too bizarre to keep secret.
“I’m sure I fell through. I didn’t feel a thing after I jumped off your back.”
“Let’s try it again,” said Rainbow Dash. “I’ll keep an eye on you this time, I swear.”
So Scootaloo got on Rainbow Dash’s back and they headed up to the cloud.
When they got to it, Rainbow Dash landed on it with no trouble at all.
“Feels pretty solid to me,” she said. “Go on.”
Scootaloo wasn’t nearly as excited as she was the first time. She took her time jumping off of Rainbow Dash.
“I told you, I’ll catch you if you fall again,” insisted Rainbow Dash.
Scootaloo gulped, jumped… and went right through the cloud like it was a floating haystack. The experience was made weirder by the fact that Rainbow Dash was right there underneath the cloud ready to catch her as if she’d been there before she jumped.
“See?” they both said at the same time.
“This cloud’s obviously busted,” said Rainbow Dash. “I’ll get rid of it and we’ll go to another one.”
So Scootaloo got back on Rainbow Dash’s back, and Rainbow Dash grabbed the defective cloud with her tail. They found Derpy placing a few clouds haphazardly over White Tail Woods.
“Hey Derpy, can you get rid of this for us?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“Sure,” Derpy replied.
But as she reached for it, she let go of the cloud she was moving and it fell right on top of Rainbow Dash.
“Ow! Watch it, will ya?!”
“Hey, I can’t see!” called a voice.
Derpy jumped. “What was that?!”
It was Scootaloo. She was completely concealed by the cloud that had struck Rainbow Dash. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t lift it off. Rainbow Dash shoved it away.
“How did she not get hit, too?” asked Derpy. “She’s a pegasus, isn’t she?”
Rainbow Dash went around the sky above the woods holding Scootaloo in her hooves and dipping her into the clouds like a chip in salsa.
“None of these clouds will support her,” she said after they’d been through six clouds.
“Something must’ve gone wrong,” suggested Derpy. “I’ll go to the cloud factory and let them know.”
“Remember to get badged in this time,” cautioned Rainbow Dash as Derpy flew away.
Scootaloo kept tugging at her wings after Rainbow Dash brought her back to Ponyville.
“They’re not fake or anything,” Rainbow Dash tried to assure her. “It’s just a bad product from the factory.”
“You and Derpy could touch those clouds,” frowned Scootaloo.
She looked around making sure no one else was listening.
“I have earth ponies in my family tree,” she whispered.
“So do I, but I can still walk on clouds,” snorted Rainbow Dash. “I’m telling you, somepony goofed up in Cloudsdale. I’d love it if it was Hoops who messed up the process. That’d be hilarious.”
But when Derpy returned, she told them that the cloud factory technicians inspected all the equipment and could find nothing wrong with it. And when they tested their freshly made clouds, none of their employees were unable to touch them.
“So it’s true,” fretted Scootaloo. “The only pegasus DNA in me is in my wings.”
And before Rainbow Dash could object, Scootaloo ran off so fast, you’d think she had her scooter with her.
“There’s no way Scootaloo’s some kind of half-breed. Only alicorns can have two kinds of pony DNA,” said Rainbow Dash resolutely. “Come on, Derpy. We gotta figure this out.”
Scootaloo did what she always did when she felt blue; went to Sugarcube Corner and picked up a chocolate cupcake with a vanilla cream center. As she snacked on it on her way to the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ clubhouse, she heard a squawking noise coming from her left. She turned her head and found herself face to face with a penguin, who was apparently trying to recite something from a phrasebook he was holding.
“Um, sorry,” said Scootaloo, “I don’t speak penguin.”
All of a sudden, Fluttershy came running up.
“Oh. Please excuse him, Scootaloo,” she said, looking rather abashed. “Um, this is Hydroplane. He’s touring Equestria. I’m supposed to be guiding him around Ponyville today, but I had to leave him for a minute. There was a baby squirrel stuck to some tree sap.”
“So, what’s he saying?” asked Scootaloo.
