"You gonna say that to my face?!" Rainbow Dash yelled attempting to intimidate the stallion in front of her. Rainbow, who had decided to go to Ponyville's local salt lick to unwind after an unusually intense day of flight training, now stood face to face with an extremely inebriated stallion. Rainbow knew deep down it had been her who started the argument, but she was gonna be the one to finish it too.
The brown stallion was a pegasus not much taller than Rainbow Dash. He wore a vest with holes large enough for his wings to spread out of, as they flared in anger. A crowd of equally drunk mares and stallions began to form a circle around the arguing pegasi, serenading them with drunken hoots and hollers as the argument continued to heat up. The pegasus who stood opposite to Rainbow leaned in and repeated himself.
"I said..." The stallion began, hiccuping between his words, "why don't you be a good little mare, and keep your mouth shut," The stench of alcohol assaulted Rainbow's nose. She would have sworn she'd become intoxicated simply from inhaling too much of his breath, but she wasn't going to pull her face away now. Her forehead was pressed against his, her nostrils flared and she gritted her teeth.
"That's it!" Rainbow yelled lifting a hoof in the air.
"Oh no! A punch from a mare," The stallion began turning to face the crowd forming around him. "I'm so sca-" Before the words could finish leaving his mouth, Rainbow's hoof connected with his jaw, and he was out cold on the floor.
Silence fell over the salt lick as everypony stood quietly in disbelief. Rainbow had surprised even herself by knocking out a full grown stallion with a single blow. She stared down at her hoof then looked back at the still-in-shock audience.
"Did everypony see that?" Rainbow asked confidently. "Ponyville's number one bar fighter right here!" Rainbow Dash's boasting was met with loud cheering from everypony in the room. "Now now everypony, there's enough of 'Rainbow Dash the Great' to go around! Now, who want's my autograph?" She asked rousing another wave of cheers from the ponies. Aw yeah! I'm on top of the world! Nothing could ruin this for me!
The sound of the slamming cell door echoed through the walls of Ponyville Jail. The only light source was the sun itself bleeding the afternoon light through the windows and various cracks in the walls. Rainbow felt a chill run through her spine as an Autumn breeze blew in from the barred window in her cell.
The Ponyville Jail was no longer meant for holding ponies for long increments of time, and served more as a way to teach trouble making ponies a lesson before releasing them back into the public. If anypony caused any real problems they were sent to Canterlot's vastly superior holding facility, however, it had been years since anypony from Ponyville had to be sent there. Rainbow Dash rattled her cell's door as she watched the police stallion saunter slowly back to his desk near the front of the room. "Hey! Where's my one letter?" Rainbow demanded. How am I supposed to get out of here if nopony knows where I am?" The police stallion rested his haunches in his office chair and propped his hind legs on his desk. He spoke lazily in a deep, gruff voice as if he were half-asleep.
"A friend o' yours has already been notified and is comin' in to talk with you," the police stallion explained resting his stetson over his eyes. A yawn escaped his muzzle before he drifted off to a suprizingly deep sleep. He wasn't conscious for it, but his explanation was met with a verbal assault formed by every obscenity and rude name Rainbow Dash could think of. She would have berated him for hours had another voice not interrupted her.
"Rainbow Dash!" Twilight Sparkle yelled at her friend in a her trademark mother-like tone.
They called Twilight? Why her? ANYPONY but Twilight!
"Just what were you thinking getting in a fight with a stallion like that? You could have been seriously hurt!" The magenta unicorn nagged as she trotted towards Rainbow's cell door. If anypony was ever in the wrong, Twilight would always be the first to point it out. In fact, Rainbow was beginning to think Twilight enjoyed informing others of their short-comings and poor decisions.
"Yeah yeah, I'm sorry mom, can you just tell the guard to let me out already? I'm starting to go crazy being cooped up in this small cell, how long has it been? An hour? 5 hours? All week!?" She asked pacing back and fourth between the grey walls of her cell. Each step she took kicked a small cloud of dirt into the air. The jail had been open for many years, and she was beginning to think it had been equally long since it had last been cleaned.
"Rainbow you know I can't do that,"
"Of course you can! Duh, princess, remember?" Rainbow explained, fluttering her wings to remind Twilight of her recently acquired appendages.
