Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy stepped out of their train car and walked toward the vestibule as the worn wooden platform creaked at their every step. They pushed through the rusty turnstiles and exited the train station, at the top of the hill, and surveyed the town of Mantaray spread out below them.
“What a dump,” Rainbow Dash said, wolfishly.
“Well... it has character,” Fluttershy said, as she viewed the dilapidated vista in front of her; roofs only partially clothed with rotten shingles; shutters missing slats, grinning like toothless vagrants; cobblestone roads missing bricks, the gaps threatening to grab hooves and twist; all leading down to the sparkling bay, glittering as the sun cast golden coins upon it.
“Yeah, like how hepatitis gives you character, or something,” Rainbow Dash said. She flapped next to Fluttershy, who walked along, her hooves clacking against the red cobblestone avenue. “I bet Princess Luna sent us here because she wants us to destroy everything.”
“You’re in a bit of a mood today,” Fluttershy said, with a gentle laugh. “That train ride must have really gotten to you. And, and if Princess Luna wanted us to... d-destroy things, I’m sure she would have told us. And sent Applejack instead of me.”
Rainbow Dash scoffed. “I’m going to get a better view.” She flapped her wings and flew above the town, squinting against the salty sea air. Mantaray appeared to be inhabited by earth ponies, all gaunt, with hollowed eyes and rib cages pushing through tight flesh. Despite that, they spoke merrily with one another, their jokes and gossip punctuated by good-natured laughter. Singing and crisp lyre strumming wafted through the avenue, climaxed by clapping hooves. As far as she could tell, her initial assessment of the town had been accurate... what a dump.
She flew back down to Fluttershy, stopping just short of landing on the busted cobblestone street. The locals gave them a glance or two, but not much else.
“Everyone here is so skinny,” Rainbow Dash said.
“I think they’re malnourished,” Fluttershy whispered. She broke off before Rainbow Dash could answer, rushing to a tiny filly walking next to her mother. Fluttershy flushed two apples from her saddlebags, and gave both to the appreciative filly.
“So we’re supposed to feed them?” Dash said, when Fluttershy came back. “I guess there’s some seaweed in the bay we could dredge up.”
“But would that be a permanent solution?” Fluttershy said. “Princess Luna wanted us to figure out the source of the problem.”
“Alright, so no putting bandages on everything,” Rainbow Dash said, folding her forelegs as she flapped in place. “I wish Luna would have just come here herself. I mean, where do we even start trying to figure out what’s wrong with this place?”
Before Fluttershy could respond, chattering and laughter carried from inside a stucco house, carefree and inviting. The two looked at each other with knowing, a common gesture shared between the two of them that stretched back into their fillyhood friendship.
“Well... we have to start somewhere, I suppose,” Fluttershy said.
“Hey, makes it easier for us. Come on!”
Rainbow Dash lead the way with a puffed-out chest, her flapping wings creating tornadoes out of the dust coating the floor, while Fluttershy slinked in behind her, her pink mane draped over her concerned face.
Through the bare foyer they came into the kitchen of the tiny house, which contained two stallions and a mare, all drinking cider and eating bowls of simple, common grasses. They were sitting on pillows scattered around a dead stove. The tangy smell of the cider, along with the crispy brown foam coating the interior of the glass mugs, falling back silky-smooth after each sip, made Dash lick her lips.
Fluttershy was despairing on how to excuse their intrusion and then introduce themselves, when Rainbow Dash landed on the bare floor and marched right into the gathering.
“Hello fellas, nice little get up you got here,” Dash said, her voice brash and loud, inviting friendly banter.
“Nice?” The stallion with a short black mane against his copper coat leaned back and hoisted a sardonic eyebrow. “This place is a dump.”
Laughter and raised mugs all around. Rainbow Dash had to flash her smugness at Fluttershy, who only gave her a quiet, congratulatory smile in response. They all made their introductions.
“Well visitors, what’s the story?” The mare, Gold Float, said, matronly with her hair bun and brown canvas apron. “You’ll get good company, but not much else.”
Rainbow Dash introduced themselves, and their mission. It sounded a little silly to her—and she still wished Princess Luna had just come herself—so unfortunately some irritation colored her otherwise chipper introduction.
“So, we were wondering, um...,” Fluttershy cut in, “if... if perhaps there was some sort of famine, maybe, causing the food shortage-” Fluttershy was cut off by mewling coming from the room next to the kitchen.
“Pardon me, I need to check on my colt,” Gold Float said. “I’ll be right back.”
The copper coated stallion, Smokey Peat, watched her leave with appreciation. “Can you believe she’s forty years old?”
The wormy-looking stallion across from him, named Red Anjou, sat straight and wide-eyed at this news. With amazement in his voice, he said, “I thought she was thirty-nine!”
“You could say we have a food shortage,” Gold Float said as she returned with her toddler, wrapped in her apron, vacantly staring up at his mother. “But it’s really more of an everything shortage.”
