False Heroesby RadicalDishonestyChaptersChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 1Opening my wings, I rocket off of the ground into the blue sky. It’s filled with white clouds, the aftermath of a storm. A few exhausted stormclouds are exactly what I want right now. I aim for a nearby cluster of clouds, holding my wings tight to my body and twisting my trajectory to barely scrape my hoof against a cloud near the edge. There’s a tingling in my hooves, and I feel a tiny jolt as I lightly tap it. I don’t look, but I know there’s a tiny, almost imperceptible spark as I draw the lighting off of it into my hoof. When I clear the cloud I bring my wings up and give them a powerful flap, redirecting myself to a small nearby cloud. I twist to barely scrape my hoof against that cloud, as I release the lighting into the cloud with an audible snap. Twirling in the air, I aim for another nearby cloud, grabbing another tiny lightning spark to fill the central cloud. Like collecting little particles of dust made out of lightning. I chuckle to myself, even though I’ve thought the same thing a hundred times before. I whip through the air, gathering lighting from all the nearby clouds into the central one. I’m finally free, if only for a little, from the wreck my life has become. I land on the cloud, and I can feel the static electricity on my hooves. I shift back and forth, feeling the pleasant tingle. Pegasi can handle a little lightning, usually. I guess some can’t, but I definitely can. I look over the town, the town I grew up in, Fillydelphia. The proper weather team is clearing out the clouds nearer to town, making way for the blue skies scheduled for the afternoon. It’s coming along nicely, too. Of course, from above the clouds like this it’s easy to see the blue sky. One of the weather team I don’t recognize is setting up the rainbow mixture on a cloud for the post-storm show. He flies up high and bodychecks the cloud, the rainbow sprouting from it and spreading across the town. The blue sky and rainbows looked great, as usual. Our rainbow department was always on point. I look away, though. Reminds me too much of a certain blue and rainbow dream wrecker. … I was in. The Wonderbolt Academy was going great. I was even chosen as lead pony, even with a talent like… that mare around, because I was going to push us to ever greater heights. And I did. We were the best the academy had ever seen. I’m talking constant record breaking. My dream… our dreams, probably, were within reach. Until, of course, my wingpony, Rainbow Dash, threw me under the bus. So, we were in a cloud clearing contest, and I get the idea to make a twister. It’d win the contest, set another academy record, impress the brass… it was a hat trick! The perfect plan. We make the twister, and it starts clearing out the clouds, exactly as planned. Until a balloon got in the way. Turns out my wingpony’s pathetic friends couldn’t handle even a week without seeing her, so they fly, through a no fly zone, straight to a military training facility. Anyway, of course, the twister we made hits them, and they all fall to their deaths and now I’m responsible. … No, wait, they didn’t die at all. In fact, none of them were even hurt. They were perfectly fine because the other cadets caught them. No harm, no foul. So apparently, Rainbow Dash bitched to Spitfire about how unacceptable it was that I was in charge, and Spitfire kicks me out of the academy! Spitfire was all behind my actions before that, but now because of some sob story from Rainbow Dash about how much danger her friends were in I’m kicked out. And that’s it. It’s game over. My dreams of being in the Wonderbolts are shot, and probably so are my dreams of stunt flying for anything. That rainbow-maned traitor ruined my career, propped her own up, and is probably laughing it up in whatever podunk town she and her crappy friends live in. It’s not fair. It just isn’t fair! I stamp down hard on the cloud I’m on, and it goes off with a thunderclap. I hear a panicked yelp from somewhere below me. “What the hay was that?!” the voice whines. Great. I am not in the mood for this right now. “Who’s screwing around up the--” A blue and white pegasus swoops up from the ground. I definitely recognize her: Rainy Skies. Probably sent out here to finish clearing the storm clouds outside of the town. “Lightning Dust?” she asks, like she’s surprised to see me. “Yeah, it’s me,” I spit out. She scowls at me. She’s always been kind of kind of a grump. I guess I should play nice, though, so I roll my eyes and say, “Hey, Rainy Skies.” I sigh. “What do you want?” She glares at me. “You shot a lightning bolt at me!” And now I have to set this record straight. “I didn’t shoot a lightning bolt at you, Rainy. I was just screwing around and you happened to be here.” She holds her forehooves out and keeps berating me. “You pull this kind of horseapples all the time.” I try not to grit my teeth. I’ve gotta play this cool. “Look, I was practicing, and I didn’t know anypony would be here.” “Practicing?!” She cackles at me. “For what?! The Academy? I already know how that went.” What. She smiles super smugly at me. How the hell does she already know? Her smile falters as I take off from the cloud and start flying toward her. Who has been spreading this horseapples around? “Uhm… D-Dusty?” she stammers out. Was it Sundrop? Or Cloud Wing? Rainy Days flaps away from me, backing herself up against a cloud. “L-let’s not get carried aw--” “Who?” I growl out at her, an inch away from her muzzle. “SkySoargotanofficialdispatchfromWonderboltHQ,” she spits out in a rush, her eyes squeezed shut and head pressed back up into the cloud. I punch the cloud right next to Rainy Skies’s head. The cloud snaps as the leftover lightning from my punch discharges into it. It’s not enough to really hurt, but Rainy cringes and whimpers pathetically anyway. I push away from the cloud cover and take off full speed towards Fillydelphia. This can’t be happening. I take a quick look for where the sun is in the sky. Still early afternoon. Late enough that Sky Soar is done with lunch and probably back in the office. I angle myself toward downtown. Spitfire sent word to my boss about this? I home in on the weather department’s tower, dodging and weaving through the pegasi in the city. I reach the office building in what is probably record time and blast through the reception room, kicking up tons of paperwork and some more outraged yelps. I bust into Sky Soar’s office, snorting loudly. Sky Soar just looks up from what she’s writing. “Oh, Lightning Dust,” she says, as if me kicking the door open was a normal everyday thing. I only did it once or twice, tops. I snort and glare at her. “What’s the deal with the Academy?” She raises an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you know better than I do?” she says, still frustratingly placid. She frowns at the scowl I give her in response. “Fine,” she says, motioning me to sit down. “Close the door, we need to have this conversation anyway.” I slam the door shut. “It’s closed. What. Happened.” She folds her hooves on the table in front of her in that frustrating ‘I am in control’ way. “Why don’t you start with what happened at the Academy?” “It wasn’t my fault!” I blurt out. She raises an eyebrow. “So… the report that you decided to make a tornado to finish a cloud clearing exercise was inaccurate?” My next outburst catches in my throat. “...I wasn’t the only one to make that twister, you know.” “But you were in charge, yes? Lead pony?” I catch the next scream of outrage in my throat again. “Th-that… I mean it wasn’t my fault there were ponies in the way. Those civilians weren’t supposed to be there at all.” Sky’s eyes grow stern. “Tornadoes are dangerous whether or not civilians are around. Making one, especially making one before you have cleared it with anyone else, is always dangerous.” “It wasn’t that big of a deal!” I finally shout. “Nopony was hurt! I was just pushing myself like the captain asked me to!” “What you did was reckless and thoughtless.” She unfolds her hooves and stands up, walking around her desk. “If this was only one incident, maybe it could be overlooked.” “But--!” “But,” she interrupts. “It wasn’t.” She unfurls her wing and shoves something at me. It’s a manilla folder. What… was she hiding it under her wing since I got here? I unfold it to look at what's inside. I get as far as seeing the paper is pink, though, before slamming it shut and shouting, “You’re firing me!? I didn’t even do this on the job! You can’t fire me over this! I've got rights!” “Which is why I am not firing you. This is a notification of suspension, pending investigation of your conduct. Only after that will we decide if you will remain an employee of the city of Fillydelphia.” “It's basically the same damn thing!” I throw the papers at her, which immediately flutter in different directions, not hitting her at all. She looks at me half-lidded. “Are you done, or do I need to call security?” I snarl at her and about face. Throwing the door open, I extend my wings my wings up full size. “Dust--” Sky starts. I don’t let her finish. Pumping my wings at full power, I blast out of the room, hearing the flutter of all the disturbed papers. I deftly bob and weave through the ponies in the halls, kicking up as much wind as I possibly can, and shoot out the front door. This is a disaster. I trudge down the streets of Fillydelphia. The sun is setting and the streets are filled with ponies, mostly returning from work. Which I won't be doing anytime soon because of the stupid Wonderbolts training camp. If I thought my life was over before, it's definitely over now. They couldn't be set with just ruining my dreams, but they have to ruin my normal crappy job too. Not like I liked it there anyway. So I have decided to crawl into a bottle and hopefully die there. I just wanna be alone, and fortunately, the ponies around me are leaving me alone. That's usually how it goes, here. It's the big city, there are too many ponies here to really care about most of 'em. Maybe it's different for the other species' districts. I have a hard time believing the griffons or dogs go out of their way for each other, though. Not that I mind. Could you imagine how much of a hassle it would be if everyone on the street expected me to help them? Or if right now, when I just wanna go buy some booze, ponies would be trying to get in my business? As I trudge to my favorite liquor store, though, I notice puffs of smoke ahead of me in the city. Probably some poor sap's building on fire. But, aside from going to get drunk, it's not like I'm doin' anything, so I figure I'll go watch. Trotting up to the street I catch a glimpse of the house on fire. It's a two stories tall unmarked building. Probably just some office building for paper pusher types. And, yep, there's smoke pouring out of it, and the front door has orange plumes of fire comin' out of it. I'm not the only one watching, though. There's a good group of ponies gawking already. They seem really into it, too, so I go up to one the mares at the end and nudge her with my hoof-elbow. “Psst, hey. What's going on here?” She turns back with a worried expression on her face. “Somepony's trapped inside the building!” Sure enough, I see a dark shadow pass in front of one of the second story windows. The windows all have big metal bars in front, for some reason. Definitely not getting out that way, and the front door's no good either. Above it, I can see a couple members of the weather team smashing clouds together frantically, trying to get enough water to soak the house. They both get on top of the cloud they made and bounce on it frantically, being rewarded with a light drizzle. It does basically nothing to the fire. After the downpour they put on today, there's just not enough water to put out the flames. So, the building's definitely burning down, and there's somepony stuck inside. Bad day to be on fire. A loud bang hits my ears. There's a second and a third. With a fourth bang, the frame for the window buckles outward. No way, the pony's smashing their way out! Another tremendous bang and the wood of the frame splinters. One final bang and the whole window busts out of it's frame, flying out onto the street. Inside the window frame, alit from the glow of the fire behind it, is a dark black figure. I think it's a mare, but before I can tell much about her she disappears back into the building. The crowd starts muttering to each other in hushed tones. The worried mare beside me says in her best cryptic melodramatic tone, “Could it be her...” I don't bother stopping myself from rolling my eyes. The dark figure reappears in the window, this time larger and more amorphous. It dramatically leaps from the building, sailing through the air. I finally get a good look at it, and it's a mare dressed in a black full-body suit, including a face mask. She's wearing a purple broad brimmed hat, and even her eyes are covered with this bluish film. I think she's got a cape on, but it's hard to tell 'cause she's got a pale blue stallion draped over her back. Am... am I looking at a wannabe super hero? One of the other onlookers cries out, “It's Mare-Do-Well!” Sounds like I am. She hits the ground hard, pretty much immediately buckling and rolling. It's actually a pretty good rolling landing, and she even manages to get her cargo to tumble safely. Might leave them sore in the morning, but overall it's a pretty good roll. Both of them are pretty sooty, but I guess neither are burnt to a crisp, so... she saved that guy's life. I hear the sound of sirens from behind