Sound came back first, announced by a regular beeping noise, like bits being flicked at Tempest’s face.

“So a tube. With a conduit going up the middle, to channel the magic and, well, the juices.” She heard chalk dragging along a board with each sentence. “Flanges at the top to vent the power….”

Touch returned next, and Tempest wished it hadn’t. There was the somewhat okay sensation of being under sheets, but that was filtered through a full-body ache, most intense at her head. Not to mention the pinching in her upper foreleg. And—wait, if she could feel the sheets, then... her armor was gone. Her armor was gone!

“Wow,” another voice said, clearly holding back laughter. “It pretty much has to look like a penis, huh.”

Next on the returning faculties list was probably vision, but Tempest went ahead and rearranged the order long enough to take control of her voice. Well, not a lot of control. “Gnnugh,” she mumbled.

“Shut up, shut up! She’s coming to!”

This third, rasping voice was more familiar. Tempest finally got her sight back, and opened her eyes to see Rainbow, Princess Twilight Sparkle, and a pinkish unicorn she didn’t recognize. “Tempest?” Rainbow said, looking more worried the more Tempest’s vision recovered. There were bright lights above her that made it hard to see, and the ceiling looked white.

Doctors and nurses started to crowd around them, but Twilight waved them off. “Whew,” she said, “that could have been bad. Tempest?” A note of concern entered her voice as well. “Talk to me, Tempest?” She looked at Rainbow. “Is she okay?”

“Yo, Fizzlepop!” Dash yelled.

“Don’t call me Fizzlepop.”

Rainbow’s shoulders relaxed immediately. “She’s okay.”

“Where am I?” Tempest grumbled. “Where’s my armor?”

She tried to sit up, but Dash and Twilight both pushed her down. This shouldn’t have been possible, but Tempest was starting to get the picture that she wasn't at her best. “Still in Las Pegasus, and don’t move,” Twilight said. “We weren’t sure if you were gonna be okay, so don’t mess it up now.”

“Of course I’m not okay,” Tempest said. “Rainbow chopped off my penis horn.”

The unrecognized unicorn failed to stifle a giggle. “Oh, if only that were your only problem.”

“Get me my armor!” Tempest said through a throat that felt like sandpaper.

The beeping sped up, but Twilight’s hoof pushed more firmly on her. “Nuh-uh. The doctors have an IV in you, trying to replace the fluids you spooged away. You think they’d appreciate trying to put it in through your armor? Relax, Tempest!”

Tempest dry-gulped. Somehow, despite being shorter and less physically intimidating than her (and certainly less than Celestia), Twilight was definitely managing to claim her obedience. The pulse-beeps slowed down again. “Fluids?” she asked. “You mean the cum, right?”

The unicorn giggled again. “And who are you?” Tempest said, narrowing her eyes, unable to even lift a hoof to point at the giggler.

“Starlight Glimmer. Formerly evil. Kiiiiinda good at magic.” Starlight waved energetically. “I was helping Twilight look into how to fix your horn, buu-uut then you went and solved the problem all on your own!” Starlight beamed, and her horn glowed. “Orrrr not. Can I show you?”

Her magic pulled a rolling chalkboard toward the bed, and Tempest sat up slightly to see it. There was a penis drawn on it, spurting fluid from the top.

“So,” Starlight said, “Rainbow Dash said that the more magic you used, the more of that sticky, clear-ish fluid came out, right?”

“Sure,” Tempest said. “Because I was stimulating the horn, and… that was cum, right?” she asked, squinting.

“Cum? From what balls?” Starlight laughed without stifling it, but then seemed to sober up as she stopped. “Tempest, that was cerebrospinal fluid. AKA, brain juice.”

Tempest’s mouth opened in something between confusion and dawning horror.

“The fluid gets channeled up this conduit,” Starlight said, magically drawing a pointer up the central channel of the penis, “and it acts to stabilize the flow of magic. But doing so burns it out—denatures the proteins or something, not sure—so it’s got to be expelled as waste. The more magic you use, the more fluid you waste, until….”

Starlight drew a rough depiction of a brain beneath the penis, and then put a large, thick X through it.

Tempest winced as Starlight continued. “Nopony has ever burned through their own brain like this to try to cast magic, so we don’t know the symptoms exactly… but if I had to guess? Probably increased aggressiveness and decreased cognitive function. We’re all glad you didn’t suffer any permanent damage! Rainbow most of all,” she added. “She broke some windows getting you to the hospital.”