“You saw how the town looks from the train station, right?” Smokey Peat said, his wide chest tensing with his brassy voice. “It looks like that on the inside, too.”
“We’re poor,” Red Anjou said, with nods from the rest of the gang. “No money.”
“No jobs,” Smokey Peat said.
“No jobs?” Rainbow Dash said, looking from Fluttershy to the gang of three.
“None,” Smokey Peat said.
“But there’s so much to do here,” Rainbow Dash said, taking to the air again with a strong flap. “I mean, these roads need to be repaired, all these run-down looking houses...”
“No jobs, no job opportunities,” Red Anjou said.
“Have you tried petitioning Canterlot for help?” Fluttershy asked.
“We can’t,” Smokey Peat said, clipped and explosive. “No one has that job. The only job here is the ticket master at the station, but he lives in Sardines and comes here by train every morning. He got the job there, too.”
“The train brings tanks of cider and cheap grass,” Gold Float said, holding the infant in the crook of one foreleg. “Sardines donates it to us. I guess that’s our charity.”
Rainbow Dash grunted and rubbed her temples. “Okay, you could just make a job and do that. I don’t get the problem here.”
The pillows parted as a surprisingly stocky stallion with a wide snout rose up and faced the visitors. Fluttershy eeped and hid behind Rainbow Dash, who could only show incredulity at this unexpected ‘visitor’.
“When they tell you there’s no jobs here, they don’t just mean physically,” the stallion, Broad Way, said in a rich tenor, like a trained radio announcer. “There are no jobs here metaphysically as well. The actual Form of Job, the eidos of Job, no longer exists in Mantaray. We are physically and metaphysically incapable of getting any job because they exist on no plane here.
“Imagine if the form of plungers suddenly disappeared. The apparent form of plunger, those little sticks with rubber thingies on the end, would cease to exist. We couldn’t even make them, since their Form is gone. Get it?”
He fell back into the pile of pillows, sinking like a milestone. His ridiculous pronouncement was bad enough to the two visiting mares, but the gang of three nodding in agreement made it seem even worse. “Well said, Broad Way,” Red Anjou said.
“Um,” Fluttershy said, “if the actual form is gone, then how would anyone here know what it is in the first place?”
“Wait, wait, let’s stop,” Rainbow Dash said, her eyes shut tight as she rubbed her hooves down her face. “Let’s try something different. Is there anything happening around here that’s weird or strange? Some event, or whatever?”
The three paused in thought. “Well,” Gold Float said, rocking her colt, “there is that dragon that lives in Pinnacles Cave.”
“Of course,” Rainbow Dash said, smiling genuine for the first time since the train ride. She nodded vigorously, her excitement showing through. “Now everything makes sense! I mean, as far as these things go.” She turned to Fluttershy for acknowledgement, but only saw her retreating rump flying through the exit.
Rainbow Dash turned toward the confused group, and forced a fake grin. “Which way is Pinnacles Cave?”
...
It didn’t take long for Rainbow Dash to overtake Fluttershy, circling over the train station.
“Fluttershy!”
“Wait-”
“Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash zipped in front of her, blocking her path. “Look, I thought you already dealt with the whole fear thing when you told off that snoring dragon.”
“Maybe that one instance with that one dragon,” Fluttershy said, flapping in place, her angry eyes looking askance from Rainbow’s searching face. “And that was because I didn’t like how it was treating you and our friends.”
“Okay,” Rainbow said, patting Fluttershy’s shoulders. “Let’s add another mission to this, maybe helping you to continue getting over your fear of dragons. I mean, it might make things easier, right? I’m here to protect you anyway. Twilight sure can’t do it, she’d want to interview the dragon about cave dirt or something, so I’m obviously the best choice.”
Fluttershy moved her angry gaze back at Rainbow Dash. “Dash, I wasn’t going to run away. I just had to collect myself.”
“Oh. Well... are you collected now?”
Fluttershy sighed, her severe expression softening into acceptance. At least, Rainbow Dash hoped it was acceptance and not resignation.
“I can’t let that little filly down,” Fluttershy said. “Let’s go talk to the dragon. M-maybe it isn’t even a part of this problem.”
“That’s the spirit!” Rainbow Dash said, performing a graceful backwards flip. “They told me where Pinnacles Cave is, so let’s get this thing over with so I can go home and prank Rarity or something.” Dash hooked Fluttershy’s hoof in her own and rocketed toward their destination.
...
“Okay, they told me there’s a lot of entrances around here,” Rainbow Dash said, “but the dragon blocked them all off. No one’s been able to come here since then. It’s apparently how they get through the hills, to Sardines next door. It’s a shorter trip than the train.”
“I wonder why the d-dragon blocked the entrances,” Fluttershy said. “He probably just wants to be left alone. Or she.”