"I mean I won't. If word got out that I used my royal status to allow my friend do whatever she wanted without consequence, everypony in Equestria would lose all respect for me as their princess,"
"You've got to be kidding me! I can't stay in here for days with nothing to do! I'll absolutely die of boredom!" Rainbow complained as she flopped to the floor doing her best to imitate a corpse.
"First of all that's physiologically impossible," Twilight explained, unable to keep herself from pointing out the fallacy of the commonly used expression, "and secondly, I'd be more worried about what Celestia's going to say when she finds out one of the elements of harmony has become a petty criminal,"
"You told the princess on me?!" Rainbow shouted, loud enough to stir the sleeping stallion from his slumber.
"The princess needs to know about everything that goes on with the six of us in case she needs us,"
"Pfft, teacher's pet."
"At least I'm not the one locked up like a common criminal!" Twilight yelled, stamping her hoof on the ground in anger.
The door of Ponyville Jail swung open with a loud bang as it was slammed against the wall. The sounds of heavy breathing and footsteps filled the jail as Spike the dragon quickly made his way to Twilight and spoke between his gasps for air.
"Twi...light...letter...from...Princess," Spike explained as he fell to his knees, holding a scroll decorated with the royal seal up to Twilight.
"Are you OK spike?" Twilight asked lifting the scroll into the air and unfurling it with her magic.
"Just... ran... need... ice cream..." Spike coughed and sucked in as much air as he could between his desperate attempts to breathe. The young dragon looked as if he were about to die from exhaustion right then and there.
Rainbow stared at Spike and leaned in close to Twilight. "Don't you live right next door to this dump?" She asked concernedly. Twilight took a mental note of her assistant's athletic capabilities, or lack thereof, and decided maybe shelving books and taking letters wasn't enough physical activity for him. Twilight pushed her concerns for Spike's health out of her mind for the moment as she began to read the scroll. "What's it say?" Rainbow Dash inquired.
"You've got to be kidding me,"
"What's it say Twilight?" Rainbow asked growing more impatient. "Does the princess need you for a special, mission? Oh! How about another trip to a far away land to fight bad guys? Does she want you to tell Spitfire to make me a wonderbolt? Please tell me she wants you to tell Spitfire to make me a wonderbolt!" Twilight sighed and looked at her over-excited friend.
"The princess wants me to let you out of here," she explained grumpily.
"Really? That's awesome! Tell that old guy to let me out already,"
"No,"
"Huh? What do you mean no?"
"Not until you promise me you won't cause anymore trouble. Princess Celestia may have bailed you out this time, but even what she can do for you can only go so far before her reputation is tarnished. The only reason she's bailing you out this time is because if word got out that one of the Elements of Harmony was locked up, the townsponies might not trust us to keep them safe anymore,"
"Ok, ok, I won't cause anymore problems,"
"Promise," Twilight Demanded.
"I promise,"
"Do you mean it?" Twilight asked.
"I do," Rainbow promised. Rainbow was not the element of honesty.
"Who's next?" Rainbow Dash asked facing a familiar crowd of cheering, intoxicated ponies. She wiped a small bit of spit from under her swollen cheek and looked down. At her hooves laid an unconscious, blue earth pony who had landed a 'lucky hit' on her before she took him down by knocking him into a near by table, crushing it with his weight.
"Ah think that'll be me," A large stallion spoke in a thick country drawl. The crowd parted to allow him entry into the circle formed by their bodies as he stepped closer. Rainbow turned to face her challenger with a grin.
"Heh, I'll be honest, I didn't take you for the rough and tough type. Alright, bring it on!" Rainbow yelled as she began to dart towards her opponent, only to be tripped and land face first against the cold, wooden floor. "Ah, hey, what gives?" Rainbow asked craning her neck back to see who had grabbed her legs. Rather than a pony, she noticed a rope of magic had hog-tied her and now began levitating her upside-down body towards the door of the salt lick. "Hey who's big idea is this?" She yelled, looking around to see the one pony who could ruin her fun.
"Twilight, let me down!" Rainbow demanded. The ponies surrounding Rainbow dropped to the ground to bow to their princess. Twilight blushed slightly before looking angrily back at Rainbow once more.
"I'll let you down after we've talked, but first," Twilight began as she trotted towards the stallion bowing in the middle of the circle. "Just what were you thinking indulging her like that? You should be asha- Big Macintosh?"
"Heh," Big Macintosh chuckled nervously. Eeyup."
