Rainbow Dash trotted happily through town, the bright sun making her prismacolor mane glow. She always enjoyed a day off, but it was all the better when that day was bright and pleasant. Rain would be postponed for a week so that the new Ponyville rainwater drainage system could be installed, something that involved a lot of work for other ponies and nothing at all for Rainbow Dash. She could hardly decide what to do first! Maybe a nice nap in one of the trees at the park? Or how about a fresh hayburger from that new place down near Rarity’s? No matter what she chose, it was going to be great.
As she walked towards the center of town, she saw a somewhat large crowd gathering around town hall. She wondered if it was something to do with the new storm drains. The preponderance of construction helmets and bright orange vests let her know it had something to do with construction, whatever it was. Odd, the digging for that was supposed to start down by the river, followed by careful excavation under the town for the next month or so. Rainbow Dash had remembered Twilight droning on about it at the last Friendship meeting, warning everypony that many of the roads would be closed for weeks or months at a time as new pipes were installed. Like Rainbow Dash had ever needed roads!
There was a familiar voice in the middle of the crowd, though. “I’m really sorry, and I hate to have to put my foot down like this, but the route for the Ponyville storm drain system is just going to have to be changed — if it can be installed at all!” It was unusual for Fluttershy to stand up to anypony for any reason, and doing it to Mayor Mare and all those contractors was just unheard of. Had she been reading Iron Will’s self-help books again? Rainbow Dash flew over, hovering behind Fluttershy so she could listen more carefully.
“Fluttershy, the time to bring up these concerns was months ago, during any one of the public meetings where we discussed this project.” Mayor Mare was exasperated, her half-closed eyes putting forth the polite firmness needed of any politician. “Celestia knows you had plenty of chances, we were open to public comments for weeks, and other than the affected shopkeepers, nopony showed up.”
“I’m really, really sorry, but I always thought the foogles were a myth. I had no idea that Mr. Mole would run across them while she was digging a new home.” Fluttershy had positioned herself between the crowd and the front door of the town hall. It was a futile gesture of course, they could easily shove her aside or just go around to any one of the other entrances, but still, she stood squarely in their path and refused to budge. “We must postpone the construction until we find out where they are and why they are there. Foogles are supposed to be an integral part of any magical ecosystem!”
“If they’re so integral, how come we’ve never even SEEN one before?” Mayor Mare moved in close, the foremare standing behind her. “I’m not doubting they exist, Fluttershy. Last time I doubted something existed, it came crashing through here and almost destroyed Quills and Sofas. The world is a funny place like that. But you could hardly call a bugbear an ‘integral part of the magical ecosystem’.”
“Yes I can, and I would if you’d let me!” Fluttershy was physically giving ground, her backside almost pressing the door open now. “Bugbears, foogles, timber wolves, all of them have their place in the ecosystem, and we can’t just go destroying their habitat because we find them inconvenient! How would you like it if someone tore down your house and replaced it with a giant cement pipe?”
“That would be an improvement over my last apartment, actually.” The foremare’s voice was gruff. She towered over Fluttershy, her massive bulk almost pressing down on her as she leaned forward. “And I’m tellin’ ya, the Equestrian Department of the Environment told me these streets are good to dig, and if they tell me I can dig, I’m gonna dig!” she clapped her hoof against her vest. “No-good enviro-nuts always get in my way, I’m not about to stop the one time they get out of it!”
“Please, you don’t know what you’re doing!” Just before the foremare was about to shove Fluttershy out of the way, Rainbow Dash flew down, putting herself between the two ponies.
“Woah there big guy. If you’ve got a problem with Fluttershy, you’ve got a problem with me.” She pushed her nose firmly against the foremare’s, forcing her to back off. “And I know you don’t want a problem with me!”
Mayor Mare rolled her eyes. “Rainbow Dash, your desire to step in and help is admirable, but really, Celestia herself signed off on this construction project, and you remember how bad the spring flood was this year. You were the first to fly up and start kicking aside rainclouds, and to tell the lead Weatherpony to lay off until we got the drains fixed. Our existing drains just clog too easily, they are much too small and have way too many twists and turns in them.”
The flooding had been pretty bad, even with her rapid intervention, but Rainbow Dash knew that Fluttershy wouldn’t have gotten the courage to protest the problem unless it was really, really bad. She turned to the mayor. “Isn’t there some way we could prove to you that this is a problem? I’m sure Fluttershy wouldn’t ask you to stop if she didn’t think it was a big deal. I mean, you guys are going to start at the river, right? Are these ‘foogles’ at the river?”