Tempest chuckled. “A Sonic Rainboom, huh?”

“Well, that and….” Rainbow forced an awkward grin, and glanced behind her. Tempest strained her neck to look, and saw a broken window to her room. “Strictly speaking I broke into the hospital. It’s cool, though, I’m a national hero.”

“Honestly,” Starlight said, “and Twilight, stop me if I start sounding too sociopathic—but this is so cool!” She did a little excited dance, an annoying foil to Tempest’s own lack of energy. “We’ve never been able to learn about trying to replicate a horn like this before! Your experience is gonna be invaluable to the study of unicorn anatomy. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to do it again, for science—”

Twilight’s hoof rose and gently, but firmly, covered Starlight’s mouth. Starlight shut up for a few seconds, then glanced at Twilight and said, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Twilight replied.

“So,” Tempest said, sitting up a little more and wincing with the effort, “does any of that invaluable experience get me any closer to having my horn fixed for real?”

Twilight and Starlight sucked in anxious breaths at the same time, whereas Rainbow just looked downcast. Tempest looked down at her front. “I see.”

“It’s not necessarily impossible,” Twilight said, forcing a smile. “Proving a negative is really difficult. But we don’t have a good way to replicate the material in a unicorn’s horn, and if we’re using something else, then like Starlight was saying….” She took another breath. “It does basically have to be a penis.”

Starlight giggled again.

“Stop that!” Twilight said.

Rainbow leaned in close to Tempest and whispered, “No sex ed.” The two of them shared a quick smile.

“In any case,” Twilight said, with almost no feathers ruffled, “we’re still going to keep trying. For your sake.” She smiled at Tempest.

This was a smile Tempest didn’t share. “Then for my sake. Stop.”

Twilight’s eyebrows went up so fast there should have been a sound effect to go with them. Like a slide whistle, or something. “Beg pardon?”

“I can’t keep doing this!” Eyes squeezed shut, Tempest pounded the mattress with a hoof. “Waiting on some hope about my horn, and watching it get yanked away. Again and again! I can’t.”

She sighed, then opened her eyes and locked gazes with Twilight. “Twilight, I know you care. I know you’re not the Storm King. But… I can’t live like this any longer. As far as I’m concerned, it’s better never than late.”

Twilight stared at her for a few seconds longer, then exhaled. “I… I think I understand. You have to move on with your life.”

A new beeping reached Tempest’s ears. Not the sound of her pulse being taken, but an alarm. She looked down and noticed: the IV was out of her foreleg. It must have come out when she pounded her hoof. “Oh, damn,” she swore under her breath.

“Princess Twilight,” said a new voice. Male. One of the doctors had come over. “I don’t mean to butt in, but we need to tend to our patient now.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” Twilight said, shaking her head—at herself, presumably. “Come on, Starlight, Rainbow. We should leave her be.”

Starlight straightened up to leave, grabbing the rolling board in her magic, but Rainbow didn’t move. “Can’t I stay with her?” she said, half to Twilight and half to the swarming hospital staff. “I’m her friend.”

Twilight tilted her head. “We’re all friends here, Rainbow.”

“Sure, but I’m, like, her butt buddy.”

Twilight froze for a moment. “Oh. O-okay.” The moment passed, and she turned to leave with Starlight. They stepped through the door.

“Princess Twilight!” Tempest called out, just before they were gone. Twilight turned around, and Tempest asked, in a lower voice, “Seriously, where’s my armor? And can I please have it back?”

“The hospital staff are disinfecting it, but you’ll get it back soon enough,” Twilight said. “You’re not going to get attacked in Las Pegasus General Hospital, Tempest. It’s okay.”

Rainbow zipped away from Tempest’s bedside and over to Twilight. “Uh, Twilight,” she said, softly but not so much so that Tempest couldn’t hear. “It’s not that. It’s… I think it’s a, what’s the word for it? Comfort item for her?”

Twilight’s shoulders seemed to tense for a moment, but it could have been a trick of Tempest’s uncertain vision. “I see how that could work, but… I’m sorry, Rainbow. She’s just going to have to be vulnerable for a while.”

Twilight turned back to Tempest and said, in a carrying voice, “Get some rest, Tempest.” And then she and Starlight were gone.