“He’s probably the cause for all this,” Rainbow Dash said. “I mean, it’s got to be him, right? Or else we’ll have to deal with a whole bunch of searching and dead ends trying to figure out what we’re even supposed to be doing here.”
Rainbow Dash flew down to only unblocked entrance in the hills, its shadowy, dark entrance looking as if a giant poked the hillside with a pen, creating a black dot. Fluttershy followed behind, and the two landed on the crest. Below them were ruined stairs, tumbling down the hillside until hitting a decrepit bridge that had sunk into the creek.
Rainbow Dash grinned, mustering confidence and bravado in the hopes of shoring up Fluttershy’s bravery. “This’ll be a cinch,” she whispered. “I can take on some dumb ‘ol dragon with no problem.” Fluttershy nodded stiffly, but followed Rainbow Dash into the system of Pinnacles Cave.
The two pushed into the cave of twisty little passages, all alike, that was Pinnacles Cave, the warm sunny Mantaray a contrast to the clammy fog gripping their coats. Already they could smell the dragon—a mix of licorice and pine—and Rainbow Dash took point, wings spread out as a sign of protection, primarily to calm Fluttershy.
The stony path below them was smooth with the generations of hooves that had trampled through here. Steps were neatly and precisely carved into the stone, and appeared to have no dipping or warping from the constant stepping. Even the hoofrails, treated wood attached by spikes to the cave wall, were as solid as the day they were put in.
Rainbow Dash glanced back at Fluttershy, her mane already dampening from the heavy mist, and was heartened to see the determination in her eyes.
“I can barely see,” Fluttershy whispered, trying to peer past Rainbow Dash. “Maybe we should have got a map.”
“Don’t worry about it, I can find our way out of anything,” Rainbow Dash said. Her manner, formerly dour and grumpy during the train ride, was sharpening into excitement and vigor at the promise of adventure... and maybe even a fight.
They descended down into the cave system, Rainbow Dash forcing herself not to fly for Fluttershy’s sake, going by nothing more than dragon scent to guide their way. Fortunately the mist didn’t get any thicker, though it was already thick like wet batter, and Rainbow Dash would occasionally flick away water from her wings.
“It’s so stale here!” Fluttershy said.
“Yeah, it’s gross,” Rainbow Dash said. “Dragon guy really needs some ventilation in here.”
It was but one more step, and the mist thinned as they entered a large room with a vault ceiling, free of stalactites. It had to be as big as Cloudsdale stadium, and both ponies were frozen to the floor, overawed at the sight. Lighted crystals traveled the perimeter of the room, the distant ones sparkling faintly like fireflies in a dusky field.
The effect of the vault on their senses was dizzying. It was if the mundane system of day and night had no meaning here, as if the cave itself was immune to those sorts of temporal events. Time could easily have stopped in this place.
Rainbow Dash took to the air now, as she knew Fluttershy could see her. She saw what she assumed were the entrances to numerous halls, like the ones they came from, except they were all sealed by stones and boulders.
“Both sides? Mr. Dragon must be a shut-in, or something,” Rainbow Dash said. She spoke to herself, in a normal tone of voice, but it bounced around the vault in a tremendous echo. She heard Fluttershy’s strained hiss of “Rainbow Dash!”
“Hey, it’s not my fault,” Rainbow Dash said. She flew toward Fluttershy, passing over a pit in the center of the vault. She was suddenly overtaken with the sharp edge of adrenaline, and feelings of anxiety and confidence battled within her. She slowly descended, landing in front of Fluttershy with dazed eyes and slack jaw.
“Whu... what was that?” Rainbow Dash said, looking back at the pit.
Fluttershy trotted over to the edge and looked down, Rainbow Dash next to her, more cautious as she peered into it. Fluttershy felt anxiety and hope hit her in equal measures, along with sensations of brown, dust, tests, and monotony.
“These are job interviews!” Fluttershy said, her eyes wide in surprise. “No wonder everyone here is completely unemployed! What a bad dragon!”
“How do you hoard job interviews?” Dash said, loud with incredulity. “Why would you?” Her voice echoed around the vault.
The floor rumbled. Rainbow Dash felt it first, and immediately took to the air. She reversed course to grab Fluttershy, who’s head darted left and right in shock and fear (that girl has no survival instincts, Dash thought), when mist poured out of the cave they came from, and a large green claw swung out.
Dash grabbed Fluttershy and rose into the air, Fluttershy at least having enough presence of mind to flap her own wings to not be a dead weight. They avoided the claw, feeling its wind as it rushed by them. They could not dodge the tail that whipped into them and sent them hurtling into the ground, skidding across the rock.
Rainbow Dash managed to shout, “Fluttershy!” before both of them rolled into the pit. They both felt the irresistible pull, stifling all free thought, as they were dragged into the hoard by the sheer tedium of the collected job interviews.
...
This has happened many times before.