“No, actually they seem to be located mostly under the center of town. I’ve been talking with Mr. Mole for weeks now, learning all about the caverns he and his fellow moles have been digging in and around Ponyville. See, it turns out that Ponyville is built above a series of caverns. Small, narrow ones, mostly so tight a pony can barely fit through. And that’s where the foogles are living, in those caverns.”
“The geologic survey didn’t say anything about caverns.” The foremare moved to push Fluttershy away, but Rainbow Dash reasserted herself. “Look, all I wanna do is go into the town hall and get the blueprints so I can start the digging. I’ve got a lot of ponies being paid by the hour here, and I wouldn’t be the lowest bidder on this contract if I let myself waste horse-hours.”
“Mayor Mare, this excavation will take weeks before it makes it into town, right? So why don’t you just start digging, and Fluttershy and I will start looking for these foogles, whatever they are. Then we can decide if we need to change anything then. How does that sound?”
“Anything that gets this project underway is good enough for me.” She smiled and, going around Fluttershy, calmly opened the door.
“Oh dear, I don’t know if a week will be enough time.” Fluttershy turned to Rainbow Dash. “But if you think this is a good idea, well then, I’m willing to give it a try. Anything to help out those poor little foogles!”
“It’s a deal, then.” Mayor Mare extended her hoof, Rainbow Dash shook it. Mayor Mare rolled her eyes and shook her head before heading inside, followed by the foremare and her workers.
“C’mon Fluttershy, why don’t you go ahead and show me these ‘foogles’ you say are so important.” Rainbow Dash headed out into the street, looking over her shoulder and expecting Fluttershy to be following behind.
“I um...I can’t, at least not yet.” Fluttershy retreated into her mane, hiding her face behind all that pink hair. “I mean, I haven’t seen them yet. Only Mr. Mole has. He told me all about it.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Fine then, let’s go talk to him about it.” She headed towards Fluttershy’s house, dashing above the streets and arriving minutes before her friend. She tapped her hoof impatiently, looking around for Mr. Mole, or really any one of Fluttershy’s animal friends that wasn’t penned up in the backyard or helping themselves to the generous amounts of food she put out. How did Fluttershy take care of so many animals, anyway? It was hard enough for Rainbow Dash to take care of and clean up after Tank, and he was housebroken. Not that she couldn’t just kick a hole around the “problem” and let it drop if he ever had an accident.
Fluttershy trotted up behind Rainbow Dash, panting after her attempts to keep up with Rainbow Dash on the road. “After what Mr. Mole found, I suggested he dig his new home here in my backyard. I have plenty of space, and I just needed to set up a nice little fence and a sign so that nopony steps in the hole and breaks a hoof.” Rainbow Dash looked and saw Fluttershy standing next to the tiniest fence she’d ever seen. It looked like more of a hazard than the molehill, it was just the right height for tripping. It was a good thing she flew everywhere. “Mr. Mole, can you tell Rainbow Dash about the foogles?”
What followed was the strangest and most one-sided conversation Rainbow Dash had ever had. Tank wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but she understood what he wanted most of the time: to eat, to be in the sun, and to follow her around. Mr. Mole, however, was apparently a creature of vast wants and vocabulary, none of it anything Rainbow Dash understood. His squeaks and grunts were punctuated by wild gesticulations and gestures, and Dash half wondered if he was doing his impersonation of the over-the-top pizza maker back in Ponyville. Still, whatever he said, Fluttershy understood it perfectly, nodding her head and interjecting occasionally to ask for more information or detail.
“That’s very informative, Mr. Mole, but I think that Rainbow Dash would benefit more from seeing than from just listening. What about that cave entrance you said you found? The one big enough for a pony to fit through!” Fluttershy smiled and patted the mole on the head before he began to waddle off towards the woods.
“Hold on! If we’re going caving, we’re going to need to at least bring a light!” Rainbow Dash dashed into the house and grabbed a lantern off of Fluttershy’s side table, then came back outside. She needn’t have hurried, as Fluttershy and Mr. Mole had barely made any progress, even though he appeared to be waddling as fast as his clawed feet would carry him. Rainbow Dash held the lantern’s handle in her teeth, kicking the fireflies to wakefulness and getting them blinking and buzzing inside of it. They had plenty of nectar, it looked like Fluttershy had been taking good care of them. She just wished she had her Daring Do hat, she liked wearing it whenever she was going into a cave or ruin just like her hero.