“Stay still,” murmured the doctor, repositioning the needle above Tempest’s foreleg. Tempest tensed, hoping he was just going to reinsert it into the same hole, but he poked it into a new part of her skin instead. Tempest gasped with pain. Somehow this felt much worse than a supersonic kick to the chest.

But Rainbow was there, at her bedside. Tempest narrowed her eyes.

“Hey, uh….” Rainbow grimaced, seeming unsure. “Are you mad at me, or something? Cuz I cut off your horn?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You’re glaring at me.”

“What? I’m trying to focus on you.”

Rainbow Dash, the anchor point in this uncertainly viewed world, blushed.

A nurse moved in to take her blood pressure. Then another, or perhaps the same one, to get her pulse, and her breathing, and listen to her lungs, and a thousand other diagnostics. After a whirlwind of activity that either took five hours or five minutes, it was done.

And now it was just Rainbow and her, with a bed. With no armor.

Tempest shivered.

“Seriously though,” Rainbow said, “are you mad at me? Because I totally get it if you are.”

Tempest shook her head as firmly as she could, which wasn’t much. “It had to go. Thanks.”

“Anytime, I guess?” Rainbow chuckled weakly, like she was the one who’d lost a gallon of fluids. “So… about, well, the schedule.”

“The schedule?”

Tempest’s gaze must have been uncomprehending enough that Rainbow noticed. And then facehoofed. “Crud. And here I was thinking you were worrying about it the whole time, and now I’ve probably just actually made you worry—”

The schedule. The one to train all the troops of Equestria, to save the country. That beeping was speeding up again. “How long was I out?” she asked, bolting almost upright. “Oh, Tartarus, how far behind are we—”

“Zero.”

Rainbow’s hoof was on her again. “You were out for about eighteen hours, and we are zero days, or hours, or anything behind. We’re off the schedule.” Rainbow smiled wearily, the kind of smile that almost drooped. “I mailed Celestia, explained the penis thing… and everything else.”

“Isn’t the penis thing the only thing?”

“We both know it isn’t.” Rainbow sighed. “Tempest, you don’t really want to do this. You don’t really like fighting, no matter how badass you are at it. It’s not like me and flying, not like I thought it was when I met you.”

“So… you told Celestia I didn’t like fighting.” Tempest propped herself up on an elbow. “And she cared?”

“Yeah. She’s pretty great, if you didn’t realize yet.” Rainbow winked. “So you’ve got a week to get better, which Twilight thinks should be enough, though we’ll tell Celestia if it’s not—and then it’s no more than one new city every three days. Oh, and the pay was doubled.” She pulled a face. “For you.”

“Doubled?” Tempest squinted, and let herself relax back into the sheets. She was getting double pay. And Celestia cared. “Hm.”

Then Rainbow leaned in and gripped her tightly with both forelegs, their necks nuzzling together. Tempest tensed up. “What?” she said. “What are you doing.”

“Don’t judo throw me,” Rainbow said, “it’s called a hug.”

“Oh.” Tempest willed herself to relax, but it wasn’t exactly happening.

“You really aren’t used to this,” Rainbow said. “At all. Are you?”

“Used to what?”

“Used to anyone caring about what you say. Or what you think. Or... you.” Rainbow’s voice took on a different tone, as if she’d been injured. “You didn’t tell Celestia the schedule was gonna be too much. You didn’t tell me you were using that strap-on as a horn at night—unless you’re gonna try and say you put it on on purpose for training? And you didn’t tell me you didn’t want to be fighting. I had to figure that out solo, and I’m not good at that kinda stuff.”

Rainbow gripped tighter, whispering. “I guess this whole not talking thing is a bad habit, and it’s hard to break, and whatever, but… can you please talk more? To me, at least? Your butt buddy?”

Tempest raised her own forelegs and hugged Rainbow back. It was nice.

And then she thought, what the hay, no time like the present. “I think I want to be an entertainer.”

“What?” Rainbow pulled away, peering at her, and then blinked. “Oh! This is talking. Keep going, keep going.”

“I think… that’s what I want to do. Like, that firework magic of mine. It’s the best spell I’ve got. I wanna use it to blow ponies’ minds, not blow them up!” she said, speaking faster with every word, leaning forward, forgetting her bruises for a moment.