Rainbow Dash sunk into the hard cloth chair, gripping the rests, staring at the closed door ahead of her. It was a waiting room. It was like all the other waiting rooms she had been in, some awful square box poured from a mold made in Tartarus, full of threadbare carpet, sunken seats, and ancient dust that janitors never cleaned but only swirled around; dust stinging throats and watering eyes. Worst of all, the walls were indestructible, no matter how much she tried to destroy them.
Rainbow Dash coughed and blinked, and, once again, worried about Fluttershy.
An invisible voice from behind the front desk called, “Ms. Dash, please see-” and then gibberish. The door opened.
Rainbow Dash lunged into the office, slamming both hooves on the faux oak desk, staring into the eyes of a ragged stallion, brown mane on yellow coat. His effect in person was bland and boring; his effect in memory amorphous and fleeting.
“Where’s Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash said.
“Um,” the stallion said, eyes roving around Rainbow Dash, “I don’t know who that is. This is the interview for the assistant rust remover-”
“I don’t want a job!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “I already have one! Where’s Fluttershy? How do I get out of here?”
“You just walk out?” the stallion said.
“I can’t!” Rainbow Dash said. She pointed to the waiting room. “There’s no door to the outside! None of these waiting rooms have an exit!”
“That’s preposterous,” the stallion said. He sat up straight, and attempted to stare down Rainbow Dash. “Ms. Dash, if you aren’t interested in this job, then please leave.”
“I can’t leave!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “Aren’t you list...ening.”
Rainbow Dash sighed. She was sitting on a wooden chair, seat sunken from years of pony rumps, and staring at a door not unlike the ones she had seen so many times before.
Rainbow Dash glanced around the waiting room—different than the previous one, at least, in that it had a play area for fillies and colts—and wait a minute.
Rainbow Dash hopped out of her chair and rushed to the play area, digging through the toybox—yes!
She pulled out a blue crayon and hoisted it into the air as if it was a holy sword. She rushed back to the main waiting area and tore a sheet out of the newspaper, marked with today’s date, and that she had already read from start to finish in the other waiting rooms. I hope Ms. Butterball finds her pet turkeys, she thought idly as she inadvertently scanned the print on the torn sheet.
She was aware of the improbability of Fluttershy seeing this message, of all the ways this wouldn’t work. She didn’t know if Fluttershy was in this same hell of job interviews or her own, or if the message would even carryover once she left, or if Fluttershy would even be able to write back. She had to try, anyway.
She propped the page like a tent on the coffee table, devoid of coffee and even old magazines to read. She was inspecting her handiwork when the disembodied voice called her name, preparing her for yet another interview.
...
So Dash is here too! Fluttershy thought, as she read the message scribbled on the torn out paper. She was glad to hear from Dash, but discovering that she was trapped like her was disheartening. She had imagined Dash blasting her way out of whatever waiting room she was trapped in and beating up the dragon, but the truth of her own wretched condition wiped away that wishful fantasy.
“Ms. Fluttershy, please report-” and Fluttershy once again strained to hear the rest of the announcement. The receptionist needs to take elocution classes, Fluttershy thought. Oh dear, was that judgmental?
She hopped out of her seat and entered the interview office, feelings of irritation welling up again. She had tried the direct route, once she figured out what was going on here, but demanding to be let free only sent her to another waiting room and left her with shame at being mean to that nice... stallion? Pony? I can’t even remember.
“Hello Ms. Fluttershy, please take a seat,” the stallion said, and Fluttershy thought, oh, that’s right.
“Well, I must say, I didn’t expect such a lovely mare to want to be a dog catcher,” and Fluttershy’s ears perked.
“Oh... um, I’m very good with animals. In fact, I”—and here she was going to mention that she was a researcher, paid and commissioned by the government, to study and catalog the fauna in the Everfree Forest bordering Ponyville, but the words ‘overqualified’ entered her mind—“run a small volunteer shelter in Ponyville, the town I’m from.”
Fluttershy’s natural love for animals overtook any shyness she may have felt at the questions. Her natural talent of being able to speak to animals, symbolized by her cutie mark, was of course mentioned as well. That she was engaging with what she figured was a hallucination, or at least a spurious reality, entered her mind whenever she got particularly enthusiastic (as when the interviewer opened a closet door and released a ratty looking retriever to test how she interacted with dogs) but she was so wrapped up in the enjoyment of sharing her enthusiasm without self-consciousness that it didn’t matter. Why couldn’t I enjoy myself despite the situation, anyway?
“Ms. Fluttershy, I am really impressed with your credentials, experience, and ability," the stallion said, glowing with amazement. "I’m hiring you on the spot. Congratulations!”
Fluttershy gasped with joy as she reached out to shake the stallions extended hoof. “Thank you so much! I won’t let you down!” The briny air swept away the dusty stuffiness, and Fluttershy was shaking an invisible hoof in front of the boarded up Bank of Mantaray, on Main Street, in broad daylight. If she had checked the time, it would have been seconds after she and Dash were pulled into the dragon hoard.