me and see the telltale flashing lights of the policepony's horns. Mare-Do-Well wrenches herself up off the ground, and the ponies start to crowd her, talking about how great she is. She's unstable, but she's shakin' off the fall. One of the ponies from the crowd cries, “Wow, you can still stand? That's amazing,” and I scoff under my breath. I've walked off worse crashes than what she just had. Two stories is nothin' to a well-trained pegasus. But nopony ever told me how tough I was for dropping two measly stories. I coulda done that, easy. Mare-Do-Well says nothing in response, but she nods and starts looking around sorta frantically. One of the crowd of ponies shuffles a bit to the side, and Mare-Do-Well slips through the opening in the crowd, taking off at an impressive pace away from the sirens. “Wait! Stop!” cry the policeponies, one of which breaks into a gallop. Mare-Do-Well turns the corner with the policepony in pursuit, while the other walks up to the stallion rousing himself up off the ground. He seems like a real pince-nez type, glasses and a half-burnt tie, so of course it’s a unicorn. He’s banged up, too, covered in soot and bleeding from his nose. The policemare that stopped helps him up. “Sir, are you okay?” He nods slightly and groans. “Good thing Mare-Do-Well was there to save you, or you'd be burnt to a crisp!” says one of the crowd-ponies. “Hush!” The policemare says. “Please allow him to talk. Sir, could you please tell me what happened here?” The stallion bites his lip. “Well... er...” he hangs his head. “Y-yes... “W-well... you see I was just minding my own business, doing some work in the office when... well, I smelled smoke. Next thing I knew the mare in the black suit busted into my room and threw me over her back.” The crowd broke into appreciative sounds at this. “Sir... I know it's been a rough time for you but... did you see anything that could tell us who was under the mask?” The stallion shakes his head. Grimacing, the policemare takes a step back from the crowd. “Alright... well you ponies stay here, I have to look for my partner.” I watch the policemare trot away, and turn to the crowd. “Sooo... what's the deal with this Mare-Do-Well character?” They all gasp dramatically. One of the mares, a green one, from the crowd pipes up. “How could you not know who Mare-Do-Well is?! Were you living under a rock?” What a bitch. I scowl and say, “Gimme a break, I’ve been outta town.” “For a whole month?” She’s been doing… whatever she’s been doing the whole month? “Look, I was under intense training before I left. I’m sorry I can’t be bothered to keep track of every dumb flash-in-the-pan celebrity.” She gives me this half angry half dubious look. “Oh, I’m sure you were so busy. For what?” “For--” The words catch in my throat. “Look, it’s none of your business what I was doing,” I snap. ”Mare-Do-Well, who is she?” “Sh-she’s a dangerous vigilante,” comes a wavering voice from the crowd. The crowd all gasps, and all part to reveal the stallion that Mare-Do-Well was carrying from before. He looks around at the crowd nervously, who are all glaring at him, before piping up again. “W-what? You’ve all read the articles in the Daily Tribune right? Sh-she’s working outside the law, attacking supposed muggers and su-such.” The green mare glares at him, “How dare you? She saved your life!” He flinched under her glare. “F-f-f-from what?” he said, trembling. “F-f-f-from the fire? I didn’t set the fire. Fires don’t come from nowhere.” He pauses. The crowd is clearly waiting for the obvious accusation, while he’s busy chickening out. I give him a nudge. “Well. Out with it!” He briefly makes eye contact with me, but of course he flinches away. Looking down he says, “Sh-she must have set the fire herself.” Predictably, the crowd erupts into anger. The green mare starts stomping up to the stallion’s face. He cowers down as small as possible as she yells at him. “I can’t believe you! Mare-Do-Well is a hero who’s accomplished more than you ever will!” I grind my teeth hearing those words. “She’s beloved by the people and she’s an inspiration! She’s a hero! You can’t possibly--” I dart in front of her, between her and the cowering stallion. Getting up in her face as much as she got up into his face, I growl out, “Maybe you should learn to accept that your ‘hero’ is a sham.” With her stunned by those words, I continue to press forward. “That all those idiotic childish fantasies of heroism are wrong. That your ‘hero’ never stood for anything that you thought they did.” I start to raise my voice. “That all you thought they were was just a big lie! “Heroes don’t exist. They never did!” I start screaming at her. “And you need to get it through your thick skull that they don’t exist, and it was always some stupid sham and they’ll happily ruin your life once you become inconvenient!” Finished with yelling, I’m huffing up a storm. She’s looking at me with this mixture of fear and… I dunno what else. The rest of the crowd is shuffling uncomfortably. I take another deep breath and shout, “What are you waiting for! Nothin’ to see here! Go home!” The crowd all starts slinking away, the green mare no exception. She takes one final look at me with that expression before turning away. I dunno what she’s thinking, but she’s pissing me off. “Th-thank you,” a voice came from behind me. I whip around, ready to yell at whoever didn’t actually leave, and find the stallion still there, flinching at my movement again. What a wimp. I just snort though. “What are you doin’ here?” “Y-you saved me,” he says as lamely as it sounds. I roll my eyes. “Don’t get any ideas. Didn’t you hear me? Heroes don’t exist.” “W-well, you stopped the crowd from yelling at me. A-and you didn’t get rewarded or anything.” A clipped chuckle escapes my mouth. “Yeah, I guess.” We settle into silence again, and we watch the building in front of us crackle and burn. He was working here for years, huh? Everything he was working towards in the last few years is goin’ up in smoke. I hear a loud snap, and a big puff of smoke and cinder billows out of the windows. Nothing is gonna be salvageable for that building. He sighs wistfully at the building, and I snort. “You’re just gonna sit here and watch it burn?” “What am I supposed to do?” I frown. “I dunno. Yell. Scream and shout. Try to figure out who that Mare Do Well chick is to get revenge. Something! You sittin here all calm is creepin me out.” He gives me this funny look. “Wh-what’s your name?” I purse my lips. “I said not to get any ideas.” Laughing nervously, he holds up his hooves and waves them frantically. “No no n-n-n-n-nooo nono. I didn’t mean anything like that. I just mean… I wanted to know who helped me out.” Rolling my eyes, I decide to indulge him. “It’s Lightning Dust.” “W-well thank you, Lightning Dust. Someone going out of their way for me re-really helps. Especially considering--” he motions to the fire again. I purse my lips together. “Yeah… don’t mention it.” Turning around as fast as I can make casual, I start walking away. Last thing I want is to get caught up in his stuff today. I’ve got my own forgetting to do at the liquor store. Chapter 2The morning sun brings searing pain, lancing through my window to my eyelids with cruel precision. I groan and roll over, grabbing a bottle on my nightstand and lifting it to my throat. None of the blissful liquid pours down it, though. I drop the bottle and grab another, but it too is empty. I finally hazarded cracking my eyes open, only to find every bottle is empty. There won’t be getting away from my hangover. I slump back on the bed, staring up at the very-unwisely placed Wonderbolts poster directly above it. It was the first poster I got, too, at that Equestria Games years and years ago. A filly like me from Fillydelphia never got the chance to see any really amazing stunt teams. This may be one of the biggest cities in Equestria, but as far as the Wonderbolts cared, it might as well be in the boonies. But… well, when my older sister tells me she scored tickets to the Equestria Games, I didn’t really get what a big deal that was. At least until I actually saw them. They swept all the pegasus events, and put on a bonus show. It was the coolest thing ever. I had never seen anything like it, but I knew instantly I wanted to be part of it. And afterward, I made my way to ask the star of the show how I could be as good as he was. And you know what he told me? That I had to work my butt off, to push myself as far as I could go, and someday I might be able to join. To be one of the best. So, when I got home I flapped my heart out, zipping around every chance I got. I flew, and I turned, and I played with the clouds and the lightning, trying out everything I could. But… a poor filly from the boonies didn’t have a lot of chances to learn expert flying. This wasn’t an important city like Manehattan, or a pegasus city like Los Pegasus or Clousdale, so pickin’s were slim… but I made it work. Watched quality flyers. Asked them for pointers. But most importantly I never gave up. I pushed myself every day. I got a job with the weather bureau just so that I could practice while I was working. Do everything as fast as I could. Volunteer for everything. Push myself for everything. That totally destroyed tornado windspeed record? I trained hard and roped a bunch of other pegasi into it too, and made sure nopony was slacking off. Finally caught the eye of the Wonderbolts themselves... And now everything is totally gone, because of that rainbow-maned dream wrecker! I yell and throw the bottle in my hoof across the room, wincing as the shattering of the bottle causes a lance of headache pain. All those years of effort… all my life. All gone. Because I was doing what Spitfire wanted in camp. Would it have killed her to like say ‘hey, back off Lightning Dust’ before throwing me out and blacklisting me. I scoff. Probably. Probably would have hurt her precious reputation to not throw me out like it was 100% my fault. What’s that? Admit fault? Nooo let’s blame the rookie that’s conveniently there! There is a loud rapping at the door and my headache explodes with pain. I yelp in pain and fumble off of my bed onto the floor, causing my headache to throb with the collision. I groan, flumping down in a pile. At least until the second volley of knocks causes my headache to flare up. “Ohhhh my god!” I yell. “I’m coming. Gimme a minute!” I wrench myself up, muttering expletives under my breath and make my way through my messy apartment, made only slightly worse by the liquor bottles strewn around it, to my door. Throwing the door open, I point my hoof accusingly at what I expect to be head height, only to find I’m pointing at some pony’s chest. Following it up I see a tremendous mare, a head taller than me and built like a house. She’s wearing a plain black suit and dark glasses, obscuring whatever expression she has. I stamp my hoof down. “Whaddya want? It’s too early for this.” She purses her lips together. “It’s past lunchtime, Mrs. Dust.” Scowling, I spit out, “Still too early to be woken up with a hangover. What. Do. You. Want.” “Your presence is requested by Dough Roll for a meeting this afternoon,” she says rather mechanically. Who? I groan. “What for?” “To entice you with an opportunity.” I stare up at her. “An ‘opportunity’? Of what type?” “She would rather discuss that with you in person.” Uggh, really? She’s gotta be all cagey with it? I go to slam the door, catching a glimpse of the catastrophe my apartment is right now. Not a place I wanna stay now that I’m out of booze. The last few days really destroyed it. I need to get my mind off… things. I glare back at the mare in the doorway. “I’m hungover.” “So you’ve said, so what?” “So, I need coffee if I’m gonna meet with anypony. And a shower. She so impatient that she can’t wait another half hour?” Her expression doesn’t change. “She could wait, yes.” “Great,” I say, slamming my door and making my way over to the kitchen. I look out over the vista ahead of me as the elevator continues to rise. It’s a really fancy one, with a big glass window looking out over the city. Maybe someone else would be really impressed by being up this high, but I’m a pegasus, so I see this every day at work. Well, used to see it every day at work. That being said, we’re going up really high. I have never been in any of the upper floors of the twin towers of this city. Just how important is this person I’m meeting with? The door dings and the bodyguard steps out, and I follow. It’s the swankiest floor I have ever seen. The tiles are some kind of speckled polished rock, and the walls are amazingly white, with these glowing crystal chandeliers lighting the whole place. I’m led right past the waiting room and receptionist, to this dark wood door, and the bodyguard thumps on the door. There’s a muffled noise from inside I can’t understand, but the bodyguard takes it as permission to enter. Like the rest of the floor, the office is hyper-nice. Plaques on the walls, and a nice big glass wall that opens out to a balcony. Sitting at the table, looking up from her paperwork, is a pudgy cream colored pegasus mare, dressed up with a fancy collar and whatever that fluffy thing is called on her neck. When we come in she breaks into a smile. “Lightning Dust! Just the mare I had hoped to see!” She closes her paperwork into a folder and trots around her desk. Smiling, she offers a hoof out. “I trust that Tough Cookie didn’t catch you at an inopportune time?” I glance back at Tough Cookie who doesn’t make any expressions. It kinda was an ‘inopportune’ time but… “Nah… it was alright.” I reach