Hydroplane squawked something to Fluttershy.
“He wants to know where you got that cupcake,” she translated. “Oh. That’s your cheery-uppy cupcake. Is something wrong?”
Scootaloo told her about her inability to touch clouds.
“Oh, I would have given anything to not be able to walk on clouds when I was your age,” said Fluttershy. “But that’s just me. I wasn’t a very good flyer.”
“At least you could walk on clouds,” moaned Scootaloo. “But I go right through them and I’m as flightless as that penguin.”
Hydroplane started squawking some sort of sentence again.
“I didn’t offend him, did I?” asked Scootaloo.
“Oh, no. He just wants to make a suggestion,” answered Fluttershy. “He used to get teased a lot by other birds for not being able to fly. So whenever he felt upset, he went swimming.”
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “What else could he do?”
“But swimming is just like flying, only in water,” explained Fluttershy. “His wings make perfect flippers. I’ll bet your wings would be just as good.”
After Scootaloo finished her cupcake, she went to the pond. But she stood for a long time by the water. Swimming through it would be a lot like falling through the clouds, and she didn’t like that feeling. Plus, there was the possibility that she might be spotted by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. But she’d been waiting to do something other than flutter a few inches above the ground for a long time and pretending to fly by swimming had to be the next best thing. So she hunched down, jumped… and found herself rocketing into the sky in Rainbow Dash’s hooves.
“Guess what, Scootaloo! You’re not the only one!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash.
“What?!”
“You’re not the only pegasus who can’t walk on clouds!”
“I’m not?!” cried Scootaloo.
“Me and Thunderlane brought Rumble and Featherweight up to the sky and they can’t touch the clouds either,” Rainbow Dash told her. “The clouds won’t hold pegasus foals!”
Scootaloo’s face brightened up at once.
“I’m not an earth pony with wings!” she shouted in delight.
“Of course not,” smiled Rainbow Dash. “Like I said, you’re either a pegasus or one of the other kinds.”
“So what now?” asked Scootaloo.
“Well, Derpy’s gone to the flight camp grounds to warn them that their campers won’t be able to walk on their clouds,” said Rainbow Dash. “She says they just got their new ones this morning and there’s no way those foals can practice flying on those.”
“And what are we doing?”
“We’re gonna meet Thunderlane and Rumble at the cloud factory. We gotta show the staff what’s up.”
“You’re back again?” asked Hoops when he saw Rainbow Dash arrive for the second time that day. “We already showed you that there’s nothing wrong with our clouds.”
Rainbow Dash and Thunderlane touched down in the plant with Scootaloo and Rumble on their backs. Rainbow Dash didn’t need to be badged in now that he was a member of Ponyville’s Royal Taskforce.
“Then we’ll just show you that there is,” she said to Hoops.
Thunderlane positioned himself under a freshly made cloud, and Rainbow Dash hovered over it and dropped Scootaloo. Hoops and some of the other factory workers gasped when they saw Scootaloo go right through it.
“See that?” asked Thunderlane after he caught Scootaloo.
He then flew above another fresh cloud. Rumble jumped off his brother’s back and passed through the cloud as if it wasn’t there.
“There you go,” said Rainbow Dash once she grabbed Rumble. “Your clouds won’t hold foals.”
“I gotta get my boss,” said Hoops as the other employees stopped working.
“Can I go now?” asked Thunderlane as he and Rainbow Dash swapped foals.
“Man, are you lazy or what?” groaned Rainbow Dash. “Yeah, you can go. You can go and help Derpy spread the word about the bad clouds.”
Thunderlane hated being accused of being lazy, so he wasted no time in taking off with Rumble to alert the weather teams.
“You know I can fly perfectly fine on my own, right?” asked Rumble as Thunderlane carried him away from Cloudsdale.
The technicians ran several tests on their equipment, and everything should have gone normally. But each time they produced a cloud, Scootaloo was completely unable to touch it. The sun was beginning to set and the factory was getting nowhere.