Of course the cave they were presented with was not one of the great caverns that Daring Do plundered for rare artifacts, but instead a rather mundane and ordinary hole in the side of a hill, surrounded by moss and crumbling with roots. A small trickle of water ran out of it, making the floor muddy. It was small, barely big enough for Rainbow Dash to fit, and she was skeptical about getting stuck. She stuck her head in, letting the lantern shine out into the cave. All she could see was dank, wet, and rocks. She sighed and turned back to Fluttershy. “Do you wanna lead the way, or should I?”
“I think it might be best if you did…” Fluttershy hid her face in her mane again, making Rainbow Dash roll her eyes and then plow ahead.
“Why do I even bother asking?” Dash began to crawl into the cave, dragging the lantern before her. She wouldn’t admit it in front of Fluttershy, but she hated enclosed spaces like this. Not being able to fly, with walls coming in all around her. She had other fears, sure, but this one was persistent, and the more she felt her wings being compressed by the stone or her hooves sinking into the soft mud, the more she had to fight to keep from panicking. A flat spin at 1000 feet she could handle, but getting stuck down here with nopony but Fluttershy to go for help? She didn’t even want to think about it.
When the passage finally opened up into a wider cavern, she breathed a sigh of relief, and began checking her wings and feathers for damage. Those rough cave walls might dishevel her feathers and she wouldn’t even know it until she tried to fly. Fortunately they seemed fine, except for being dirty, and she could always preen them back into line after a good shower. She set the lantern down on the floor and looked around, half expecting to see that Fluttershy hadn’t followed. But she had, with Mr. Mole waddling in front of her. “So where do we go from here?”
“I’m not sure. Mr. Mole, where did you say they were again?” Mr. Mole turned his head this way and that, sniffing the air, then made a beeline for another narrow passage on the left. Rainbow Dash tried to hide her disappointment — she had been hoping the first narrow squeeze would be the last — but she wasn’t about to chicken out of anything in front of Fluttershy, so she grabbed the lantern followed forward, keeping the mole in sight as she moved.
The passage gradually grew more and more narrow, forcing Rainbow Dash to exhale and squeeze her way through repeatedly, the wet and slimy walls leaving black streaks along her wings and flanks. But as she went, she realized that there was more light than just from her lantern. She put down the blinds, signaling the lightbugs to go to sleep, and stared into the half-darkness. It was unlike any light she’d ever seen. If she’d been pressed to describe it, she would have said it was similar to starlight, only fainter, and changing ever so slightly towards colors other than white, only to go back to it again.
The passageway gave way into another cavern, barely big enough for Rainbow Dash to spread her wings in. But she dared not. She hardly dared even walk. Every part of the cavern, every part that didn’t have the muddy little stream running through it, was coated in what looked like iridescent glowing worms. They seemed to all be about the same size, no more than a hoof-length long. Their color changed constantly, dancing up and down the spectrum with no seeming pattern. These hue changes washed across the creatures in waves, changing the spectrum of the cavern in long, smooth movements, like waves of wind across a wheat field.
“These...are foogles?” Rainbow Dash looked around, amazed. At a distance, they were beautiful, a dazzling array of movement and color. Up close, though, they were pretty gross. They looked like an earthworm, only where the body would terminate in a tail they ended in some sort of hard structure that the worms either made or grew and then used as an anchor. They kind of reminded her of the barnacles she’d seen on her beach vacation, only with long waggling tongues instead of tiny fans. “And here I thought I was the most rainbow thing anywhere near Ponyville.”
“Oh goodness, yes!” Fluttershy looked around the room, her mouth open in a wide smile. “Oh, they’re just like in the book Twilight gave me!” She bent down, examining one closely. “Hello there little guy. Can you talk?”
“Magical or no, I sincerely doubt they have much to say.” Rainbow Dash looked around a bit, but mostly she just wanted to get back up to the surface. These foogles were great and all, but they were kind of gross, her hooves and wings were covered in mud and gunk, and she really, really didn’t wanna get stuck down here. “So I guess we can go talk to Mayor Mare about this place and get her drainage program changed, huh?”