“Oh,” Fluttershy said, slowly lowering her hoof. “Wow. I was a dog catcher.”
She removed her hat and vest and placed them on the hook of the cart, next to the rarely used net. Simply talking to dogs was enough to get them to hop in the cart she pulled. She had long since removed the cage door, as the dogs wouldn’t escape after she reasoned with them.
She noticed a group of ponies had surrounded her, wonder in their eyes. Fluttershy cringed.
“Um... I have to take a break. I mean, the day off,” Fluttershy said, her head swinging between the ponies in the assembled crowd.
“You... you had a job!” one of them said.
“A dogcatcher!”
“For eight months!” The mare who said this crinkled in confusion. “But why am I only remembering this now?”
“I-I-Igottagobye!” Fluttershy took off from the crowd and flew straight for Pinnacles Cave, pushing back the conflicting memories and thoughts during her desperate flight to save Rainbow Dash. I lived here and worked—stop! She forced herself to think on Dash. There’s a dragon in that cave. She choked down a whimper and put on her war face, using her love for Rainbow Dash as the beacon to lead her through those dark caves.
...
The smell of licorice and pine still lingered inside the cave system, seeping into cracks, floating between pillars, but always trapped due to every exit except one being plugged with rocks and boulders. The smell didn’t get any stronger as Fluttershy retraced her steps, but it kept her hackles raised and pushed her to the border of panic.
She made it to the main vault, and floated high above it, not wanting to be pulled into the miasma of job interviews. There below her was Rainbow Dash, near the east wall of the pit, completely still as the hoard flowed around her like a dirty, depressing fog.
Okay, Fluttershy thought. She took a deep breath, and dived straight for Rainbow Dash.
Am I going too fast?
...
Fluttershy crashed into Rainbow Dash, knocking the seat over as they tumbled across the beige carpet and bashed into a cheap bookcase full of vague and meaningless plaques that tumbled to the floor in a symphony of mediocrity and boredom.
“Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash said, recovering faster thanks to her constant exercising and Wonderbolts training. She grabbed the dizzy Fluttershy and pulled her into a quick but intense hug.
“Okay, how do we get out of here?” Rainbow Dash asked, as Fluttershy shook off the tweeting birds and shooting stars. “Do we need to set everything on fire?”
“What? No! I escaped by getting a job. I bet you can too, Dash!”
Dash narrowed her eyes. “You got a job in this place? As what, a dogcatcher?”
Fluttershy was too taken aback to respond immediately. “Well...”
“Fluttershy, all of these jobs are awful! I don’t want any of them!”
“Oh, I suppose you don’t, you know, have to do the job,” Fluttershy said. “But when I got hired, I wasn’t here anymore. I was back in Mantaray! I bet the same could happen to you if you got a job, too!”
“Wait, you came back here to help me? Wow.” Rainbow Dash hugged her again, just as fiercely as before, but this time let her contact linger. “I mean, I knew you would. It’s just... thank you.”
“Ms. Rainbow Dash, please see—” and garbled static assaulted them.
Rainbow Dash took a deep breath. “Yeah, wish me luck—wait, how are you going to get out of here?”
“Well, I wonder if it’s because I already got a job from here,” Fluttershy said. “but I can see the exit door now.” She pointed a hoof at a blank space on the wall between the chairs in the waiting room.
“I don’t see anything,” Dash said.
Fluttershy trotted to the space, mimed opening a door, and stuck her body through the wall. Dash’s wings extended at the shock of it.
“Yes, I can leave through here,” Fluttershy said, pulling back into the waiting room, miming shutting a door.
The announcer squawked Rainbow Dash’s name, this time more firmly than before.
“Well, here goes,” Rainbow Dash said, as she regretfully turned to enter the interview office.
“I believe in you, Dash!” Fluttershy said, whispering her cheer. “I mean, if not this job, then the next one!”
...
“Oh, I can totally break boulders,” Rainbow Dash said, doing everything in her power to show self-confidence; leaning back in her chair, relaxed, while grinning and modulating her voice to give an air of bravado. It was the fourth time she had tried this act, and her hope was cracking as her smile was a bit too forced, and her voice a little too loud. “Back in Ponyville, I was the leading demolitions expert. I destroyed the old Sweet Apple Acres barn, you know. Ms. Applejack, the proprietor, can vouch for me if you need it.”
“Sweet Apple Acres!” The stallion said, sitting up in time with the excited raise of his eyebrows. “They grow my favorite Fuji apples. You demolished their old barn?”
“Yeah!” Dash said, and she grew genuinely animated as she flew out of her seat and demonstrated her techniques. The monotony of these interviews made her more self-aware of her actions, and she was very careful not to break anything or frighten the interviewer. “I mean, some dumb old boulders won’t be any problem for me.”
“The pay is really low due to how menial it is.”