“Hey, what if it’s the water?” Hoops piped up. “I’ve heard that Professor Lactic dude’s a worrywart. What if he did something to the lake before Loch Azure’s mayor got the memo?”
Rainbow Dash remembered how Prof Lactic looked horrified to be anywhere near the lake, and how he had countless stretchers on standby in case any of the pegasi on the team got hurt.
“You might be right, Hoops,” said Rainbow Dash. “I’ll bet you want to write to your mom and tell her.”
Hoops rolled his eyes… although it was hard to tell.
“OK. And while I’m doing that, you can head over to Loch Azure and talk to Lactic,” he retorted.
Rainbow Dash was intending to do that anyway, so she didn’t tell Hoops off for talking to a royal taskforce member in an insulting way.
“You wanna come, Scootaloo?” she asked.
“Sure,” said Scootaloo. “I’d like to meet that Lightning Dust pony you told me about.”
Rainbow froze. She’d forgotten that Lightning Dust lived in Loch Azure.
“Oh, this is gonna be fun,” she muttered as Scootaloo mounted her.
Author's Note
Inspired by the QI episode Fight or Flight.
The sky was turning yellow when Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo reached Loch Azure. Scootaloo could see four foals about her age playing hacky sack close by one of the cottages.
“Alright. Lightning Dust lives in #1933,” said Rainbow Dash. “So if you want to introduce yourself, knock yourself out. Just make sure you let her know you’re with me.”
“OK, Rainbow,” smiled Scootaloo.
After Scootaloo left, Rainbow Dash began to walk to Prof Lactic’s place. As she passed the four foals, their hacky sack whizzed past her face and towards the lake.
“I got it,” she said before turning towards the shore where the hacky sack landed.
Two of the foals screamed. Rainbow turned back around. Three of them looked horror struck.
“What?”
“Don’t go near there! The monster will get you!” cried a young unicorn.
Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but snort her doubt.
“Hey, relax guys,” said the pegasus colt, who hadn’t been frightened by Rainbow Dash’s boldness. “She’s on Ponyville’s Royal Taskforce, remember? And she can make sonic rainbooms. She could take on old Azurey.”
Rainbow Dash grinned and walked to the bank to fetch the hacky sack.
“Wow,” said an earth filly. “You sure are brave.”
“Yeah,” agreed the unicorn colt. “Nopony here would dare go that close to the lake. Most of our pegasi needed a lot of convincing to fly over there when our town was chosen to send water to Cloudsdale.”
“This bogus monster really scares ponies, doesn’t it?” asked Rainbow Dash, before tossing the hacky sack back to the foals and going about her business.
Prof Lactic’s cottage wasn’t hard to spot. There was a huge telescope coming from the peephole in the front door. Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure whether she should knock on the door or the telescope. She resorted to knocking on the door and flying to the end of the telescope. Quite soon, the door opened and the telescope fell to the ground.
“Uh, oh! I forgot about the water transfer, haven’t I?!” fretted the professor when he saw Rainbow Dash.
“No! That was yesterday!”
“Oh, right. Well, what do you want?”
“I want to know if you did something to the lake before sending some of its water to Cloudsdale,” said Rainbow Dash.
“What like?”
“Like spells or something.”
“Well,” said Prof Lactic, “I put a basiliscus spell on it years ago.”
“What does that do?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“It prevents ponies from penetrating the surface of the lake,” Prof Lactic explained. “That way, nopony would try and go into the water in some foolish attempt to find the Loch Azure Monster.”
Rainbow Dash scratched her head. “Well, that doesn’t add up. If you made it so ponies could walk on the water, then that would mean anypony would be able to walk on those clouds.”
“Huh?”
“All the clouds the factory’s made since last night won’t support pegasi foals,” Rainbow Dash told him.
“Oh, I know why that is,” said Prof Lactic, walking out of his cottage and up to Rainbow Dash. “Earlier this week, I found out that some of the local foals were walking across the lake to the haunted Sepia Forest.”
“Haunted?” asked Rainbow Dash. She knew about the Sepia Forest on the other side of Loch Azure, but no one ever told her it was said to be haunted.