“Yes, I’m sure that if we bring her down here, she’ll understand the need to relocate the pipes and not dig up this cave. I mean just look at how many there are! Once I explain to here how foogles consume excess magic so that it doesn’t leak out of control-”
There was water everywhere. Rainbow Dash hadn’t even heard it coming. All she knew was that Fluttershy was talking, then suddenly, she was struggling for breath. She felt herself slammed hard against the cave wall, lances of pain shooting through her back and left wing. The room instantly went dark, leaving Rainbow Dash with only touch and sound to vaguely orient herself. And what sound it was! The rush of the water reverberated painfully in the tiny, enclosed space. But there was something louder piercing through it, some great shriek, echoing not out of one throat, but thousands of tiny ones. Were the foogles dying? Drowning? Just panicking? Whatever it was, she could deal with it later, right now she needed to find Fluttershy, as well as the way out.
She flailed blindly in the rush of water, trying to find something soft. Her hooves were bloodied by their impacts with the rocks, but she persisted, continuing to grab at nothing until she connected with what she thought was Fluttershy. Her body was cold and limp, and Rainbow Dash pulled hard on it, hoping that she was merely knocked out. She continued to flail, now with only one hoof free as she locked herself around Fluttershy, until she found where the water was going. The tiny passageway had been hard enough to clamber through without the thousands of gallons of water pushing down on her. She wasn’t sure how, exactly, but she managed to push her way through into the second cavern, where she had barely time to breathe before being pulled towards the exit. Pushed by water and encouraged by her own will to survive, she managed to make it through this narrow cave as well.
She collapsed at the exit, pushing herself up from the mud only to vomit out great quantities of water. She felt sick, dizzy and closer to drowning than she’d ever been, not to mention in increasing pain as the initial shock wore down to reveal nasty gashes on her flank. A quick examination, however, revealed the wounds to be superficial, and a quick stretch revealed that not even her delicate wings were broken or sprained.
At the sound of coughing, she ran to Fluttershy, finding her likewise subject to only minor injuries. She helped her friend to her feet, patting at her head and shoulders, trying to make sure she was okay. “Fluttershy! Can you hear me? What day is it? Who’s the mayor of Ponyville? What’s the name if your pet bunny?”
“Rainbow Dash, I didn’t hit my head, I just fainted. Oh my, all those foogles, all that water! And the way they were screaming, Rainbow Dash, we’ve got to go back in and save them! And where’s Mr. Mole?” Fluttershy stumbled back to life, looking around until she found Mr. Mole, who was just as confused and wet as she was.
“And how do you propose we do that?” Rainbow Dash pointed at the flood of water still pouring out of the tunnel. “I’m the best flier in Equestria, not the best swimmer. We barely made it out alive!”
“I don’t know, Rainbow Dash, but we’ve got to do something. We can’t just stand here and let them drown!”
“Look, let’s go into town and find somepony who can help. Maybe we can shut off the water. Maybe the foogles are fine, they just don’t like being wet. You saw how damp it was in that cave, it probably floods with every rain.”
“Yes, but it’s not raining now. Somepony must have put the water there.” Fluttershy got to her hooves, her mane and body dripping water and mud. “You’re right, we need to go into town and find out what the problem is.”
“I’ll go ahead, you can catch up with me here.” Rainbow Dash took off as fast as she dared this close to the ground, her hooves, almost touching the treetops as she headed towards Twilight’s castle. Bursting in through an open window, she began to dash around the hallways, fervently searching. “Twilight? Twilight! Twilight, I need you!”
Twilight Sparkle emerged from the library, staring at Rainbow Dash. “Dash? Why are you soaking wet and covered in mud? Come down, I’ll get some towels out of the bathroom.”
“No time! Foogles, drowning, Fluttershy, water everywhere, we almost drowned, Twilight!” The words rushed like a torrent from Rainbow Dash’s mouth, falling and fumbling into incoherence.
Twilight Sparkle pulled Rainbow Dash down to the floor, focusing the pegasus’s face with her hooves, staring her straight in the eye. “Dash, take some deep breaths and explain to me what happened.”
“Fluttershy wanted me to help her prove the foogles are real, so we went looking for them, and we found them! But then there was this huge rush of water. Twilight, I think the foogles all drowned!”
“Calm down, Rainbow Dash, we don’t even know if foogles can drown. A lot of magical creatures can’t, you know, because they don’t breathe, they just subsist on magic.” Twilight turned around re-entering the library. “Fluttershy was asking about foogles just yesterday. I think the book I have about them is over here, in the section for unknown creatures of Equestria.”