“Hey, I’d take this job for the joy of breaking stuff, you know? That’s my specialty.” She now had an image of Twilight Sparkle laughing at her, saying ‘I knew it all along’ or something equally eggheady. Laugh it up, imaginary Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash thought.
The stallion leaned forward, conspiracies and secrets shining in his shifty eyes. “There’s also the danger issue,” he whispered. “It’s in Pinnacles Cave, in the dragon vault.”
“O-oh,” Rainbow Dash said, stuttering her words more in surprise than in fear (which, of course, she had none). “I think I know what you’re talking about. The big cave with the passageways blocked by boulders, right?”
“Exactly,” the stallion said, nodding his head. “It’s the dragon’s doing. He didn’t even ask permission, or get a zoning permit. Now the path between Mantaray and Sardines is blocked. On top of that, his actions have blocked the ventilation needed to blow away pollen during the spring. Allergy problems are at an all-time high. It’s a shame actual finances aren’t involved, otherwise the pay would be higher. You will be invading a dragon’s cave, after all.”
“Hey, like I said. Don’t worry about the pay.” She took the bold tactic of assuming she had the job, and with hope and fear playing in her heart, said, “When do I start?”
The stallion laughed. “I like that confidence. But yes, there’s no need to beat around the bush. We’re desperate enough to hire you right now despite not knowing if anything you say is true. You got the job, and you start at any time.”
“Oh, finally,” Rainbow Dash said, as she slunk into her seat, giggling in relief. She gasped as she fell, the misty vault around her cutting in her natural pegasus sense of the border between air and land. She flapped her wings and righted herself.
That was weird, she thought.
She looked down, hunting for the hoard, just in time to watch Fluttershy disappear. So she must be in Mantaray now, Rainbow Dash thought. Time to blow this pie stand.
She had no plans on keeping any job she was hired to do, and was ready to get out fast, but she just had to look at the boulders and rock-piles stuffed into the vault’s natural passageways, as the stale air swirled around her, and the dragon smell was actually a lot weaker now, and Rainbow Dash thought why not.
She chose one large bolder, arrogantly bullying an innocent passageway by jutting into it, and blasted toward it and shattered it with one well-placed roundhouse kick. The rocky debris flew in all directions, clattering against stone walls and the worn floor of the vault. The outside air moaned as it entered the cave, and Dash felt the caress of wind.
She chose another blocked passage, this time a measly pile of rocks, and stomped them with glee.
“Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy whispered, as she flew toward her from the main entrance. “What are you doing?”
“My job,” Rainbow Dash said with a snort. “Breaking up all the rocks that block these passageways. Neat, huh?”
“I hope the dragon doesn’t find out,” Fluttershy said. Even after saying that, she still pushed several stones away, opening up yet another passageway to proper ventilation. "It doesn't smell so strong here, so maybe he's out."
“We’ll have to get the ones outside, too,” Rainbow Dash said, as the two continued their work. “Fun, huh?”
“It’s nice,” Fluttershy said. “But, how is this going to help the ponies of Mantaray?”
“Oh come on, I got that figured out,” Rainbow Dash said, as she casually tossed a boulder over her shoulder. Fluttershy took a more restrained approach to clearing out the blockages. She’d simply push a boulder or a pile of stones over to the side. The mist, so oppressive when they first entered, began to lighten as it was vented through the cave.
“We get these passageways open, so the air can come in. You and me will set up a new front to blow wind through here, and maybe direct it into this hoard. I guess we could blow the job interviews out into Mantaray, and then let the ponies now how to fix their problem.” She smashed into a pile of stones, scattering them throughout the vault. “Then the problem is solved, and we can go home!”
“That sounds like a plan,” Fluttershy said, thinking it was too rash and dangerous. “I wonder if we could carry the job interviews out with... with carts, instead of just dumping them on everypony at once.”
Rainbow Dash huffed. “Fluttershy, stop worrying about it. I got this handled. I mean, with me around, and my great ability at making snap decisions, we can just improvise on the spot. Stop thinking so hard!”
“Well... I guess I’ll trust you, Dash.”
“Yeah, that’s the spirit,” Rainbow Dash said, as she kicked the last boulder away. This one didn’t break, but instead bounced down, drumming against the cave wall and floor as it bounced next to the pit.
Though the boulder had stopped, the drumming continued, and got louder.
“Uhh...”
From the ceiling, squeezing through the only other opening, hidden behind a false wall, a green dragon squirted into the vault, long and wormlike as he floated in the air despite having no wings; his bellows were full of hydrogen.
“Ponies!” he shouted, his frog-like face flapping long red lips. “Filthy normies! Get out of my cave!” He took a deep breath and screamed, “REEEEEEEEEEE~”
The entire vault shook with his high pitched screaming. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy shoved hooves into their ears as the sonic assault batted them around like particles in a cyclotron.
“Dumb wagies, why do you want a job? Leave my stuff alone!” The dragon flowed around the ceiling of his vault, carefully watching the two ponies with his huge goggled eyes. There was no chance of a sneak attack now.