out to her and she excitedly grabs my hoof, shaking it with hers. It’s a surprisingly solid grip. “Wonderful!” She trots back out to behind her desk. “Please take a seat.” I sit down at the desk across from her. “So… what do you want?” She plops down in her seat. “I’m glad you asked! I am Dough Roll, and let me first tell you what an honor it is to meet you.” I roll my eyes at her obvious buttering me up. She rolls her eyes too, but there’s a smile on her face. “Don’t give me that,” she says with that same smile on her face. “You’ve accomplished a lot in this town!” I scoff. Sure I did. She raises an eyebrow with a smirk on her face. “Well, you’re the fastest pony on the weather team-probably the fastest in the whole city, and your cloudclearing times are record-breaking.” I guess... “But, quite possibly most importantly, we have the tornado wing power record because of you. You were the one that pushed everyone to even try for the record in the first place!” Well… it’s not like I wasn’t responsible for it. I was the one kicking everyone’s asses, making sure nopony slacked… not like I got a lotta credit for it around work, though. Once we got the record itself, everypony else was pattin’ each other on the back, and all they remembered was how I had to yell at em once or twice to keep them going. Good to see somepony noticed. “I can tell you,” she said, flapping her wings out. “That was putting us on the map! It’s been a long time since ponies were abuzz about how the pegasi of Fillydelphia were doing great things. I was rootin’ you on the whole time.” I can feel a smile creeping onto my face. She sits back down. “Of course… all that recently came to a halt.” And my smile is gone. “It only took a couple of days for that to spread, huh?” She smiled an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid everyone who’s everyone knows about the blacklisting, Lightning Dust, especially with the way you stormed out of your place of work.” I curse under my breath. Just fuckin’ perfect. “I think it’s a huge injustice. Right after your dreams were dashed--” “Don’t you think I know that already!” I shout and slam my hooves on her table. I am suddenly aware of a presence behind me. Whipping my head around I saw Tough Cookie looming over me. “Calm down, Cookie,” Dough Roll says. “Lightning Dust is understandably angry about this.” She raps her hoof on her desk lightly. “She’s not gonna break this baby by slamming her hooves anyway.” Cookie’s lips purse, and she steps back into the corner of the office. I give her a smirk and sit back down in my seat. “As I was saying,” she continues, “this is an injustice… but not one that you cannot recover from.” I raise my eyebrow. “You are a tough go-getter, Lightning Dust. You push yourself and you push everypony around you to even higher heights. But--” she fluffed up her wings “--this ruffles feathers.They see you pressing forward, but they only pay attention when you have a misstep, when you stumble.” She smiles at me. “The Wonderbolts and the team have the wrong idea, Lightning Dust. They’ve decided that you’re not on the side of law and order… that you’re too reckless.” “Great, you love me, but what’s your point?” She looks me directly in the eye. “I know what you can do to prove to them you deserve to be trusted. To show them they’re wrong about you.” I… really? … I could get back my dreams? I try to speak but my mouth is dry. I manage out, “S-so what is it?” Her visage darkens. “In the past few weeks, there has been an individual troubling the Fillydelphia PD, as well as business ponies like myself. She runs around, attacking our businesses, wearing a mask.” What? No way she could be talking about-- “And the ponies of the city have been calling her,” she scoffs under her breath. “Mare-Do-Well.” She is. “And I want you to catch her and expose her identity to the police.” I spend what feels like a full minute staring at her dumbfounded. She waves her forehooves in front of her in a panic. “Now… now if you’ve heard of her I’m going to have to explain myself! She puts on a really impressive show for the populace, and they think the world of her, but in reality she--” I shake my head to break the spell. “Attacks ponies in their offices and burn them down, right?” She rears back in shock. “You… you already know?” I smirk. “Yeah, I saw it in action just a couple nights ago. She was escaping a burning building that she set on fire herself. She carried out the pony that was working there, so the townsponies thought she was the good guy, but she really attacked him and set his building on fire.” “Yes!” she shouts and slams her hooves on the table. “That’s what she does! She masks her criminal actions with ‘good intentions’. She’ll sabotage a business but make sure everypony gets out safely and the populace eats it up like she was rescuing them.” I snarl. “And she does it pretending to be a hero.” She nods, her face becoming serious. “That she does. She’s a serious problem.” I slump back into my seat. “And everypony is convinced, huh? I don’t see why catching her would do it.” She looks down at her desk and pats some papers. “Well, I already have evidence against her… but without knowing who she is, it’s all useless. Without an actual criminal, the police can’t make any arrests, and they aren’t up to the task of actually catching her in the act.” She looks back up at me. “But you can catch her. You’re fast, faster than any police officer by far. You’re tough, because you have to be to earn the Wonderbolts’ eye.” She gives me a wicked look. “And, maybe most importantly, you’re tenacious. You know the things worth doing won’t just fall into your lap like the lazy police force we have. You know that to do what needs to be done you have to work hard.” She looks into my eye with a challenging glare. “You may be the only pony who has a hope of catching Mare-Do-Well. And by doing so you’ll prove, once and for all, to the police, to the weather department, and to the Wonderbolts that they were wrong about you.” Yeah… yeah! I could show all those so-called heroes just how wrong they are about me. That they don’t know the first thing about me and that I deserve to be up on top. Not that traitor Rainbow Dash. I slam my hooves on the desk again. “I’ll do it! I’ll find Mare-Do-Well and show everypony what a fraud she really is!” She bangs on the desk herself. “That’s what I like to hear!” Grinning, I sit back in my chair. “So, you got any idea where to start?” Author's Note It's chapter two! Because I already had it written! I have a third chapter, but it's still under the knife. So, with this story, I'm trying to... actually keep momentum going, and not plan too far ahead. I have many ideas for the future... but I'm not sure what I want at the moment, and I need to focus on keeping it interesting in the now as well. So I'm trying winging it a bit more. As part of it, I am not going to force my chapters are all the same length and such. I won't force myself to add more detail to a scene if I am not feeling it. A mistake? Maybe, but I'm giving it a go! Chapter 3I groan to myself as I circle around the city for what’s gotta be the dozenth time just today. “Oh, we’ve got all these great leads,” I say to myself. “Just look at this huge list of places she’s been seen at that encompasses about half the damn city! I’m sure all you’ll need to do is look around a bit and you’ll find her!” And even though it’s the dozenth time today, it’s gotta be the hundredth time this week! See, in order to actually find her I have to basically patrol all the time. I swear this is worse than weatherpony work, because at least at work I know when I’m gonna be done and get breaks. But here, if I take breaks… what if she shows up right then? Best keep going, then. The worst part is reading the paper, because almost every day there’s another report about her being spotted or about her saving somepony. The problem isn’t that she isn’t doing her thing, it’s that I’m not there when she does, and she’s always gone when I get there. I missed her by five minutes a few days ago, when there was a collapsing crane. But the worst part is that it’s really boring. I’ve been doing nothing but flying around all day! It’s easy to watch out for danger, and it’s easy to lazily fly around all day, so I’ve basically got nothing to do. Flying up into the clouds, I flump down on one. This sucks. But the worst part is that I just know that traitor is living it up right now. I bet she’s shmoozing with the Wonderbolts, talking about the latest stunts. Getting awards or breaking records. She might already be a Wonderbolt. We were almost in just during the academy! The best ever seen! And I bet they’re just sooo impressed by how she can backstab her partner, too! That scheming mare got exactly what she wanted! I slam my hoof into the cloud, which breaks it underneath me. I sigh and let myself fall for a second before I open my wings and pirouette into my patrol again. I’ll be damned if I let her get away with doing this to me… and the only way forward now is catching Mare Do Well. Back to work. Fortunately, it doesn’t take too long before I see something of interest. Smoke, to be specific. And where there’s smoke, there’s Mare-Do-Well! I dash at the downtown area, and there’s a big apartment building, five stories tall, and it’s got a lot of smoke billowing out from the building, but no obvious flames. It’s definitely on fire, and Mare Do Well will definitely be here, taking her chance to show off. I take a vantage point on a cloud and watch. Just a few minutes later, I hear a shout from the other side of the building: “It’s Mare-Do-Well!” I speed around to the other side, ready to pounce, but… when I catch sight of her, I don’t just see her, I see the whole crowd watching her. Idolizing her. If I pounce on her now, the crowd would be on her side... So I watch her as she vaults up a fire escape and finds a window. Giving it a quick buck, she shatters it and climbs into the building. A few minutes later, a different window is broken outward and a smoke billows out as several ponies scramble onto the fire escape. This continues three or four times. It’s not even exciting saving. Occasionally Mare Do Well even leaves the building, going to another level on the fire escape. There are no obvious fires, and it’s just ponies leaving. This is easy stuff, and Mare Do Well is just lapping up free publicity. I doubt she’s even in danger in there. But, as one of the ponies is trying to leave, there’s a crashing sound from inside the building and a flare of fire bursts out of the window. Finally, something good. But almost as soon as the fire bursts out of the window, a jet of water hits it, from the fireponies on the ground. In fact, several fireponies enter the building, and some other weatherponies start pushing filled clouds around. Looks like the fireponies have it under control… and Mare Do Well appears on a fire escape close to another apartment, and leaps to it. She climbs up on the top of it, watching them work like I’ve been watching her work. She nods and turns around, hopping off the building. Right down into the back alley ways where nopony else can see her. Showtime. I dart down to the alley in pursuit. At first she is dashing down the alleys. She’s not hard to keep track of, I’m much faster than she is… but I’m biding my time. Pretty soon she slows down, though, believing she is safe. As soon as she gets to a long and straight alley, I dart ahead of her. Twisting around I slam down in front of her, four hooves on the ground and facing her. “Mare Do Well!” I shout, splaying my wings out intimidatingly. She immediately lowers into a ready stance. I smirk because I know she’s nervous. “You’ve been playing the goody two shoes today pretty well. But I know what you’re really like.” I step closer. Her eyes narrow and she steps back. My smirk breaks into a wicked toothy grin. “I know that this heroism is all a charade, and what a liar you really are, playing up the hero game so people won’t notice what you’re doing. And I’m here to stop you.” She tenses up, ready to spring…but I don’t let her get anywhere before I strike. With a blast of wing power, I fly straight forward, swinging my left hoof straight at her head. Except she ducks even lower than she was before, sliding underneath me. Her withers slam into my chest, and she pushes straight up, knocking the wind out of me. The world upends as she flips me over her. My back slams into the wall behind her, and I slide down, landing on my head. Ow. But this is nothing, just a minor spill. I crack my eyes open and she’s taking off. Like hell she’ll get away, though. I right myself with the trained grace of a professional flyer who won’t be taken out by a minor spill, and launch myself after her. Almost right before I reach her, though, she looks back to check. I swing my hoof for her head, but she hops to the right and I whiff. As I pass I lash out with a rear hoof and it connects with her barrel, but I can tell it’s not a good hit. I splay my wings out, right then left, sliding on the ground and spinning around in front of her to face her again. “You’re not getting away!” I announce, and launch myself at her again. I rear back my forehoof like I’m about to punch, but instead of following through like the last two times, I unfold my wings to come to a stop and rear back so I can lash out at her with my hindlegs from the air. I smack her in the head and on her withers. She stumbles back a bit, shaking her head. Landing, I press my advantage and come in with a left punch at her head. Her hoof comes up, smacking mine away, and her other hoof