Rainbow Dash followed, the mud slopping off her hooves and on to the carpet. There was a steady, numb pain from her left wing, and now that she had stopped flying, it became all the more noticeable. Whatever had happened to her left flank wasn’t feeling so great either. Maybe she’d hit that wall harder than she thought, or been cut deeper than it first appeared. “Twilight, while you’re here reading books and debating, something horrible is happening right beneath our hooves, and we’re not even doing anything about it!”
Twilight sighed and pulled a book down, setting it on a nearby table and flipping it open to a bookmark. “Rainbow Dash, right here it says that foogles don’t drown, but instead they simply go into a dormant state when submerged in water, soil, or otherwise lose access to air. They apparently also vibrate at an incredible speed when threatened or scared, which produces a high-pitched squeal as a defense mechanism. I’m surprised you didn’t mention it, the researcher here says that the noise is pretty terrifying, and it may be the explanation as to why ponies sometimes report hearing strange howls and moans coming from deep inside caves.”
“It didn’t seem important at the time.” Rainbow Dash’s side was really hurting now. Maybe she should go to a doctor when this was all over. “Look, I dunno what that book says, but I’m pretty sure foogles resent having half a lake poured over them every bit as much as I do. Besides, how did it get there? I don’t recall the cave behind Fluttershy’s house being the mouth of a river. And when I took off, it was still gushing like a broken water main!”
Twilight clapped her hooves on the table. “Water main, that’s it! They were going to begin digging on the new sewer system, right?”
Rainbow Dash looked at the brown gunk on her hooves in revulsion, backing up from them a bit. “Please tell me that this is mud, Twilight. I’ve had enough crap today without it getting literal.”
“Even with your aversion to spa treatment, I’m pretty sure you bathe often enough to know when you do or do not smell like Applejack’s manure pile.” Twilight moved over to another table, this one set out with an assortment of maps and blueprints. “Fluttershy and I were going over these this morning, before she ran off in a rush. She said her mole friend had found some foogles underneath Ponyville, right at the intersection of Main Street and Haberdashery.”
“There’s nothing there but a halfway decent coffee shop and that new comic book place.”
“There’s also a major storm drain, and my guess is that before they started expanding down the river, they started dumping into it, to make sure there wasn’t any water where they were working.” Twilight Sparkle laid out another huge map. It reminded Rainbow Dash of the way Ponyville looked from above, only there were large blue lines that cut through much of it, all of them ending in the river. “This is a map of all the storm drains in Ponyville. The one they were going to begin expanding is up here, and it’s upriver of the secondary drain down here, which is probably what they are dumping into while they work. There’s gotta be some sort of crack or fault in the pipe that’s causing it to leak, probably something up near the top, which would explain why the water is only just now flooding into whatever cave you and Fluttershy were in.”
“So we need to head downtown and stop them from pouring water into that sewer. Got it!” Rainbow Dash took to the air, but the pain in her wing instantly got worse. That did it, once the crisis was over, she was going to the doctor. She was pretty sure that nothing was broken, but when her body protested this much, there had to be something to fix. At the very least, something to bandage properly and keep off of for a few days. “Uhm, maybe it would be better if we walked, or if we teleported over there, or something.”
“Rainbow Dash, we don’t even know that’s what’s going wrong, and even if it is, there’s hundreds of miles of drainpipes all over ponyville that could be leaking. It’ll take days, maybe even weeks, to figure out what’s going wrong. But you’re right, we should inform the mayor and look into this. As for you, you’re getting teleported right to ponyville general.” Twilight closed her eyes and focused her horn, the purple magic whipping and crackling. But rather than building into a flash of light that sent Rainbow Dash to a new location, a narrow bolt shot out, piercing a hole straight through the distant ceiling above. Twilight recoiled in horror. “Sweet Celestia! What was that?”
“I don’t know but...I think I’ll walk.” Rainbow Dash turned and headed down the hallway and out the door. That was certainly weird, usually Twilight’s spells went perfectly, or at least failed in a predictable manner. And since she’d become princess, Rainbow Dash couldn’t remember a single time she’d failed to pull of a spell exactly and precisely as she intended. Still, she could find out what was up with that later, after she’d solved her injury problem.
As she walked through Ponyville towards the hospital, though, it was clear that she and Twilight weren’t the only ponies having a problem. Amethyst Star was chasing after an animate and apparently hostile set of petunias. Minuette was running from an angry, squirting toothpaste tube. Bon Bon and Lyra were holding each other tightly as they were carried along at a fast clip by a trotting park bench. “What the hay is going on here? Discord?”