“I had an awful ordeal going to the forest and making sure there were no foals there,” the professor shuddered. “But luckily, there weren’t any there. So I cast a different spell that would cancel out the basiliscus spell for foals. That way they couldn’t walk across the lake, but not go in deep enough for Azurey to get to them.”
“OK, that explains it,” said Rainbow Dash. “I’m gonna need you to come with me to Cloudsdale and take the spell off their water supply.”
Prof Lactic didn’t seem as nervous about being flown to Cloudsdale as Rainbow Dash expected. He was actually happy for an excuse to be as far away from the lake as possible. But there was a complication.
“I need to find the counter spell,” said Prof Lactic. “I got the basiliscus spells from one of my books. Just give me second to find it.”
He went back into his cottage. Rainbow Dash waited. After a few minutes, she glanced at the lake.
“I’ve never walked on water before,” she said, her curiosity building.
Prof Lactic poked his head out of his door.
“I think somepony stole my book,” he said.
“You lost it?” moaned Rainbow Dash. “Ugh! What did you do with it after you put that spell on the lake?”
“Um, the last place I remember having it was…” Prof Lactic strained his memory. “It was when I was taking anemometer readings after I cast that spell. I might have left it by the lake. The monster might have come out of the water and grabbed it!”
Rainbow Dash ignored that last remark and set off with Prof Lactic to look for the book.
Scootaloo had introduced herself to Lightning Dust, but she failed to mention that Rainbow Dash had brought her there.
“So what brings you here?” asked Lightning Dust.
“I hear you’re the fastest pegasus after Rainbow Dash,” said Scootaloo.
“Oh, well, I guess I am,” said Lightning Dust, going a bit red.
“Yeah, so I just wanted to meet you,” said Scootaloo. “Like, learn about you and stuff.”
Lightning Dust smiled. “Sure, I could tell you about myself.”
So Lightning Dust and Scootaloo seated themselves on the front porch.
“Well, I first found out how fast I could fly when I chased a frisbee to the bank of the lake,” said Lightning Dust. “I used to be really afraid of getting eaten by Azurey. I flew away from that lake so fast, all my friends saw was a green blur.”
“Cool,” said Scootaloo.
“After that, I used to make myself go closer and closer to the water so I could scare myself into going faster and faster,” Lightning Dust went on. “My parents weren’t too happy when they found out about that. They tried to discourage me from risking my life by sending me to flight camp. And I guess it kind of work-”
Lightning Dust stopped for a second. Scootaloo’s expression turned melancholy.
“You OK?”
“Oh, sorry,” said Scootaloo. “It’s just… I never got to go to flight camp. My parents can’t afford it. I’ve heard such wonderful things about it. So, how was it for you?”
Lightning Dust didn’t answer. She was looking thoughtful.
“Um, Scootaloo,” she eventually said, “just out of curiosity, do you want to be a Wonderbolt someday?”
“Well, that’d be pretty cool, but it’s not my big thing,” answered Scootaloo. “My big goal in life is to earn my cutie mark.”
Her face fell again.
“I bet if I’d been able to go to flight camp, I’d have found out what my special talent is by now.”
Lightning Dust was looking almost as dismayed as Scootaloo.
“I… I have to go,” she said, taking off quite suddenly.
“Huh? Where are you going?” asked Scootaloo.
Lightning Dust didn’t answer. She just flew away towards the lake.
Rainbow Dash and Prof Lactic were strolling along the Loch Azure bank looking for the spell book.
“If somepony knocked it into the lake, it’ll be useless,” said Rainbow Dash.
“No, it won’t,” said Prof Lactic. “It’s laminated.”
“Laminated?”
“I laminated the pages on all my books to protect them. Too bad it didn’t stop me from losing-”
“Oh!” came a voice.
Lactic jumped. Rainbow Dash looked around.
“I didn’t know you were here,” said Lightning Dust, shuffling her hooves.
Rainbow Dash spotted Scootaloo running towards them from the town.