strikes at my exposed shoulder. I swing my other hoof at her, landing a solid blow on her exposed barrel. I swing with my other hoof, hitting a hoofful of cloak. And then, outta nowhere, her hoof slams into the side of my head at full force. I yelp in pain, and take a wild swing at her, which she backs out of and leaps up into the air, slamming her hindlegs into my breast. I stumble back, my vision blurry as a purple and black blob lands vaguely into a standing pony shape. I growl to myself. She took my move! I take another step forward and swing wildly at her, which she catches and yanks towards herself. This time I stumble forward, and she rolls backward, flipping me over her with her hind legs. Once more I slam into a wall, and I slide down the wall. Everything goes dark, though, as my head gets stuffed into something smelly. I try to unfurl my wings to find that they’re pressed up against some piece of debris. I try to get leverage with my forelimbs but only manage to sink deeper into the can. Damn that mare. By the time I wiggle myself out of the trash, Mare Do Well is nowhere to be found. I kick the trash can that I’d been in. Ugh! I spent a whole damn week waiting for that fight, and she just stuffs me in a trash can. I coulda had her if it weren’t for all her judo crap, too. Except for that punch to the face. And the backflip kick. … I need a better plan. I open my wings to take off and get a whiff of what I’ve just been dunked in. But before that, I need a damn shower. Chapter 4I impatiently tap my hooves on the floor rhythmically, listening to the clear echoes from the stone floors. The receptionist gives me the stink eye, like she wants to tell me to stop, but she doesn’t say anything. Well tough, I don’t wanna be here, so you get to listen to my hooftaps. I guess I could have just not come but… it’s the first meeting with Dough Roll since she told me she’d be able to help. I’m pretty sure if I stopped coming she’d stop helping. So here I am, even though I don’t wanna be. The receptionist clears her throat, and I give her a glare. “Miss Roll will see you now,” she says. I stand up and plod into her office. She’s sitting at her desk, writing something, and Tough Cookie is lurking in the corner. “Good morning, Miss Dust,” she says, “I hope you’ve been--” She looks up, and gasps. “My goodness, what happened to your face?” I scowl. There was basically no chance that she wouldn’t notice the black eye I got from the fight first. “I finally caught up with Mare Do Well.” “And what happened?” she said. I scowl harder and glare at her. She can’t be this dense. Whatever. I look away from the two of them. “I had her on the ropes but she got away,” I mumble. Tough Cookie steps into my view. “And how did she get away?” Shit. I need a good answer for this. … Okay. Got it. “Well,” I say, gesturing with my hooves. “See, I ambushed her in this alley after she was doing her fake hero thing at a fire--” Start with the truth. “-- But she was a better fighter than I thought --” Set up expectations. “-- And I hit her with my famous one-two punch.” I mime punching in the air. “And I had her on the ropes!” Then fudge juuust a little. “But then, outta nowhere, I get knocked into the wall and the roof collapses on me! When I crawled out she was gone.” “Bullcrap” Tough Cookie says, almost as soon as I’m done. “Wh-what?” Shit, I stumbled. Gotta recover. “That’s what happened.” “You’re a terrible liar,” she says and crosses her forelegs. “What really happened?” “That’s what really happened!” I poke her in the chest. “You can’t prove otherwise.” Tough Cookie starts to scowl and Dough Roll loudly cleares her throat. She stares directly at me, and rotates her wrist as if to say ‘come on’. Crap. I’m not getting away with this, am I? I look away again and mumble, “She kicked my flank and dumped me in a garbage can.” “She doesn’t know how to fight.” Cookie snorts at me. “She’s weak.” “I’m not weak! I do so know how to fight!” I retort back. “But you’re not as good as Mare Do Well,” Dough Roll interjects. Tough Cookie and I look to her. “If I’m guessing right… You’re a professional athlete, so you’re naturally good at moving and in great shape, but you don’t know the finer points of how to actually fight.” I… guess that makes sense. I mean I’ve been in fights before but… I haven’t like taken Karate or anything. “She’s a rank amateur,” Tough Cookie says. You don’t have to rub it in. Bitch. “We don’t know how good she is,” Dough Roll says. “And that’s why I want you to figure out how good she is.” What. “What?” Tough Cookie nearly yells, echoing my thoughts. “And then once you’re done with that, I need you to train her.” “What?!” Tough Cookie actually yells. Dough Roll smiles and waves her hoof. “I know you’re more than up to the task of training. You’ve trained several other bodyguards in your day. Lightning Dust will be no different.” Shutting her mouth, Cookie turns her head back to me, and I can feel her glare through the heavy sunglasses. “And the sooner the better, so I want you to meet her at the warehouse tonight.” Cookie’s mouth purses and she marches out, saying, “I’m taking my break,” as a parting word. What is her problem? “Don’t worry about her,” Dough Roll says, like she could read my thoughts. “Just pay attention when she teaches and get better, and you’ll impress her.” Turns out the warehouse is really boring. I thought, given how posh Dough Roll’s office was, this would be a pretty neat place… but it’s just a warehouse. Sacks of flour and sugar. Shelves with cans and unlabeled boxes. Some crates off in a corner. Smack dab in the middle of a bunch of other warehouses. I put my elbow on the pony-sized flour sack I’m leaning on, and rest my head on my hoof, groaning in boredom. One of the guards turns his head to watch me. Again. It’s just a groan! Ugh, and they gave me the third degree when I showed up, too. Like they couldn’t believe that Tough Cookie asked for me. I bet she told them I was coming and told em to give me a hard time. Fortunately, finally the drab blue mare I was waiting for walks through the door. “Hey, Tough Cookie,” I call to her, “Can you get these guys off my back?” I gesture to the two guards. She nods at the two of them. “She’s with me tonight. Go patrol the perimeter, I don’t want any interruptions.” The two of the guys both march out of the room, and Tough Cookie turns to me. “Alright let’s get started.” “Hi to you too,” I snark. She stares at me through her dark sunglasses, which she was still wearing, even though it’s nighttime. “Anyway,” she says. “We’re still getting started.” She walks over to an empty space in the warehouse. “Attack me as best you can.” “I… what? Aren’t you gonna like… teach me to punch or something?” “Drills will come later. I need to know what I’m working with, so you need to attack me.” “So what just… punch you?” “If you want to, yes.” That’s… weird. But it’s also kinda this… martial arts master stuff. Testing the student and all. Fine. I crack my hoof. “Alright, I’ll give you my best.” Time to impress. I dash in and throw a punch, full force, straight at her face. Her forehoof comes up and bats away my hoof as her other hoof slams into my chest. As I reel back from the punch, she charges at me, checking me with her shoulder. I’m forced up off my forehooves, and she grabs my free hoof with hers, twisting me the opposite direction, forcing me down with her body weight. In less than two seconds she had me on to the ground, one hoof pinned under my body and the other twisted up against my wing. I grunt loudly as I try to put force into my pinned or twisted hooves, and she tightens her grip. A lance of pain goes through my twisted arm. “Ow ow ow ouch!” I say. “Sweet Celestia I get it, you win.” She lightens up and releases my twisted arm. Stepping back she looks me over. “You hurt?” Tch. As if. “No,” I spit and wrench myself up, rubbing my shoulder. “I’m fine.” “Good,” she replies. “Try it again. Be less obvious this time.” I grimace. Less obvious, she says. I stretch my shoulder back and forth a bit and only feel a dull soreness, which is good. I lower myself into a fight ready stance, and she does the same. Darting at her, I throw a shallow punch at her head, waiting for her to try to bat it away like before. But she takes a long step back instead. Oh this time she’s playing keepaway? I do it again, and she backs up again. I throw a series of punches, each trying to bait her into countering, but she keeps backing up. Dammit. Okay, so she can tell I’m not committing? I smirk to myself. Too bad she’s gonna run out of room very soon, with the wall only a few feet behind her. Nowhere to run anymore. I pressure her back with another flurry of punches. As soon as I see her jolt from realizing she’s hit the wall I take that instant to throw my first real punch, a hook straight at her foreleg, which connects with a dull thud. Celestia, what is this mare made of? I start to swing at her with my other foreleg and she comes forward, grabbing my bicep, stopping my punch in it’s tracks. Her other hoof flies up to my neck, and she shouts, “Hold!” I start moving forward, but then she presses her hoof against my neck harder, and I can feel the air being cut off. “Back off,” she orders, less fiercely. Hmph. I do as she says, flapping my wings to get some distance. She walks back into the center of the open space of the room, and I follow. “Okay. Again.” What, still more? Fine, I’ve got one advantage that she definitely doesn’t. I unfurl my wings and take to the air, slowly circling around her. We’re cramped in so I don’t have a lot of options. No room for any serious maneuvers, but I can still get the high ground where she cannot, and I can still move faster than she can. I flap hard and swoop down on her, taking a swing at her head. She ducks and rolls away. Good, finally was able to do a real attack without her immediately countering. I swoop around and do it again, coming in with more speed and taking a swing at her abdomen, but she rolls away again. The wall comes at me very fast, and I have to do my best stop, and even though I angle myself right I still come into the wall pretty hard, bracing myself against it with my hooves. Okay, so more speed really is impossible here. I come in less hard for the third time, but instead of attacking I pirouette and take to the air above her, striking at her with my rear hooves. I clip her shoulder once, and retreat to above her, taking a couple bobbing jabs at her, which she bats away, but can’t counterattack because I get away too quickly. But on my last bobbing jab, instead of batting my hoof away, she grabs it with hers, yanking me down. Her other hoof comes up as I come down, landing a painful uppercut in my gut, knocking the wind outta me. I feel my wings go stiff from the shock, and she pulls me down the rest of the way, wrestling me to the ground and pinning my head down with her hoof. I flail my limbs a little, but even though she hasn’t twisted my legs or anything, I can’t get purchase on anything. The pressure on my back lets up as she gets off of me. She steps back and actually offers me a hoof, which I stare at suspiciously. I take it anyway and she pulls me up. “You’re not hurt?” she asks again. “I’m fine,” I spit out… before rotating my shoulders again to confirm that yes, I am actually okay. She nods. “Good. I think I have a good idea of how good you are. Or more like how good you aren’t.” I glare at her. “What? I was totally doing good.” She gives me this look. “No, you weren’t, and I was going easy on you.” “What?! You’re saying you were just playing around?!” “No, I’m saying that if I was striking to injure you you’d have a collapsed trachea right now, and maybe some broken bones.” I pause. “So, if you were actually trying to hurt me...” “I would have punched you, instead of just choked you, and I would have followed through when I pulled you to the ground. I was trying to limit myself to takedowns.” I frown. “You didn’t tell me to only use takedowns…” She turns away from me walking away. “I doubted you’d be able to hurt me, and might actually hurt yourself more by trying to wrestle with me wrong.” I grind my teeth. So what was this? Just an exercise in humiliating me?! She grabs a sack of flour and slings it over her back, then continues. “Your second time was your best. You did a good job on pushing me into the corner and using it to create an opening for yourself. You are able to keep up fierce attacks and that’s good.” Just who does she think she---Wait. Did she just give me a compliment? “But you got fancy on the third time”-- She plops the sack up against a crate --”and you clearly don't know how to take advantage of being in the air, and the cramped room is hardly a good place for swooping.” That’s exactly what I thought! “And in all three attempts it’s clear your defense is practically nonexistent”--She lashes the top of the flour sack to the crate, setting it upright --”every single time I tried to attack I connected, and I know how to follow up properly so each time I hit you the fight ended. You didn’t redirect or block or even dodge.” I scowl. Back to the direct insults, I see. “Anyway--” she finally turns back to me “-- are you good to go, or did that beating take too much out of you?” “I’m fine,” I spit out. “Let’s keep going..” Like I’m gonna show her the satisfaction of giving up after just a couple bruises. I swear I see her smirk for a moment. “Good. We’ll start with drills, then.” Author's Note A new chapter! One of the things I want to do with this story is write action. I already had the one scene with Lightning Dust being beaten up, so hopefully these three other times are also pleasant.