And then the bruises came back, and she slumped back onto the bed. “But I don’t know if it matters,” she said. Just a moment ago this talking thing came so easily, and now it was harder. “I’m so damn good at fighting that I don’t know—” She sniffed, and wiped her face. “I don’t know if I can do anything else.”

Rainbow leaned in, resting her head on the bed next to Tempest. “You’ll figure something out. We will.”

They rested like that. Tempest hoped it was for hours, even if it was probably for minutes.

Then Rainbow twitched, and sprang to her hooves. “Oh, I almost forgot!” She zoomed out of Tempest’s view, and then back in, with a big wrapped box. “It’s my turn for the gift exchange!”

“What?” Tempest raised her eyebrow. “You gave me the last gift.”

“Well, that kinda ended up being a gift for us, and then it nearly fried your brain, so I’m not counting it. Want me to open it?” Rainbow said, beaming bright.

Tempest lifted her hoof, then contemplated the fine motor control necessary to unwrap a box, and let the hoof fall again. “Sure.”

She’d been expecting the wrapping to be shredded as fast as Rainbow could manage, but Rainbow took a great deal of care removing it. An infuriating amount, really. Tempest grit her teeth as the anticipation built, until....

“Ta-da!” Rainbow said, pulling off the last sheet to reveal a trio of books in a decorative box. All three had the words “Daring Do and the” on the spine. “The greatest literary action series of all time: Daring Do!”

Tempest stared. “That’s the thing you wanted to do a, uh… ‘cosplay’ of, right? I didn’t know it was a book series.”

Rainbow’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? Your hometown sucked!” She pulled out the first book and read the cover out loud: “‘Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone’. First one in the series, first one I ever read. I own all of them!” She grinned, a little ‘eee’ sound escaping her lips.

Tempest kept staring. “So how is this a joke gift, again?”

“What? Oh! No, it’s not a joke gift. I figured it was time to get serious.” Some of Rainbow’s excitement subsided. “The thing is… I got laid up in the hospital once, too. Broke my wing. Couldn’t fly for days. I know it’s not the same thing as what you’ve got, but… these books helped me out a lot, and they mean a lot to me. And I figured you could use that.”

Tempest considered this for a few seconds. Then she took the book from Rainbow’s hooves and placed it on the sheets in her lap. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

“And… I think I’ve got a gift for you too.”

Rainbow snorted. “What? No you don’t. You’re naked in a hospital bed. You didn’t exactly have time to hit the gift shop on the way here.”

“Lean in, it’s a secret,” Tempest said. She managed not to smile.

Rainbow leaned her ear close to Tempest’s mouth, but Tempest moved at the last second to plant a quick kiss on Rainbow’s cheek.

The cheek in question immediately blazed red, and Rainbow jerked back, making a little happy noise in her throat. “Aww, man,” she said, stumbling over her words. “Now you made—made my gift look—look bad. I’m gonna have to get you back for… for….”

“Shh,” Tempest said, and opened the first of the ‘Daring Do and the’ books. “I’m reading.”

Rainbow verbally fumbled her way into silence. After a while, she leaned onto Tempest’s bed again, reading the words as Tempest did and never asking for Tempest to slow down, which was good, because Tempest was a speed reader.

Tempest smiled. This Daring Do pony sure got in a lot of fights. It was fun to see….

Her brow furrowed, and then her eyes went wide. Was it really that simple?

It was months later, and the military training was long in the past. But that didn’t mean she was done with fighting.

Tempest waited in darkness. No armor covered her now: she felt the cool air against her coat. There were butterflies in her stomach—the best kind.

“Fillies and gentlecolts!”

And then the lights blared, and the music blared, and Tempest stood still, allowing herself a little smile before she got in character.

“Put your hooves together… for Commander Tempest!”

With languid ease she strolled into the stadium, approaching the ring without an ounce of haste. Technically, she was the ‘evil’ wrestler, so the crowd should have been booing her. That hadn’t lasted long; now their cheers were so loud she could hardly hear herself think.

About halfway to the ring, she bent her knees and leaped, higher and more gracefully than most non-pegasi ever could. She landed in the ring with a resounding thud amplified by microphones under the floor, and the crowd cheered even louder.

Don’t smile. Don’t smile. Don’t smile, don’t break character, give the ponies what they want.

“I love you, Tempest!” a filly shrieked from the front row, holding up a “#1 Tempest” sign to match, and Tempest nearly lost her composure then and there.