“I don’t think he has anything to do with this, Dashie!” Pinkie Pie appeared from nowhere, as usual. She was looking everywhere at once, her eyes and mouth both wide open. “But do you notice something? All the ponies getting attacked by things are unicorns, and the attacks seem to start whenever they try to use their powers.”
Rainbow Dash watched one of the guards try and use his horn to cast a spell on Bon Bon and Lyra’s rampaging bench, only to see it grow in size and ferocity. Rainbow Dash caught Bon Bon as she was thrown, with Pinkie Pie rescuing Lyra beside her. “I think you’re right, Pinkie Pie. Quick, how do we tell all the unicorns how to stop using their magic?”
“Well we could run around shouting, that usually works when I want everypony to know my cupcakes are ready.” Pinkie Pie took off at top speed, shouting as she went “HEY EVERYPONY, UNICORNS, STOP USING YOUR MAGIC, SOMETHING WEIRD IS GOING ON!”
Rainbow Dash doubted the effectiveness of Pinkie shouting, but she didn’t have any better ideas, and really, she wanted to get somepony to get a better look at her injuries. The one on her flank was throbbing pretty badly, and when she looked at it, it was still bleeding. Every step closer to the hospital seemed harder than the last, and she felt woozy and tired. Ponyville was going mad around here, with unicorns either fleeing from, or being actively engaged in, fighting various objects that had come to life, or else changed their physical nature. She’d seen young unicorns having trouble controlling their magic before, but it was nothing like this. Even the slightest levitation spell either sent an object flying off into space, or worse, turned it into a magical creature, which was either hostile or intent on escaping from its former master.
It was no surprise, then, when the hospital was a madhouse, both due to the animate medical equipment, and due to the fact that the unicorn doctors couldn’t use their powers to heal. They couldn’t even pick up a stethoscope or grab some bandages. Still, Rainbow Dash approached the receptionist, an earth pony desperately trying to stay calm as she saw her co-workers going mad around her. “I’ve got a really nasty cut on my flank here, and my wing is really starting to hurt. It was fine a few minutes ago, but…”
“I’ll get somepony to look at it, but things are a bit hectic here right now.” The receptionist ducked a winged clipboard that was fleeing from an orderly. “You know, maybe it would be best if I just saw to your wound myself, and then we’ll refer you to a doctor if we need any help.”
“That sounds like a great idea.” It was probably just the draining of adrenaline, but her whole side was aching now. It was a great relief to follow somepony who seemed to know what she was doing, and though everyone was going crazy around them, they were soon in an examination room, with the door shut, although this didn’t completely muffle the crashes and shouts outside.
The receptionist looked over the wound, hissing between her teeth. “This is a really nasty gash. Where did you get it?” She went to a nearby table and retrieved various types of cleaning solution, along with sponges and swabs. Gently, she began applying them to Rainbow Dash’s injuries, holding each instrument delicately in her teeth.
“Fluttershy and I were exploring the caves under Ponyville when suddenly there was a big flood and I got shoved against the side by all the water.” Rainbow Dash winced as the antiseptic was applied. How was it she could brush off nasty bruises and scrapes, yet she winced in pain when a little alcohol was rubbed on her flank? “We were lucky to get out alive, we almost drowned!”
“We’re very lucky that nopony’s turned up dead, or needing treatment for serious injuries yet.” The wound now clean, she retrieved a large needle, along with several sealed containers of sterile thread. “I’m going to need to suture this wound shut, but don’t worry, I was the best at local anesthesia at the Fillydelphia School of Nursing.” She pushed the needle into Rainbow Dash’s side, gently injecting anesthetic into her with only her mouth and hoof. “My name is Careheart, by the way.”
“Rainbow Dash, but I’m guessing you knew that already.” Rainbow Dash was pretty used to everypony knowing her name at this point, especially in hospitals. When she wasn’t famous to them as a hero, she was as a “repeat customer.” Between airshow accidents and her adventures with Twilight, she had probably at least visited every hospital in Equestria by now. “You’re really good at this, how come someone like you is working at the reception desk?”