Chapter 1Opening my wings, I rocket off of the ground into the blue sky. It’s filled with white clouds, the aftermath of a storm. A few exhausted stormclouds are exactly what I want right now. I aim for a nearby cluster of clouds, holding my wings tight to my body and twisting my trajectory to barely scrape my hoof against a cloud near the edge. There’s a tingling in my hooves, and I feel a tiny jolt as I lightly tap it. I don’t look, but I know there’s a tiny, almost imperceptible spark as I draw the lighting off of it into my hoof. When I clear the cloud I bring my wings up and give them a powerful flap, redirecting myself to a small nearby cloud. I twist to barely scrape my hoof against that cloud, as I release the lighting into the cloud with an audible snap. Twirling in the air, I aim for another nearby cloud, grabbing another tiny lightning spark to fill the central cloud. Like collecting little particles of dust made out of lightning. I chuckle to myself, even though I’ve thought the same thing a hundred times before. I whip through the air, gathering lighting from all the nearby clouds into the central one. I’m finally free, if only for a little, from the wreck my life has become. I land on the cloud, and I can feel the static electricity on my hooves. I shift back and forth, feeling the pleasant tingle. Pegasi can handle a little lightning, usually. I guess some can’t, but I definitely can. I look over the town, the town I grew up in, Fillydelphia. The proper weather team is clearing out the clouds nearer to town, making way for the blue skies scheduled for the afternoon. It’s coming along nicely, too. Of course, from above the clouds like this it’s easy to see the blue sky. One of the weather team I don’t recognize is setting up the rainbow mixture on a cloud for the post-storm show. He flies up high and bodychecks the cloud, the rainbow sprouting from it and spreading across the town. The blue sky and rainbows looked great, as usual. Our rainbow department was always on point. I look away, though. Reminds me too much of a certain blue and rainbow dream wrecker. … I was in. The Wonderbolt Academy was going great. I was even chosen as lead pony, even with a talent like… that mare around, because I was going to push us to ever greater heights. And I did. We were the best the academy had ever seen. I’m talking constant record breaking. My dream… our dreams, probably, were within reach. Until, of course, my wingpony, Rainbow Dash, threw me under the bus. So, we were in a cloud clearing contest, and I get the idea to make a twister. It’d win the contest, set another academy record, impress the brass… it was a hat trick! The perfect plan. We make the twister, and it starts clearing out the clouds, exactly as planned. Until a balloon got in the way. Turns out my wingpony’s pathetic friends couldn’t handle even a week without seeing her, so they fly, through a no fly zone, straight to a military training facility. Anyway, of course, the twister we made hits them, and they all fall to their deaths and now I’m responsible. … No, wait, they didn’t die at all. In fact, none of them were even hurt. They were perfectly fine because the other cadets caught them. No harm, no foul. So apparently, Rainbow Dash bitched to Spitfire about how unacceptable it was that I was in charge, and Spitfire kicks me out of the academy! Spitfire was all behind my actions before that, but now because of some sob story from Rainbow Dash about how much danger her friends were in I’m kicked out. And that’s it. It’s game over. My dreams of being in the Wonderbolts are shot, and probably so are my dreams of stunt flying for anything. That rainbow-maned traitor ruined my career, propped her own up, and is probably laughing it up in whatever podunk town she and her crappy friends live in. It’s not fair. It just isn’t fair! I stamp down hard on the cloud I’m on, and it goes off with a thunderclap. I hear a panicked yelp from somewhere below me. “What the hay was that?!” the voice whines. Great. I am not in the mood for this right now. “Who’s screwing around up the--” A blue and white pegasus swoops up from the ground. I definitely recognize her: Rainy Skies. Probably sent out here to finish clearing the storm clouds outside of the town. “Lightning Dust?” she asks, like she’s surprised to see me. “Yeah, it’s me,” I spit out. She scowls at me. She’s always been kind of kind of a grump. I guess I should play nice, though, so I roll my eyes and say, “Hey, Rainy Skies.” I sigh. “What do you want?” She glares at me. “You shot a lightning bolt at me!” And now I have to set this record straight. “I didn’t shoot a lightning bolt at you, Rainy. I was just screwing around and you happened to be here.” She holds her forehooves out and keeps berating me. “You pull this kind of horseapples all the time.” I try not to grit my teeth. I’ve gotta play this cool. “Look, I was practicing, and I didn’t know anypony would be here.” “Practicing?!” She cackles at me. “For what?! The Academy? I already know how that went.” What. She smiles super smugly at me. How the hell does she already know? Her smile falters as I take off from the cloud and start flying toward her. Who has been spreading this horseapples around? “Uhm… D-Dusty?” she stammers out. Was it Sundrop? Or Cloud Wing? Rainy Days flaps away from me, backing herself up against a cloud. “L-let’s not get carried aw--” “Who?” I growl out at her, an inch away from her muzzle. “SkySoargotanofficialdispatchfromWonderboltHQ,” she spits out in a rush, her eyes squeezed shut and head pressed back up into the cloud. I punch the cloud right next to Rainy Skies’s head. The cloud snaps as the leftover lightning from my punch discharges into it. It’s not enough to really hurt, but Rainy cringes and whimpers pathetically anyway. I push away from the cloud cover and take off full speed towards Fillydelphia. This can’t be happening. I take a quick look for where the sun is in the sky. Still early afternoon. Late enough that Sky Soar is done with lunch and probably back in the office. I angle myself toward downtown. Spitfire sent word to my boss about this? I home in on the weather department’s tower, dodging and weaving through the pegasi in the city. I reach the office building in what is probably record time and blast through the reception room, kicking up tons of paperwork and some more outraged yelps. I bust into Sky Soar’s office, snorting loudly. Sky Soar just looks up from what she’s writing. “Oh, Lightning Dust,” she says, as if me kicking the door open was a normal everyday thing. I only did it once or twice, tops. I snort and glare at her. “What’s the deal with the Academy?” She raises an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you know better than I do?” she says, still frustratingly placid. She frowns at the scowl I give her in response. “Fine,” she says, motioning me to sit down. “Close the door, we need to have this conversation anyway.” I slam the door shut. “It’s closed. What. Happened.” She folds her hooves on the table in front of her in that frustrating ‘I am in control’ way. “Why don’t you start with what happened at the Academy?” “It wasn’t my fault!” I blurt out. She raises an eyebrow. “So… the report that you decided to make a tornado to finish a cloud clearing exercise was inaccurate?” My next outburst catches in my throat. “...I wasn’t the only one to make that twister, you know.” “But you were in charge, yes? Lead pony?” I catch the next scream of outrage in my throat again. “Th-that… I mean it wasn’t my fault there were ponies in the way. Those civilians weren’t supposed to be there at all.” Sky’s eyes grow stern. “Tornadoes are dangerous whether or not civilians are around. Making one, especially making one before you have cleared it with anyone else, is always dangerous.” “It wasn’t that big of a deal!” I finally shout. “Nopony was hurt! I was just pushing myself like the captain asked me to!” “What you did was reckless and thoughtless.” She unfolds her hooves and stands up, walking around her desk. “If this was only one incident, maybe it could be overlooked.” “But--!” “But,” she interrupts. “It wasn’t.” She unfurls her wing and shoves something at me. It’s a manilla folder. What… was she hiding it under her wing since I got here? I unfold it to look at what's inside. I get as far as seeing the paper is pink, though, before slamming it shut and shouting, “You’re firing me!? I didn’t even do this on the job! You can’t fire me over this! I've got rights!” “Which is why I am not firing you. This is a notification of suspension, pending investigation of your conduct. Only after that will we decide if you will remain an employee of the city of Fillydelphia.” “It's basically the same damn thing!” I throw the papers at her, which immediately flutter in different directions, not hitting her at all. She looks at me half-lidded. “Are you done, or do I need to call security?” I snarl at her and about face. Throwing the door open, I extend my wings my wings up full size. “Dust--” Sky starts. I don’t let her finish. Pumping my wings at full power, I blast out of the room, hearing the flutter of all the disturbed papers. I deftly bob and weave through the ponies in the halls, kicking up as much wind as I possibly can, and shoot out the front door. This is a disaster. I trudge down the streets of Fillydelphia. The sun is setting and the streets are filled with ponies, mostly returning from work. Which I won't be doing anytime soon because of the stupid Wonderbolts training camp. If I thought my life was over before, it's definitely over now. They couldn't be set with just ruining my dreams, but they have to ruin my normal crappy job too. Not like I liked it there anyway. So I have decided to crawl into a bottle and hopefully die there. I just wanna be alone, and fortunately, the ponies around me are leaving me alone. That's usually how it goes, here. It's the big city, there are too many ponies here to really care about most of 'em. Maybe it's different for the other species' districts. I have a hard time believing the griffons or dogs go out of their way for each other, though. Not that I mind. Could you imagine how much of a hassle it would be if everyone on the street expected me to help them? Or if right now, when I just wanna go buy some booze, ponies would be trying to get in my business? As I trudge to my favorite liquor store, though, I notice puffs of smoke ahead of me in the city. Probably some poor sap's building on fire. But, aside from going to get drunk, it's not like I'm doin' anything, so I figure I'll go watch. Trotting up to the street I catch a glimpse of the house on fire. It's a two stories tall unmarked building. Probably just some office building for paper pusher types. And, yep, there's smoke pouring out of it, and the front door has orange plumes of fire comin' out of it. I'm not the only one watching, though. There's a good group of ponies gawking already. They seem really into it, too, so I go up to one the mares at the end and nudge her with my hoof-elbow. “Psst, hey. What's going on here?” She turns back with a worried expression on her face. “Somepony's trapped inside the building!” Sure enough, I see a dark shadow pass in front of one of the second story windows. The windows all have big metal bars in front, for some reason. Definitely not getting out that way, and the front door's no good either. Above it, I can see a couple members of the weather team smashing clouds together frantically, trying to get enough water to soak the house. They both get on top of the cloud they made and bounce on it frantically, being rewarded with a light drizzle. It does basically nothing to the fire. After the downpour they put on today, there's just not enough water to put out the flames. So, the building's definitely burning down, and there's somepony stuck inside. Bad day to be on fire. A loud bang hits my ears. There's a second and a third. With a fourth bang, the frame for the window buckles outward. No way, the pony's smashing their way out! Another tremendous bang and the wood of the frame splinters. One final bang and the whole window busts out of it's frame, flying out onto the street. Inside the window frame, alit from the glow of the fire behind it, is a dark black figure. I think it's a mare, but before I can tell much about her she disappears back into the building. The crowd starts muttering to each other in hushed tones. The worried mare beside me says in her best cryptic melodramatic tone, “Could it be her...” I don't bother stopping myself from rolling my eyes. The dark figure reappears in the window, this time larger and more amorphous. It dramatically leaps from the building, sailing through the air. I finally get a good look at it, and it's a mare dressed in a black full-body suit, including a face mask. She's wearing a purple broad brimmed hat, and even her eyes are covered with this bluish film. I think she's got a cape on, but it's hard to tell 'cause she's got a pale blue stallion draped over her back. Am... am I looking at a wannabe super hero? One of the other onlookers cries out, “It's Mare-Do-Well!” Sounds like I am. She hits the ground hard, pretty much immediately buckling and rolling. It's actually a pretty good rolling landing, and she even manages to get her cargo to tumble safely. Might leave them sore in the morning, but overall it's a pretty good roll. Both of them are pretty sooty, but I guess neither are burnt to a crisp, so... she saved that guy's life. I hear the sound of sirens from behind me and see the telltale flashing lights of