“Commander Tempest, scourge of Equestria, has been tearing her way through our federation for weeks!” the announcer called out, his voice echoing. “And it seems like no pony, griffon, or minotaur can stop her! But now, we’ve got a special mystery challenger, who might finally prove her equal!”

Tempest raised an eyebrow. Unusually, the challenger actually was a mystery. Most of the time, she met up with the other wrestler beforehand to practice a bit and reassure them that, no, she wasn’t going to shatter their ribcage into tiny bits.

“Introducing….”

So, if this was a genuine mystery wrestler, who didn’t need any rehearsal, then….

“For our once-in-a-lifetime exhibition event…. The hero! The Wonderbolt! The fastest mare alive!”

A rainbow blur blasted down from the ceiling in an instant, and resolved itself with a three-point-landing into….

“Rrrrrrainbowwwwww… Daaaaaaaaaaaaaash!”

The sound of Rainbow slamming into the ring was deafening, and yet it didn’t hold a candle to the roar of the crowd. Rainbow winked at Tempest, and Tempest couldn’t stop herself from grinning back. Whoever was in charge of keeping this a secret from her, she’d have to find them later and thank them.

Rainbow glanced up as a microphone descended from the ceiling. She pulled it close with a wing, and the sound of the crowd died down a bit to hear her. “Tempest Shadow!” she yelled, and thrust her hoof skyward. “I bet you’ve been getting bored, ripping this wrestling federation apart like tissue paper! But I was a little worried you might also be getting out of practice!”

A chorus of ‘oh!’s rang up from the crowd at this challenge.

“So this is my gift to you!” Rainbow pointed her raised hoof at Tempest. “An even fight. A fight you might not win… no, wait, I’m underselling myself—a fight you’re gonna lose!”

The crowd cheered.

Tempest rolled her eyes. Rainbow had needed an awful lot of words to say not very much. How like her. It was time to show off how a professional worked the crowd.

She stepped forward like she owned the place (and if her salary skyrocketed any higher, she’d be able to within a year), and grabbed the mic with her hoof. But she didn’t look at Rainbow: she looked at the crowd and said, “Say my name.”

She’d always been a natural at command. The chant started up: “Tem-pest, Tem-pest, Tem-pest—”

“Say the name of the pony who’s won eleven matches in a row!”

“Tem-pest, Tem-pest, Tem-pest—”

“Say the name,” she yelled, spinning around to order the rest of the crowd, “of the pony who’s about to make it twelve!”

“TEM-PEST, TEM-PEST, TEM-PEST!”

Tempest felt a little crackle in her heart. This was power. She didn’t need to take it from them: they gave it to her willingly, even gleefully. Conquest had never felt so good.

She yanked at the mic, making it retract back into the rafters, and leaned in close as Rainbow approached. “I didn’t expect you,” she said, now that no one else could hear. “Are we still on for dinner tonight?”

“Yup! Your treat. It’s your turn for the gift, after all.” Rainbow grinned.

“And after dinner?”

“Yeah. I guess you’re gonna top again, huh?”

“Hmm.” Tempest tilted her head and thought. “How about, whoever wins here gets to top later?”

Rainbow’s eyes went wide, and then she bent into a fighting stance. “I’ll take that bet.”

“Ready?” the announcer yelled, as Tempest copied Rainbow’s stance, her mind racing. They’d fought before, but never in a ring. Never in such an enclosed area. So what would Rainbow do first?

“Round one! START!”

They leaped into action. The commentators narrated, as quickly as they could:

“Wow, and right out of the gate, Rainbow aims a kick at Tempest—it misses—but she hit the rope, and bounced off, and she’s just a pinball in there now, how is Tempest dodging this!”

“Oh my gosh, what precision! She grabs Rainbow and throws her out of the ring! Rainbow hits the deck, she’s down but not out, and now she’s flying around the ring, I can’t even see her, she’s just a blur! Have you ever seen anything like this?”

“Wait, what’s Tempest doing—is she charging up her horn—no, it can’t be!”

“Her signature move?”

“The Fizzle Twister!”

The fireworks lit up, zooming around the stage, and the crowd went wild.

And it occurred to Tempest that here, of all places, she was whole.

Author's Note

Thanks again to Dinoguy1000 for editing work.

And thanks to all of you for reading this story! It was fun to write, and I hope it was as much fun to read.