“Um, Mr. Dragon,” Fluttershy said, and Rainbow Dash lifted eyebrows in wonder at her bravery. “There are many ponies who need work to live, and if you could maybe release your hoard so they can get work again...”
“Oh? Why so salty, normies?” The dragon’s anger suddenly dissipated into smugness as he lifted a skinny hand to his chin. Both Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash exchanged worried glances. A dragon’s rage they were used to, but to switch emotions so suddenly implied some sort of emotional instability, and neither really wanted to deal with that.
“NEETs are superior in every way to filthy wagies,” the dragon said. “But of course, I don’t expect you dumb normies to ever understand. You should go back to Mantaray and show me some of your sandwich artistry and leave my hoard alone.”
“What in the world are you even talking about?” Rainbow Dash said, flinging her forehooves in desperation. “Neats? Wageys? What is that stuff?”
Fluttershy leaned toward Rainbow Dash and whispered, “He’s behaving erratically. I wonder if we should let Princess Ember know that he needs help?”
The dragon’s smugness suddenly switched to rage as he eavesdropped on Fluttershy. “You stupid roasties always stick together! Now get out of my cave! REEEEEEEEEEE~”
Fluttershy stuck her hooves in her ears again, but Rainbow Dash grimaced through the scream and flew hard toward a boulder next to a passageway, one Fluttershy had moved. She grabbed it, cracking the surface with the force of her landing, and heaved it at the dragon, striking him right on the snout. He stopped screaming.
“Uh...,” Rainbow Dash started, as her thinking finally caught up with her hot emotions. Fluttershy’s mouth hung open as she stared up at Rainbow Dash.
Suddenly, the dragon burst into paroxysm of rage and hate, twisting and flopping like a toddler throwing a tantrum, his long wormy body whipping like a beheaded snake.
“Day of the glue factory!” He screamed. “Gas the ponies, species war now!” He inhaled and exhaled through his mouth (he had no discernible nose), cycling like a pump, his bellows swelling as his internal magical nuclear reactor converted the air to pure hydrogen. The oxygen, along with any other elements, were expelled with each exhale.
Fluttershy knew just enough about dragon biology to recognize what was happening—one of the many reasons why she feared dragons. She took off toward Rainbow Dash, grabbed her by her withers, and flew with her to an open passageway.
“In here! He’s going to release his bellows!”
“You mean he’s gonna shoot fire?” Dash said. She grabbed another Fluttershy boulder and pulled it tight against the dark passageway.
The dragon, busy concentrating on his bellows, didn’t notice that the two ponies had shored themselves up. He instantly dispelled his bellows, spewing all of his hydrogen into the air.
The ignition was violent and savage. Though the dragon was immune to it, all over Pinnacles Cave rocks and boulders blocking entrances were blasted out, flying through the air and tumbling down the gentle slopes of the hillside. For the first time in years, the salty fresh scent of the bay wafted into the cave, washing away the overpowering dragon scent with feelings of sandcastles and surfing.
Dash was quick to strike, pushing the boulder blocking their way and throwing it at where she thought the dragon was. It sailed harmlessly through the air, its target gone, as the blackened end smacked into a pile of stones Fluttershy had pushed to the side, scattering them away. The entire vault was charcoal black from the explosion.
The dragon was nowhere to be seen. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy shared yet another look of wonder and concern, slowly flew to the middle of the vault, and looked down into the pit. The dragon had fallen into it, and was now trapped in his collection of job interviews.
Rainbow Dash burst into laughter. She rolled on her back while still in the air—a common trick for a pegasus to perform—and held her stomach as she laughed.
“What a blockhead!” Rainbow Dash said. “He blasted himself into his own hoard!”
Down below, drowning in the onslaught of his own vile hoard, the dragon began inhaling and exhaling once again.
Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy bolted from the hoard, flying to the main passageway of the cave. They were halfway through the passageway when the huge explosion of hydrogen meeting oxygen pushed them out into the open.
The two tumbled down the shallow hillside. Rainbow Dash quickly righted herself and snatched Fluttershy, pulling her away from the rocky creek waiting with jagged edges to tear into her coat.
“Fluttershy! Are you okay?”
Fluttershy pointed toward Mantaray, lips parted in speechless wonder. The hoard of job interviews were floating down on Mantaray, sprinkling across the town like a fine misty rain.
Mantaray changed in front of them. The streets grew new stones, tiles sprouted on roofs, cracks in windows shrunk and disappeared; the entire city was in the process of renewing itself.
The ponies themselves caught under this drifting hoard would enter with decimated bodies, sodden with malnutrition, and exit with full flesh and determined gait. They had jobs now, and no longer had to rely on meager charity.
“Wow,” Rainbow Dash finally said.
“No,” and Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash turned around. The dragon floated above the hillside as he watched the town transform into his worst nightmare.