the policepony's horns. Mare-Do-Well wrenches herself up off the ground, and the ponies start to crowd her, talking about how great she is. She's unstable, but she's shakin' off the fall. One of the ponies from the crowd cries, “Wow, you can still stand? That's amazing,” and I scoff under my breath. I've walked off worse crashes than what she just had. Two stories is nothin' to a well-trained pegasus. But nopony ever told me how tough I was for dropping two measly stories. I coulda done that, easy. Mare-Do-Well says nothing in response, but she nods and starts looking around sorta frantically. One of the crowd of ponies shuffles a bit to the side, and Mare-Do-Well slips through the opening in the crowd, taking off at an impressive pace away from the sirens. “Wait! Stop!” cry the policeponies, one of which breaks into a gallop. Mare-Do-Well turns the corner with the policepony in pursuit, while the other walks up to the stallion rousing himself up off the ground. He seems like a real pince-nez type, glasses and a half-burnt tie, so of course it’s a unicorn. He’s banged up, too, covered in soot and bleeding from his nose. The policemare that stopped helps him up. “Sir, are you okay?” He nods slightly and groans. “Good thing Mare-Do-Well was there to save you, or you'd be burnt to a crisp!” says one of the crowd-ponies. “Hush!” The policemare says. “Please allow him to talk. Sir, could you please tell me what happened here?” The stallion bites his lip. “Well... er...” he hangs his head. “Y-yes... “W-well... you see I was just minding my own business, doing some work in the office when... well, I smelled smoke. Next thing I knew the mare in the black suit busted into my room and threw me over her back.” The crowd broke into appreciative sounds at this. “Sir... I know it's been a rough time for you but... did you see anything that could tell us who was under the mask?” The stallion shakes his head. Grimacing, the policemare takes a step back from the crowd. “Alright... well you ponies stay here, I have to look for my partner.” I watch the policemare trot away, and turn to the crowd. “Sooo... what's the deal with this Mare-Do-Well character?” They all gasp dramatically. One of the mares, a green one, from the crowd pipes up. “How could you not know who Mare-Do-Well is?! Were you living under a rock?” What a bitch. I scowl and say, “Gimme a break, I’ve been outta town.” “For a whole month?” She’s been doing… whatever she’s been doing the whole month? “Look, I was under intense training before I left. I’m sorry I can’t be bothered to keep track of every dumb flash-in-the-pan celebrity.” She gives me this half angry half dubious look. “Oh, I’m sure you were so busy. For what?” “For--” The words catch in my throat. “Look, it’s none of your business what I was doing,” I snap. ”Mare-Do-Well, who is she?” “Sh-she’s a dangerous vigilante,” comes a wavering voice from the crowd. The crowd all gasps, and all part to reveal the stallion that Mare-Do-Well was carrying from before. He looks around at the crowd nervously, who are all glaring at him, before piping up again. “W-what? You’ve all read the articles in the Daily Tribune right? Sh-she’s working outside the law, attacking supposed muggers and su-such.” The green mare glares at him, “How dare you? She saved your life!” He flinched under her glare. “F-f-f-from what?” he said, trembling. “F-f-f-from the fire? I didn’t set the fire. Fires don’t come from nowhere.” He pauses. The crowd is clearly waiting for the obvious accusation, while he’s busy chickening out. I give him a nudge. “Well. Out with it!” He briefly makes eye contact with me, but of course he flinches away. Looking down he says, “Sh-she must have set the fire herself.” Predictably, the crowd erupts into anger. The green mare starts stomping up to the stallion’s face. He cowers down as small as possible as she yells at him. “I can’t believe you! Mare-Do-Well is a hero who’s accomplished more than you ever will!” I grind my teeth hearing those words. “She’s beloved by the people and she’s an inspiration! She’s a hero! You can’t possibly--” I dart in front of her, between her and the cowering stallion. Getting up in her face as much as she got up into his face, I growl out, “Maybe you should learn to accept that your ‘hero’ is a sham.” With her stunned by those words, I continue to press forward. “That all those idiotic childish fantasies of heroism are wrong. That your ‘hero’ never stood for anything that you thought they did.” I start to raise my voice. “That all you thought they were was just a big lie! “Heroes don’t exist. They never did!” I start screaming at her. “And you need to get it through your thick skull that they don’t exist, and it was always some stupid sham and they’ll happily ruin your life once you become inconvenient!” Finished with yelling, I’m huffing up a storm. She’s looking at me with this mixture of fear and… I dunno what else. The rest of the crowd is shuffling uncomfortably. I take another deep breath and shout, “What are you waiting for! Nothin’ to see here! Go home!” The crowd all starts slinking away, the green mare no exception. She takes one final look at me with that expression before turning away. I dunno what she’s thinking, but she’s pissing me off. “Th-thank you,” a voice came from behind me. I whip around, ready to yell at whoever didn’t actually leave, and find the stallion still there, flinching at my movement again. What a wimp. I just snort though. “What are you doin’ here?” “Y-you saved me,” he says as lamely as it sounds. I roll my eyes. “Don’t get any ideas. Didn’t you hear me? Heroes don’t exist.” “W-well, you stopped the crowd from yelling at me. A-and you didn’t get rewarded or anything.” A clipped chuckle escapes my mouth. “Yeah, I guess.” We settle into silence again, and we watch the building in front of us crackle and burn. He was working here for years, huh? Everything he was working towards in the last few years is goin’ up in smoke. I hear a loud snap, and a big puff of smoke and cinder billows out of the windows. Nothing is gonna be salvageable for that building. He sighs wistfully at the building, and I snort. “You’re just gonna sit here and watch it burn?” “What am I supposed to do?” I frown. “I dunno. Yell. Scream and shout. Try to figure out who that Mare Do Well chick is to get revenge. Something! You sittin here all calm is creepin me out.” He gives me this funny look. “Wh-what’s your name?” I purse my lips. “I said not to get any ideas.” Laughing nervously, he holds up his hooves and waves them frantically. “No no n-n-n-n-nooo nono. I didn’t mean anything like that. I just mean… I wanted to know who helped me out.” Rolling my eyes, I decide to indulge him. “It’s Lightning Dust.” “W-well thank you, Lightning Dust. Someone going out of their way for me re-really helps. Especially considering--” he motions to the fire again. I purse my lips together. “Yeah… don’t mention it.” Turning around as fast as I can make casual, I start walking away. Last thing I want is to get caught up in his stuff today. I’ve got my own forgetting to do at the liquor store.
Chapter 2The morning sun brings searing pain, lancing through my window to my eyelids with cruel precision. I groan and roll over, grabbing a bottle on my nightstand and lifting it to my throat. None of the blissful liquid pours down it, though. I drop the bottle and grab another, but it too is empty. I finally hazarded cracking my eyes open, only to find every bottle is empty. There won’t be getting away from my hangover. I slump back on the bed, staring up at the very-unwisely placed Wonderbolts poster directly above it. It was the first poster I got, too, at that Equestria Games years and years ago. A filly like me from Fillydelphia never got the chance to see any really amazing stunt teams. This may be one of the biggest cities in Equestria, but as far as the Wonderbolts cared, it might as well be in the boonies. But… well, when my older sister tells me she scored tickets to the Equestria Games, I didn’t really get what a big deal that was. At least until I actually saw them. They swept all the pegasus events, and put on a bonus show. It was the coolest thing ever. I had never seen anything like it, but I knew instantly I wanted to be part of it. And afterward, I made my way to ask the star of the show how I could be as good as he was. And you know what he told me? That I had to work my butt off, to push myself as far as I could go, and someday I might be able to join. To be one of the best. So, when I got home I flapped my heart out, zipping around every chance I got. I flew, and I turned, and I played with the clouds and the lightning, trying out everything I could. But… a poor filly from the boonies didn’t have a lot of chances to learn expert flying. This wasn’t an important city like Manehattan, or a pegasus city like Los Pegasus or Clousdale, so pickin’s were slim… but I made it work. Watched quality flyers. Asked them for pointers. But most importantly I never gave up. I pushed myself every day. I got a job with the weather bureau just so that I could practice while I was working. Do everything as fast as I could. Volunteer for everything. Push myself for everything. That totally destroyed tornado windspeed record? I trained hard and roped a bunch of other pegasi into it too, and made sure nopony was slacking off. Finally caught the eye of the Wonderbolts themselves... And now everything is totally gone, because of that rainbow-maned dream wrecker! I yell and throw the bottle in my hoof across the room, wincing as the shattering of the bottle causes a lance of headache pain. All those years of effort… all my life. All gone. Because I was doing what Spitfire wanted in camp. Would it have killed her to like say ‘hey, back off Lightning Dust’ before throwing me out and blacklisting me. I scoff. Probably. Probably would have hurt her precious reputation to not throw me out like it was 100% my fault. What’s that? Admit fault? Nooo let’s blame the rookie that’s conveniently there! There is a loud rapping at the door and my headache explodes with pain. I yelp in pain and fumble off of my bed onto the floor, causing my headache to throb with the collision. I groan, flumping down in a pile. At least until the second volley of knocks causes my headache to flare up. “Ohhhh my god!” I yell. “I’m coming. Gimme a minute!” I wrench myself up, muttering expletives under my breath and make my way through my messy apartment, made only slightly worse by the liquor bottles strewn around it, to my door. Throwing the door open, I point my hoof accusingly at what I expect to be head height, only to find I’m pointing at some pony’s chest. Following it up I see a tremendous mare, a head taller than me and built like a house. She’s wearing a plain black suit and dark glasses, obscuring whatever expression she has. I stamp my hoof down. “Whaddya want? It’s too early for this.” She purses her lips together. “It’s past lunchtime, Mrs. Dust.” Scowling, I spit out, “Still too early to be woken up with a hangover. What. Do. You. Want.” “Your presence is requested by Dough Roll for a meeting this afternoon,” she says rather mechanically. Who? I groan. “What for?” “To entice you with an opportunity.” I stare up at her. “An ‘opportunity’? Of what type?” “She would rather discuss that with you in person.” Uggh, really? She’s gotta be all cagey with it? I go to slam the door, catching a glimpse of the catastrophe my apartment is right now. Not a place I wanna stay now that I’m out of booze. The last few days really destroyed it. I need to get my mind off… things. I glare back at the mare in the doorway. “I’m hungover.” “So you’ve said, so what?” “So, I need coffee if I’m gonna meet with anypony. And a shower. She so impatient that she can’t wait another half hour?” Her expression doesn’t change. “She could wait, yes.” “Great,” I say, slamming my door and making my way over to the kitchen. I look out over the vista ahead of me as the elevator continues to rise. It’s a really fancy one, with a big glass window looking out over the city. Maybe someone else would be really impressed by being up this high, but I’m a pegasus, so I see this every day at work. Well, used to see it every day at work. That being said, we’re going up really high. I have never been in any of the upper floors of the twin towers of this city. Just how important is this person I’m meeting with? The door dings and the bodyguard steps out, and I follow. It’s the swankiest floor I have ever seen. The tiles are some kind of speckled polished rock, and the walls are amazingly white, with these glowing crystal chandeliers lighting the whole place. I’m led right past the waiting room and receptionist, to this dark wood door, and the bodyguard thumps on the door. There’s a muffled noise from inside I can’t understand, but the bodyguard takes it as permission to enter. Like the rest of the floor, the office is hyper-nice. Plaques on the walls, and a nice big glass wall that opens out to a balcony. Sitting at the table, looking up from her paperwork, is a pudgy cream colored pegasus mare, dressed up with a fancy collar and whatever that fluffy thing is called on her neck. When we come in she breaks into a smile. “Lightning Dust! Just the mare I had hoped to see!” She closes her paperwork into a folder and trots around her desk. Smiling, she offers a hoof out. “I trust that Tough Cookie didn’t catch you at an inopportune time?” I glance back at Tough Cookie who doesn’t make any expressions. It kinda was an ‘inopportune’ time but… “Nah… it was alright.” I reach out to her and she excitedly grabs my hoof, shaking