“Do you need something?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“Um… are you back here to…?” Lightning Dust started to ask.
“I’m here because Lactic’s magic messed up the water and all the new clouds won’t support foals,” said Rainbow Dash.
Lightning Dust took a deep breath. “I have a confession to make. I’m… I’m the one who told Lactic that foals were crossing the lake.”
“You?”
“I sent him an anonymous letter.” Lightning Dust was staring at her hooves. “I wanted to discourage young pegasi from going to Junior Speedster Flight Camp.”
“You what?! Why?!” demanded Rainbow Dash.
Scootaloo had caught up to Lightning Dust and had heard her confession.
“Because I wanted to save them from the disappointment I went through,” Lightning Dust said croakily. “After I left camp, I felt like I could become the fastest flyer in Equestria. The academy stomped that dream right out of me.”
Rainbow Dash groaned loudly. “That’s your fault, Dust! You were reckless!”
“My coaches encouraged me to push my boundaries!” insisted Lightning Dust. “They told me I had an amazing drive and made me feel like I could become the best if I kept going one step further in my training.”
“But you always went like ten steps further,” snorted Rainbow Dash.
“So, you fooled me, did you?” said Prof Lactic. “Why’d you own up?”
“Well, Scootaloo here reminded me that flight camp can be enough to make a young flyer happy,” Lightning Dust looked at Scootaloo with appreciation. “I never really thought of it as fun. To me it was just a bump in the road on my way to greatness. I didn’t realise I’d be causing worse disappointment than setting them up for rejection by the Wonderbolts.”
“I see,” said Prof Lactic. “Wait a minute. Did you steal my spell book?”
Lightning Dust gulped, then nodded. “I took it while you were measuring Updraft’s wing power, and I dropped it into the water.”
Rainbow Dash groaned.
“What now? We can’t go in and get it. Even if we could breathe underwater, none of us can get into the water with that basiliscus spell on it.”
“Scootaloo could go in,” said Prof Lactic before going rigid with shock. “Did I really just say that?”
Scootaloo’s experience from that camping trip to Winsome Falls taught her not to be scared by spooky stories, so she wasn’t opposed to going into Loch Azure.
“Well, I guess,” said Rainbow Dash. “But still, she couldn’t breathe.”
Prof Lactic cleared his throat.
“I have something that would… help.”
It sounded like he was going against his better judgement.
“What is it?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“A drinking straw I put an oxygen spell on,” answered the professor. “I thought it’d come in handy in case there’s a flood.”
“Did you make enough for the rest of us?” asked Lightning Dust.
“If Equestria floods, it’s every pony for himself,” said Lactic.
“Alright, go get your straw,” said Rainbow Dash. “And Lightning Dust, you’ll take us to where you dropped that book.”
“Wait! You just threw it in from the bank, didn’t you?” asked Prof Lactic.
“Uh, no,” replied Lightning Dust. “I kinda flew over the lake and dropped it in.”
Prof Lactic shook with fright.
“Go on. Go get the straw,” ordered Rainbow Dash.
Word quickly spread that two grown ponies were sending a foal into Loch Azure. Rainbow Dash, Lightning Dust and Scootaloo paid no attention to the gathering crowd of protesters as Prof Lactic gave them his enchanted straw.
“Relax, everypony,” said Scootaloo. “I’ll be fine.”
“How do you know?!” demanded several ponies.
“Because I’m the only hope for the cloud factory and all the settlements in the sky,” said Scootaloo. “Unless one of you would like to go in instead.”
All the pegasi foals who had approached them back away at once.
Lightning Dust trotted along the surface of the lake, flanked by Rainbow Dash with Scootaloo on her back.
“OK, I’m pretty sure it was around here,” said Lightning Dust, stopping in the middle of the lake.
“You ready, Scootaloo?” asked Rainbow Dash.
Scootaloo stuck the straw in her mouth. “Ready.”
And she cannonballed into the lake.