“You ruined the town!” The dragon shouted, claws splayed in agony. “You dumb normies have to destroy a good thing because of you’re a bunch of filthy stacies!”
“Hey, we saved that town!” Dash shouted, thrusting an angry hoof at the dragon. “You were making them miserable!”
“I was trying to save them!” The dragon shouted. “From a life of miserable wagecuckery!” He let out a long, savage screech of agony before twisting away and flying into the sky, away from Mantaray. “That’s what I get for trying to help ponies! Stay away from me, you creeps!” He disappeared into the cloud bank, and Pinnacles Cave remembered peace again.
“What. In the world. Was that dragon’s problem?” Rainbow Dash said, staring at the speck of fluffy cloud where the dragon disappeared from sight, as if it was a screen replaying his retreat.
“He has deep emotional problems,” Fluttershy said, lowering her gaze toward the creek, seeing the sandy pebbles cut by flowing water. “I wasn’t afraid of him because I felt sorry for him.”
“Pfft, he was pretty pathetic, wasn’t he?”
Fluttershy looked at Rainbow Dash with a morose expression. “I wish I got his name. I think I should write a letter to Princess Ember. I... I hope she’ll be able to get him the help he needs.”
“Well... let’s go to Mantaray and bask in our well-deserved victory.” Rainbow Dash turned and flew toward the city. After searching the clouds for just a little while longer, Fluttershy followed behind.
...
They landed near the exit of the train station, shiny and clean. They walked down the street they had traveled at first. Sounds of music and singing were replaced with somber ponies marching to or from work, always glancing up at the now functioning clocks, accurately wound, as they checked to see how much time was left on their lunch break, and if perhaps they could visit the bank, or produce market, or whatever errand they hoped to run before the work day ended and tiredness caught up with them. The voices of playing children came up through alleys, as they enjoyed their recess. Snatches of actual words from furtive conversations would waft in before dissolving on the salty wind.
Rainbow Dash looked around in wonder and confusion.
“Mantaray wasn’t like this when we first came here, was it? I mean… I mean I remember it being this way!”
“I don’t think so,” Fluttershy said. “But... but I worked here for eight months as a dog catcher. I mean, I have a memory of being a dog catcher.”
“The jobs are retroactive,” Broad Way said. They turned to see the pony who had burst from the pillows to lecture them about the metaphysical situation in Mantaray. He was sitting on a bench, next to him a burlap sack with what was either a coffee stain or mud, while a gaggle of pigeons congregated on the road around his hooves. “The actual starting point of the jobs begin months ago, when the dragon stole them for his hoard. We all remember both states of jobfulness and joblessness simultaneously.”
“How does that even work?” Rainbow Dash said, forcefully enough that her voice was now the loudest in the street. Fluttershy recoiled and lifted a hoof, her ears turning downward in embarrassment. “Do you mean we’re in an alternate reality now?”
“Not at all,” Broad Way said. “Imagine a sheet of paper. Now place a second sheet of paper on top of it. Does the first sheet suddenly disappear to the onslaught of this directionally gifted paper? Of course not. Both still exist. All of our memories confirm that.”
“Okay, I got a job unblocking the passageways in Pinnacles Cave,” Rainbow Dash said. “But it started today! I mean, why right now and not months ago, when you said all this stuff happened?”
“That cave has a timeless quality to it. Haven’t you noticed? Today, or yesterday, or tomorrow doesn’t matter to that cave. Just your memories.”
Rainbow Dash dramatically rolled her eyes. “That sounds like a cop-out. Can’t you come up with a better explanation?”
“Why should I? I’m not a scientist,” Broad Way said, his lips pressed together as he reached in to his burlap sack, pulling out tiny cowboy hats and black velvet vests, and pink frilly dresses with bows. “I put clothes on pigeons.”
The pigeons flapped up onto the bench and let Broad Way dress them, and soon several pigeons were decked out in finery, strutting and showing off their fancy wares. That the clothes were put on both sexes didn’t seem to bother the pigeons. That Broad Way was laughing hysterically, his pupils shrinking while his eyes drifted apart, didn’t bother them either.
“I’m not crazy,” Broad Way said, snapping into deadpan neutrality as fast as whiplash. “I’m eccentric. Don’t discount anything I say just because I put pigeons on clothes. Clothes on pigeons, I mean. You’d be committing an ad equinem.”
“We’re ‘discounting’ what you say because it’s stupid,” Rainbow Dash said, sour with the unwanted spectacle sprung on her the pigeon fashion show. “But whatever. You got your jobs back, and we’re going home.”
Rainbow Dash crouched, ready to blast off into the air.
“Wait,” Fluttershy said, putting a wing on Rainbow Dash’s back. “I need to promote my second-in-command to head dogcatcher before we go. Oh! I need to take those dogs in, too.”
Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes. She moved out of her crouching position and swept a wing forward, parallel to the ground, as if gesturing to Fluttershy to lead the way.
“Let’s do it, then,” she said.