it with hers. It’s a surprisingly solid grip. “Wonderful!” She trots back out to behind her desk. “Please take a seat.” I sit down at the desk across from her. “So… what do you want?” She plops down in her seat. “I’m glad you asked! I am Dough Roll, and let me first tell you what an honor it is to meet you.” I roll my eyes at her obvious buttering me up. She rolls her eyes too, but there’s a smile on her face. “Don’t give me that,” she says with that same smile on her face. “You’ve accomplished a lot in this town!” I scoff. Sure I did. She raises an eyebrow with a smirk on her face. “Well, you’re the fastest pony on the weather team-probably the fastest in the whole city, and your cloudclearing times are record-breaking.” I guess... “But, quite possibly most importantly, we have the tornado wing power record because of you. You were the one that pushed everyone to even try for the record in the first place!” Well… it’s not like I wasn’t responsible for it. I was the one kicking everyone’s asses, making sure nopony slacked… not like I got a lotta credit for it around work, though. Once we got the record itself, everypony else was pattin’ each other on the back, and all they remembered was how I had to yell at em once or twice to keep them going. Good to see somepony noticed. “I can tell you,” she said, flapping her wings out. “That was putting us on the map! It’s been a long time since ponies were abuzz about how the pegasi of Fillydelphia were doing great things. I was rootin’ you on the whole time.” I can feel a smile creeping onto my face. She sits back down. “Of course… all that recently came to a halt.” And my smile is gone. “It only took a couple of days for that to spread, huh?” She smiled an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid everyone who’s everyone knows about the blacklisting, Lightning Dust, especially with the way you stormed out of your place of work.” I curse under my breath. Just fuckin’ perfect. “I think it’s a huge injustice. Right after your dreams were dashed--” “Don’t you think I know that already!” I shout and slam my hooves on her table. I am suddenly aware of a presence behind me. Whipping my head around I saw Tough Cookie looming over me. “Calm down, Cookie,” Dough Roll says. “Lightning Dust is understandably angry about this.” She raps her hoof on her desk lightly. “She’s not gonna break this baby by slamming her hooves anyway.” Cookie’s lips purse, and she steps back into the corner of the office. I give her a smirk and sit back down in my seat. “As I was saying,” she continues, “this is an injustice… but not one that you cannot recover from.” I raise my eyebrow. “You are a tough go-getter, Lightning Dust. You push yourself and you push everypony around you to even higher heights. But--” she fluffed up her wings “--this ruffles feathers.They see you pressing forward, but they only pay attention when you have a misstep, when you stumble.” She smiles at me. “The Wonderbolts and the team have the wrong idea, Lightning Dust. They’ve decided that you’re not on the side of law and order… that you’re too reckless.” “Great, you love me, but what’s your point?” She looks me directly in the eye. “I know what you can do to prove to them you deserve to be trusted. To show them they’re wrong about you.” I… really? … I could get back my dreams? I try to speak but my mouth is dry. I manage out, “S-so what is it?” Her visage darkens. “In the past few weeks, there has been an individual troubling the Fillydelphia PD, as well as business ponies like myself. She runs around, attacking our businesses, wearing a mask.” What? No way she could be talking about-- “And the ponies of the city have been calling her,” she scoffs under her breath. “Mare-Do-Well.” She is. “And I want you to catch her and expose her identity to the police.” I spend what feels like a full minute staring at her dumbfounded. She waves her forehooves in front of her in a panic. “Now… now if you’ve heard of her I’m going to have to explain myself! She puts on a really impressive show for the populace, and they think the world of her, but in reality she--” I shake my head to break the spell. “Attacks ponies in their offices and burn them down, right?” She rears back in shock. “You… you already know?” I smirk. “Yeah, I saw it in action just a couple nights ago. She was escaping a burning building that she set on fire herself. She carried out the pony that was working there, so the townsponies thought she was the good guy, but she really attacked him and set his building on fire.” “Yes!” she shouts and slams her hooves on the table. “That’s what she does! She masks her criminal actions with ‘good intentions’. She’ll sabotage a business but make sure everypony gets out safely and the populace eats it up like she was rescuing them.” I snarl. “And she does it pretending to be a hero.” She nods, her face becoming serious. “That she does. She’s a serious problem.” I slump back into my seat. “And everypony is convinced, huh? I don’t see why catching her would do it.” She looks down at her desk and pats some papers. “Well, I already have evidence against her… but without knowing who she is, it’s all useless. Without an actual criminal, the police can’t make any arrests, and they aren’t up to the task of actually catching her in the act.” She looks back up at me. “But you can catch her. You’re fast, faster than any police officer by far. You’re tough, because you have to be to earn the Wonderbolts’ eye.” She gives me a wicked look. “And, maybe most importantly, you’re tenacious. You know the things worth doing won’t just fall into your lap like the lazy police force we have. You know that to do what needs to be done you have to work hard.” She looks into my eye with a challenging glare. “You may be the only pony who has a hope of catching Mare-Do-Well. And by doing so you’ll prove, once and for all, to the police, to the weather department, and to the Wonderbolts that they were wrong about you.” Yeah… yeah! I could show all those so-called heroes just how wrong they are about me. That they don’t know the first thing about me and that I deserve to be up on top. Not that traitor Rainbow Dash. I slam my hooves on the desk again. “I’ll do it! I’ll find Mare-Do-Well and show everypony what a fraud she really is!” She bangs on the desk herself. “That’s what I like to hear!” Grinning, I sit back in my chair. “So, you got any idea where to start?” Author's Note It's chapter two! Because I already had it written! I have a third chapter, but it's still under the knife. So, with this story, I'm trying to... actually keep momentum going, and not plan too far ahead. I have many ideas for the future... but I'm not sure what I want at the moment, and I need to focus on keeping it interesting in the now as well. So I'm trying winging it a bit more. As part of it, I am not going to force my chapters are all the same length and such. I won't force myself to add more detail to a scene if I am not feeling it. A mistake? Maybe, but I'm giving it a go!
Chapter 3I groan to myself as I circle around the city for what’s gotta be the dozenth time just today. “Oh, we’ve got all these great leads,” I say to myself. “Just look at this huge list of places she’s been seen at that encompasses about half the damn city! I’m sure all you’ll need to do is look around a bit and you’ll find her!” And even though it’s the dozenth time today, it’s gotta be the hundredth time this week! See, in order to actually find her I have to basically patrol all the time. I swear this is worse than weatherpony work, because at least at work I know when I’m gonna be done and get breaks. But here, if I take breaks… what if she shows up right then? Best keep going, then. The worst part is reading the paper, because almost every day there’s another report about her being spotted or about her saving somepony. The problem isn’t that she isn’t doing her thing, it’s that I’m not there when she does, and she’s always gone when I get there. I missed her by five minutes a few days ago, when there was a collapsing crane. But the worst part is that it’s really boring. I’ve been doing nothing but flying around all day! It’s easy to watch out for danger, and it’s easy to lazily fly around all day, so I’ve basically got nothing to do. Flying up into the clouds, I flump down on one. This sucks. But the worst part is that I just know that traitor is living it up right now. I bet she’s shmoozing with the Wonderbolts, talking about the latest stunts. Getting awards or breaking records. She might already be a Wonderbolt. We were almost in just during the academy! The best ever seen! And I bet they’re just sooo impressed by how she can backstab her partner, too! That scheming mare got exactly what she wanted! I slam my hoof into the cloud, which breaks it underneath me. I sigh and let myself fall for a second before I open my wings and pirouette into my patrol again. I’ll be damned if I let her get away with doing this to me… and the only way forward now is catching Mare Do Well. Back to work. Fortunately, it doesn’t take too long before I see something of interest. Smoke, to be specific. And where there’s smoke, there’s Mare-Do-Well! I dash at the downtown area, and there’s a big apartment building, five stories tall, and it’s got a lot of smoke billowing out from the building, but no obvious flames. It’s definitely on fire, and Mare Do Well will definitely be here, taking her chance to show off. I take a vantage point on a cloud and watch. Just a few minutes later, I hear a shout from the other side of the building: “It’s Mare-Do-Well!” I speed around to the other side, ready to pounce, but… when I catch sight of her, I don’t just see her, I see the whole crowd watching her. Idolizing her. If I pounce on her now, the crowd would be on her side... So I watch her as she vaults up a fire escape and finds a window. Giving it a quick buck, she shatters it and climbs into the building. A few minutes later, a different window is broken outward and a smoke billows out as several ponies scramble onto the fire escape. This continues three or four times. It’s not even exciting saving. Occasionally Mare Do Well even leaves the building, going to another level on the fire escape. There are no obvious fires, and it’s just ponies leaving. This is easy stuff, and Mare Do Well is just lapping up free publicity. I doubt she’s even in danger in there. But, as one of the ponies is trying to leave, there’s a crashing sound from inside the building and a flare of fire bursts out of the window. Finally, something good. But almost as soon as the fire bursts out of the window, a jet of water hits it, from the fireponies on the ground. In fact, several fireponies enter the building, and some other weatherponies start pushing filled clouds around. Looks like the fireponies have it under control… and Mare Do Well appears on a fire escape close to another apartment, and leaps to it. She climbs up on the top of it, watching them work like I’ve been watching her work. She nods and turns around, hopping off the building. Right down into the back alley ways where nopony else can see her. Showtime. I dart down to the alley in pursuit. At first she is dashing down the alleys. She’s not hard to keep track of, I’m much faster than she is… but I’m biding my time. Pretty soon she slows down, though, believing she is safe. As soon as she gets to a long and straight alley, I dart ahead of her. Twisting around I slam down in front of her, four hooves on the ground and facing her. “Mare Do Well!” I shout, splaying my wings out intimidatingly. She immediately lowers into a ready stance. I smirk because I know she’s nervous. “You’ve been playing the goody two shoes today pretty well. But I know what you’re really like.” I step closer. Her eyes narrow and she steps back. My smirk breaks into a wicked toothy grin. “I know that this heroism is all a charade, and what a liar you really are, playing up the hero game so people won’t notice what you’re doing. And I’m here to stop you.” She tenses up, ready to spring…but I don’t let her get anywhere before I strike. With a blast of wing power, I fly straight forward, swinging my left hoof straight at her head. Except she ducks even lower than she was before, sliding underneath me. Her withers slam into my chest, and she pushes straight up, knocking the wind out of me. The world upends as she flips me over her. My back slams into the wall behind her, and I slide down, landing on my head. Ow. But this is nothing, just a minor spill. I crack my eyes open and she’s taking off. Like hell she’ll get away, though. I right myself with the trained grace of a professional flyer who won’t be taken out by a minor spill, and launch myself after her. Almost right before I reach her, though, she looks back to check. I swing my hoof for her head, but she hops to the right and I whiff. As I pass I lash out with a rear hoof and it connects with her barrel, but I can tell it’s not a good hit. I splay my wings out, right then left, sliding on the ground and spinning around in front of her to face her again. “You’re not getting away!” I announce, and launch myself at her again. I rear back my forehoof like I’m about to punch, but instead of following through like the last two times, I unfold my wings to come to a stop and rear back so I can lash out at her with my hindlegs from the air. I smack her in the head and on her withers. She stumbles back a bit, shaking her head. Landing, I press my advantage and come in with a left punch at her head. Her hoof comes up, smacking mine away, and her other hoof strikes at my exposed shoulder. I swing my other hoof at her, landing a solid blow on her exposed barrel. I swing with my other hoof, hitting a hoofful of cloak. And then, outta nowhere, her hoof slams into the side of my head at full force. I yelp in pain, and take a wild swing at her, which she backs out of and leaps up into the air, slamming her hindlegs into my breast. I stumble back, my vision blurry as a purple and black blob lands vaguely into a standing pony shape. I growl to myself. She took my move! I take another step forward and swing wildly at her, which she catches and yanks towards herself. This time I stumble forward, and she rolls backward, flipping me over her with her hind legs. Once more I slam into a wall, and I slide down the wall. Everything goes dark, though, as my head gets stuffed into something smelly. I try to unfurl my wings to find that they’re pressed up against some piece of debris. I try to get leverage with my forelimbs but only manage to sink deeper into the can. Damn that mare. By the time I wiggle myself out of the trash, Mare Do Well is nowhere to be found. I kick the trash can that I’d been in. Ugh! I spent a whole damn week waiting for that fight, and she just stuffs me in a trash can. I coulda had her if it weren’t for all her judo crap, too. Except for that punch to the face. And the backflip kick. … I need a better plan. I open my wings to take off and get a whiff of what I’ve just been dunked in. But before that, I need a damn shower.