Careheart gently began to sew the wound shut, each stitch small, careful and neat. “Oh, you know how it is. It was my turn on the schedule. It seems like it’s always my turn.” She continued sewing until she was done, then tied the thread tight. She inspected Rainbow Dash’s other injuries, retrieving and beginning to apply assorted salves and bandages. “In Fillydelphia almost everypony is an earth pony, but here the unicorns get all the good jobs, because they can just magic the problem away. I see the point to it — it’s pretty hard to operate scissors without the use of magic, after all, and precision surgery using only one’s hooves is quite an art. But that doesn’t mean us earth ponies are useless. I mean, even Princess Twilight doesn’t rely on magic for every thing, does she?”
“Well, she sure uses a lot of it, but you’re right, she still uses her mouth and hooves like everypony else a lot of the time.” Rainbow Dash had never thought about how much she and the other ponies use their magic, but the mess outside was certainly quite the indication. “So how do I look? Am I safe to fly?”
“I’m gonna say no, at least until these cuts near the base of your wing heal up.” Careheart lifted Rainbow Dash’s wing to point at some stitching and bandages. “To be honest, I’m amazed you flew anywhere at all after getting this. You must have lost a lot of blood, and you pegasi are so light, you really don’t have any to spare.”
Rainbow Dash grew wide-eyed as she examined all the stitching and bandages on her left side. With the mud and blood removed and the bandages applied, she knew things would look worse than they actually were, but still, it was rather shocking. How did she fly so far with those injuries? She did remember feeling unusually light, but she just figured that was a side effect of all the shock and adrenaline from her near-drowning. But that wouldn’t have allowed her to travel like she had with these injuries, not without the pain instantly grounding her. Maybe this weird overflow of magic was affecting her as well? Pegasi had magic in their wings, after all. It would make sense that what was causing the unicorn magic to overflow might have an effect on her as well.
“I’d better stay here and see what else I can do. You should come back tomorrow and have a proper doctor look at those cuts and make sure they’re not infected. I washed a lot of mud out of them, so you might have to go on antibiotics just to be safe.”
“OK, I’ll swing by here once the crisis is over. I’m gonna find Twilight and see if she’s got an answer to all of this.” Rainbow Dash trotted out back into the hallway, narrowly missing a terrified stallion riding a self-animate gurney at top speed. Her entire left side was numb and sluggish, but at least the pain was gone, even if she was now deprived of running and flying all at once.
Things were calming down outside, although whether this was because Pinkie Pie had gotten the message out, or if the problem was being resolved, Rainbow Dash couldn’t tell. Either way, there was a crowd gathering in the town square, so Dash headed there, figuring that her friends were probably there, and could probably tell her what was going on. Sure enough, Applejack and Twilight were center stage, flanked by a crying Rarity and a half-hidden fluttershy.
“It’s important that everypony refrain from using their magic until we get this issue resolved.” Twilight’s voice was hard to hear over the crowd, as it was not amplified by her magic in any way. “That includes pegasus flying magic and earth pony hoof magic as well as unicorn horn magic. For reasons that I’m about to explain, there is an unusual overflow of magic in Ponyville right now, and so it is very important that we abstain from using it until things are under control!”
To Rainbow Dash, Twilight was still Twilight, but something about that crown she’d been given caused other ponies to look up to her and defer to her authority. A good time for it, at least. Rainbow Dash sidled up to Rarity. “What’d I miss?”
“All of my dresses, ruined!” Rarity sobbed. “My scissors, my sewing machine, they all went mad! Oh Rainbow Dash, the carnage! There were little pieces of fabric everywhere!”
Rainbow Dash didn’t much care for Rarity’s tendency to turn molehills into mountains, but she could sympathize with the loss of a lot of so much valuable stuff that Rarity had no doubt spent months of time on. She gave the unicorn a quick hug and turned her attention back to the podium. Fluttershy had taken it, although she was clearly having trouble getting the courage to take center stage.
“Um, hello, everyone, I’m going to explain to you about the foogles, a species of magical worm that, until today, many ponies thought were mythical.” She ducked down beneath the podium for a moment, then stuck her head up enough to speak, though Rainbow Dash doubted anypony outside of the front row could hear her. “You see, it turns out that Ponyville is located on a leyline, which is a natural flow of natural magic coursing through the wilderness. This explains a lot of the strange goings-on here, such as the zap apples, and of course the magical wildness of the Everfree forest.”
Fluttershy was having trouble continuing, so Twilight stepped up and began to speak as loud as she could, now using a large speech horn provided by Pinkie Pie. “What Fluttershy is saying is that what we all knew already, that Ponyville has its own special magic that makes it unique from everyplace else. But what we didn’t know is that this magic was tempered — consumed, really — by the foogles, a species of magical animal we didn’t even knew existed until today. There was an industrial accident that damaged the foogles habitat, and so until we can be certain they are safe and have returned to consuming the excess magic that flows underneath Ponyville, we must avoid from using magic at all costs.”