It was certainly a new experience for the young pegasus pony. There couldn’t have been many ponies who had gone underwater exploring. The glow of the evening sun from above the water lit the way for her as she paddled down to the bottom of the lake. She had to clamp her mouth shut so the magic straw wouldn’t drift out and float away. Soon, the sandy lakebed came into view as if a blue curtain had been opened in front of Scootaloo. She looked around. There were lots of large rocks and patches of tall seaweed, and absolutely no fish. There was however a large, mustard coloured hardcover book.
Bingo, Scootaloo thought, paddling towards it.
When she picked it up, she realized that she wouldn’t be able to swim back to the surface and hold it at the same time. She tried kicking with her hind legs, but she couldn’t control the direction she went in that way. She tried clinging onto the book with her hind legs, but the laminated pages made it too heavy for her to keep her grip on. Then she remembered what Fluttershy said about flying and swimming being almost the same thing.
Maybe I can FLY to the surface.
She tried flapping her tiny wings. She got some lift. She kicked with her hind legs at the same time. It was a big improvement. She was well on her way to returning the lost book to Prof Lactic.
Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust were very impressed with how quickly Scootaloo had found the book.
“That was fun!” beamed the young pegasus. “Maybe I can get my cutie mark for swimming!”
“Hey, I don’t remember that being on the book,” said Lightning Dust.
She was pointing at the back cover of the book. It looked like it had been scratched in several places.
“Is that a note?” asked Rainbow Dash.
Scootaloo held the book on the surface of the water and the three pegasi read the message that had been engraved in the back over.
“Dear Loch Azure ponies,
I know you’ve all been living in fear of me for years, so I’d like to relieve your anxiety by informing you that I have moved out. I will not send this message to you as I do not wish to cause panic and alarm. It is for this reason that I will be leaving Loch Azure under cover of night. I sincerely hope that one brave pony will venture down here to retrieve this book, which I assume was dropped in accidentally.
Kind regards,
Azurey.”
None of them said a word about the message to Prof Lactic when they returned to land. They just brought him the book and after he found the counter spell they needed, Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust flew him and Scootaloo to Cloudsdale.
After hours of inactivity, the equipment at the cloud factory was put to work producing a cloud out of the remedied water supply. Once they’d made one, Rainbow Dash flew Scootaloo to it.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
Scootaloo jumped onto the cloud.
“Success!” cried Hoops. “We’re back in business, guys!”
The factory workers cheered and carried on with their work. Scootaloo savoured the moment of standing on her first cloud. Rainbow Dash turned to Lightning Dust.
“Am I in trouble?” asked Lightning Dust.
“Hmm. You didn’t technically do anything illegal,” said Rainbow Dash, as if looking for a reason to punish her old lead pony. “And you did confess.”
“Can I suggest something?” asked Scootaloo.
At Ponyville Station, Fluttershy was seeing Hydroplane off.
“Goodbye, sir,” she said, handing him his suitcase. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip.”
They could hear the next train approaching, but the sound of its whistle was drowned out by a rush of wind. Lightning Dust had swooped down and landed with a thump on the platform.
“Rainbow Dash asked me to fly this little guy to his next port of call,” she said to Fluttershy.
And, not even waiting for a response, she picked up Hydroplane and took off, holding the penguin in one hoof and the little suitcase in the other. Hydroplane’s face brightened. At last, a proper flight. And a fast one, too. He spread his flippers and pretended he was flying on his own. He was having the time of his life.
Rainbow Dash was flying around towing Scootaloo and her cloud behind her with her tail.
“Come on, Rainbow Dash. She’s already paying for what she did.”
“No, way. I let her off too lightly,” insisted Rainbow Dash.
She spotted Lightning Dust and Hydroplane, and sped in their direction.
“Race you to Salt Lick City!” she called.
Lightning Dust grinned. “You’re on!”
Scootaloo’s enthusiasm over her first cloud was put to the test as she was going faster than she’d ever gone before clinging to it for dear life as Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust rocketed across the red evening sky. She had never felt happier to be a pegasus.
Author's Note
I haven't actually made a design for Prof Lactic yet. I gotta get around to that.