Chapter 4I impatiently tap my hooves on the floor rhythmically, listening to the clear echoes from the stone floors. The receptionist gives me the stink eye, like she wants to tell me to stop, but she doesn’t say anything. Well tough, I don’t wanna be here, so you get to listen to my hooftaps. I guess I could have just not come but… it’s the first meeting with Dough Roll since she told me she’d be able to help. I’m pretty sure if I stopped coming she’d stop helping. So here I am, even though I don’t wanna be. The receptionist clears her throat, and I give her a glare. “Miss Roll will see you now,” she says. I stand up and plod into her office. She’s sitting at her desk, writing something, and Tough Cookie is lurking in the corner. “Good morning, Miss Dust,” she says, “I hope you’ve been--” She looks up, and gasps. “My goodness, what happened to your face?” I scowl. There was basically no chance that she wouldn’t notice the black eye I got from the fight first. “I finally caught up with Mare Do Well.” “And what happened?” she said. I scowl harder and glare at her. She can’t be this dense. Whatever. I look away from the two of them. “I had her on the ropes but she got away,” I mumble. Tough Cookie steps into my view. “And how did she get away?” Shit. I need a good answer for this. … Okay. Got it. “Well,” I say, gesturing with my hooves. “See, I ambushed her in this alley after she was doing her fake hero thing at a fire--” Start with the truth. “-- But she was a better fighter than I thought --” Set up expectations. “-- And I hit her with my famous one-two punch.” I mime punching in the air. “And I had her on the ropes!” Then fudge juuust a little. “But then, outta nowhere, I get knocked into the wall and the roof collapses on me! When I crawled out she was gone.” “Bullcrap” Tough Cookie says, almost as soon as I’m done. “Wh-what?” Shit, I stumbled. Gotta recover. “That’s what happened.” “You’re a terrible liar,” she says and crosses her forelegs. “What really happened?” “That’s what really happened!” I poke her in the chest. “You can’t prove otherwise.” Tough Cookie starts to scowl and Dough Roll loudly cleares her throat. She stares directly at me, and rotates her wrist as if to say ‘come on’. Crap. I’m not getting away with this, am I? I look away again and mumble, “She kicked my flank and dumped me in a garbage can.” “She doesn’t know how to fight.” Cookie snorts at me. “She’s weak.” “I’m not weak! I do so know how to fight!” I retort back. “But you’re not as good as Mare Do Well,” Dough Roll interjects. Tough Cookie and I look to her. “If I’m guessing right… You’re a professional athlete, so you’re naturally good at moving and in great shape, but you don’t know the finer points of how to actually fight.” I… guess that makes sense. I mean I’ve been in fights before but… I haven’t like taken Karate or anything. “She’s a rank amateur,” Tough Cookie says. You don’t have to rub it in. Bitch. “We don’t know how good she is,” Dough Roll says. “And that’s why I want you to figure out how good she is.” What. “What?” Tough Cookie nearly yells, echoing my thoughts. “And then once you’re done with that, I need you to train her.” “What?!” Tough Cookie actually yells. Dough Roll smiles and waves her hoof. “I know you’re more than up to the task of training. You’ve trained several other bodyguards in your day. Lightning Dust will be no different.” Shutting her mouth, Cookie turns her head back to me, and I can feel her glare through the heavy sunglasses. “And the sooner the better, so I want you to meet her at the warehouse tonight.” Cookie’s mouth purses and she marches out, saying, “I’m taking my break,” as a parting word. What is her problem? “Don’t worry about her,” Dough Roll says, like she could read my thoughts. “Just pay attention when she teaches and get better, and you’ll impress her.” Turns out the warehouse is really boring. I thought, given how posh Dough Roll’s office was, this would be a pretty neat place… but it’s just a warehouse. Sacks of flour and sugar. Shelves with cans and unlabeled boxes. Some crates off in a corner. Smack dab in the middle of a bunch of other warehouses. I put my elbow on the pony-sized flour sack I’m leaning on, and rest my head on my hoof, groaning in boredom. One of the guards turns his head to watch me. Again. It’s just a groan! Ugh, and they gave me the third degree when I showed up, too. Like they couldn’t believe that Tough Cookie asked for me. I bet she told them I was coming and told em to give me a hard time. Fortunately, finally the drab blue mare I was waiting for walks through the door. “Hey, Tough Cookie,” I call to her, “Can you get these guys off my back?” I gesture to the two guards. She nods at the two of them. “She’s with me tonight. Go patrol the perimeter, I don’t want any interruptions.” The two of the guys both march out of the room, and Tough Cookie turns to me. “Alright let’s get started.” “Hi to you too,” I snark. She stares at me through her dark sunglasses, which she was still wearing, even though it’s nighttime. “Anyway,” she says. “We’re still getting started.” She walks over to an empty space in the warehouse. “Attack me as best you can.” “I… what? Aren’t you gonna like… teach me to punch or something?” “Drills will come later. I need to know what I’m working with, so you need to attack me.” “So what just… punch you?” “If you want to, yes.” That’s… weird. But it’s also kinda this… martial arts master stuff. Testing the student and all. Fine. I crack my hoof. “Alright, I’ll give you my best.” Time to impress. I dash in and throw a punch, full force, straight at her face. Her forehoof comes up and bats away my hoof as her other hoof slams into my chest. As I reel back from the punch, she charges at me, checking me with her shoulder. I’m forced up off my forehooves, and she grabs my free hoof with hers, twisting me the opposite direction, forcing me down with her body weight. In less than two seconds she had me on to the ground, one hoof pinned under my body and the other twisted up against my wing. I grunt loudly as I try to put force into my pinned or twisted hooves, and she tightens her grip. A lance of pain goes through my twisted arm. “Ow ow ow ouch!” I say. “Sweet Celestia I get it, you win.” She lightens up and releases my twisted arm. Stepping back she looks me over. “You hurt?” Tch. As if. “No,” I spit and wrench myself up, rubbing my shoulder. “I’m fine.” “Good,” she replies. “Try it again. Be less obvious this time.” I grimace. Less obvious, she says. I stretch my shoulder back and forth a bit and only feel a dull soreness, which is good. I lower myself into a fight ready stance, and she does the same. Darting at her, I throw a shallow punch at her head, waiting for her to try to bat it away like before. But she takes a long step back instead. Oh this time she’s playing keepaway? I do it again, and she backs up again. I throw a series of punches, each trying to bait her into countering, but she keeps backing up. Dammit. Okay, so she can tell I’m not committing? I smirk to myself. Too bad she’s gonna run out of room very soon, with the wall only a few feet behind her. Nowhere to run anymore. I pressure her back with another flurry of punches. As soon as I see her jolt from realizing she’s hit the wall I take that instant to throw my first real punch, a hook straight at her foreleg, which connects with a dull thud. Celestia, what is this mare made of? I start to swing at her with my other foreleg and she comes forward, grabbing my bicep, stopping my punch in it’s tracks. Her other hoof flies up to my neck, and she shouts, “Hold!” I start moving forward, but then she presses her hoof against my neck harder, and I can feel the air being cut off. “Back off,” she orders, less fiercely. Hmph. I do as she says, flapping my wings to get some distance. She walks back into the center of the open space of the room, and I follow. “Okay. Again.” What, still more? Fine, I’ve got one advantage that she definitely doesn’t. I unfurl my wings and take to the air, slowly circling around her. We’re cramped in so I don’t have a lot of options. No room for any serious maneuvers, but I can still get the high ground where she cannot, and I can still move faster than she can. I flap hard and swoop down on her, taking a swing at her head. She ducks and rolls away. Good, finally was able to do a real attack without her immediately countering. I swoop around and do it again, coming in with more speed and taking a swing at her abdomen, but she rolls away again. The wall comes at me very fast, and I have to do my best stop, and even though I angle myself right I still come into the wall pretty hard, bracing myself against it with my hooves. Okay, so more speed really is impossible here. I come in less hard for the third time, but instead of attacking I pirouette and take to the air above her, striking at her with my rear hooves. I clip her shoulder once, and retreat to above her, taking a couple bobbing jabs at her, which she bats away, but can’t counterattack because I get away too quickly. But on my last bobbing jab, instead of batting my hoof away, she grabs it with hers, yanking me down. Her other hoof comes up as I come down, landing a painful uppercut in my gut, knocking the wind outta me. I feel my wings go stiff from the shock, and she pulls me down the rest of the way, wrestling me to the ground and pinning my head down with her hoof. I flail my limbs a little, but even though she hasn’t twisted my legs or anything, I can’t get purchase on anything. The pressure on my back lets up as she gets off of me. She steps back and actually offers me a hoof, which I stare at suspiciously. I take it anyway and she pulls me up. “You’re not hurt?” she asks again. “I’m fine,” I spit out… before rotating my shoulders again to confirm that yes, I am actually okay. She nods. “Good. I think I have a good idea of how good you are. Or more like how good you aren’t.” I glare at her. “What? I was totally doing good.” She gives me this look. “No, you weren’t, and I was going easy on you.” “What?! You’re saying you were just playing around?!” “No, I’m saying that if I was striking to injure you you’d have a collapsed trachea right now, and maybe some broken bones.” I pause. “So, if you were actually trying to hurt me...” “I would have punched you, instead of just choked you, and I would have followed through when I pulled you to the ground. I was trying to limit myself to takedowns.” I frown. “You didn’t tell me to only use takedowns…” She turns away from me walking away. “I doubted you’d be able to hurt me, and might actually hurt yourself more by trying to wrestle with me wrong.” I grind my teeth. So what was this? Just an exercise in humiliating me?! She grabs a sack of flour and slings it over her back, then continues. “Your second time was your best. You did a good job on pushing me into the corner and using it to create an opening for yourself. You are able to keep up fierce attacks and that’s good.” Just who does she think she---Wait. Did she just give me a compliment? “But you got fancy on the third time”-- She plops the sack up against a crate --”and you clearly don't know how to take advantage of being in the air, and the cramped room is hardly a good place for swooping.” That’s exactly what I thought! “And in all three attempts it’s clear your defense is practically nonexistent”--She lashes the top of the flour sack to the crate, setting it upright --”every single time I tried to attack I connected, and I know how to follow up properly so each time I hit you the fight ended. You didn’t redirect or block or even dodge.” I scowl. Back to the direct insults, I see. “Anyway--” she finally turns back to me “-- are you good to go, or did that beating take too much out of you?” “I’m fine,” I spit out. “Let’s keep going..” Like I’m gonna show her the satisfaction of giving up after just a couple bruises. I swear I see her smirk for a moment. “Good. We’ll start with drills, then.” Author's Note A new chapter! One of the things I want to do with this story is write action. I already had the one scene with Lightning Dust being beaten up, so hopefully these three other times are also pleasant.