A voice spoke up from the crowd. “How long is that going to be? I’ve got orders to fill, and half of my supply closet is running around in the park, hiding under the bushes or climbing the trees.”
Mayor Mare took the stage, borrowing the horn to address the crowd. “We’re not sure, however a team I dispatched to examine the problem has confirmed that many foogles that were in the flooded areas were not submerged or have already resumed their magical consumption. Additionally, Twilight has assured me that those which were submerged are merely dormant, and will resume their active state within the next few days.”
“That doesn’t really help much!” it was a fresh voice from the crowd, this time a young unicorn. “How am I supposed to play with any of my toys that use spark batteries when they’ve turned into caterpillars and are eating up my mom’s garden?”
“We’ve been through worse crises, and a few days without magic might be good for us in the end. We should never rely purely on magic, isn’t that right Princess Twilight?” Mayor Mare handed over the horn and backed up a bit, putting herself out of the public view for the time being.
“Mayor Mare is right, everypony. We will get through this, and I’ve already worked to ensure that the flooding that occurred in the foogle habitat won’t be happening again. But we’re going to need everypony’s help in re-working all the drain pipes while we watch the foogles. It might be as much as a week before it’s safe to use magic again, and I’ve already dispatched a courier to Canterlot, instructing them to send scientists and wizards to help us examine the foogles and ensure we don’t accidentally ruin their habitat again.”
No magic and no flight for a week, huh? How was Rainbow Dash going to get back to her house? What about Tank? Would he have the smarts to fly out an open window, or would he patiently wait for her not to come back? Did she leave him enough water? Enough food? Who was going to hug him and read him bedtime stories and give him turtle snacks?
Fluttershy smiled and walked over to Rainbow Dash, holding up Tank on her hoof. “I know what you’re thinking, Rainbow Dash, and I already had Mr. Owl fly up and inform Tank of what was happening. He even brought your favorite book along with him!”
Rainbow Dash grabbed the book, trying not to show how relieved she was to know her tortoise was safe. “Well, at least I have something to read while I recover. You think Twilight will mind if I crash at the castle for a few days?”
Twilight smiled, the crowd behind her dispersing. “I won’t mind at all, if you don’t mind that all the scientists and wizards will be crashing in the guest hall.”
“Ugh, I can’t fly, and I’m going to be surrounded by an army of eggheads for a whole week?” Rainbow Dash sighed. “Maybe I should go back into those caves for a few days and hang out with the foogles. At least they had my sense of style” She grinned and pushed at her mane with her hoof, only half joking about how uncomfortable she’d be around all those Twilight-clones.
“I think you’d be a lot more comfortable some place with a nice warm bed.” Twilight put her hoof around Rainbow Dash’s shoulder. “You know, you were pretty awesome today, helping Fluttershy discover the foogles, then saving her when things got wet, then rushing over to me to prevent a small disaster from becoming a big one even though you were badly hurt.”
“Well ‘Awesome’ is my middle name.” Dash put a hoof to her chest, grinning. “Rainbow Awesome Dash.”
“I thought it was ‘Responsibility Professionalism’.” Pinkie Pie chimed in. “So is it ‘Rainbow Awesome Responsibility Professionalism Dash’?”
Rainbow Dash yawned, then grabbed tank and his book, heading in the direction of Twilight’s castle. “Actually it’s pronounced ‘Rainbow Needs To Take A Nap’ Dash.” She moved slowly, trying not to make the numbness in her flank any worse.
Pinkie Pie put her hooves to her head, her eyes going wild. “No wonder you never sign your name, that’s a real mouthful! Or hoof full. Or a full inkwell! Or half a dictionary! Or two thirds of a thesaurus! Or...”
Author's Note
Written using the prompt "Ponyville may be a relative new settlement, but the history of the place where it stands is way older and stranger than everypony thinks. Almost everypony..."
I tried to come up with an idea of how a magical ecosystem might work. The "Foogles" come from the concept of tube worms and other such "chemical scavengers" that underpin a biological ecosystem.
And the name comes from the name of the bird that Matt Sloan and his friends were trying to capture when they played the "Toon" RPG on "Rated RPG," which you should all totally watch.