Harmony: Heroes of Gimlé - Arc I: Rainstorm

Planet Gimlé, Equestria, Friendship Express (en route to Ponyville), April 15th, Year: 2, Reformation Era, 12:06 PM -

The train sped down the tracks as it headed toward its destination of Ponyville, the countryside whizzing on past the window. Onboard one of the centermost cars sat about a dozen or so ponies and toward the middle of the car, six mares sat together chatting about the day's events. These friends were in fact, the living embodiments of the elements of harmony and were responsible for defeating Nightmare Moon, returning her to her former self, Princess Luna Solstice and allowing her to once again rule side by side with her dear older sister, Princess Celestia. With this, the thousand-year "Solaris era" - which had seen Celestia as the sole leader of the royal parliament - had ended, and with the subsequent defeats and reformation of other former enemies of the nation, had prompted state chroniclers to name the new era in honor of these achievements and as a testament to the vast number of changes sweeping across both the government and the day-to-day lives of Equestria's citizens.

"I had such a lovely time at Manehattan Escapes, I hope we can go back sometime and try it again," said Fluttershy, a soft-spoken yellow pegasus with small feathered wings, deep aqua green eyes, and long flowing light-pink hair on both her head and tail. She wore a low cut sleeveless t-shirt, a green skirt and matching green boots with a white floral pattern etched into them, and visible on her chest, just below her neck, was a crest resembling three blue butterflies with pink wings.

"Oh you bet your plot will go back - and soon - cause there's nooo way in Hell I'm gonna stand for us losing at something friendship based, especially to a bunch of unfriendly griffons!" proclaimed another pegasus, her small wings spreading wide as she stood up. This one was blue with reddish-purple eyes and long rainbow-colored hair and wore a dark-pink mini-skirt with black shorts underneath, a pair of blue sneakers that had white toes and heels with matching shoelaces, and a plain white tank top shirt with a small short-sleeved denim jacket, and rainbow-colored wristbands on both her wrists. Rainbow Dash, the fastest pegasus in all of Equestria, member of the elite pegasus special ops squad and part-time aerial performers the Wonderbolts, and the element of loyalty, hardly seemed to take notice when a few of the other passengers on their car, got up and left for one of the other cars following her outburst.

"Now just you hold on a minute there sugar-cube. How’d y’all know those griffons were all that unfriendly? We ain't met none of em, so for all we know, they might a been the most neighborliest folks around!" said a light-orange earkin or "earth pony" with long straw-colored hair tied off at the end with a red hair-tie, vivid green eyes, and white freckled cheeks. She wore a red flannel shirt with rolled-up sleeves, a Stetson hat with her ears sticking out on either side and a pair of blue jeans and boots. Applejack sat there - eyebrow raised - slicing an apple with a large, ornate bowie knife she always carried with her, staring at Rainbow Dash and waiting for her response, and saw out of the corner of her eye, more passengers leaving.

"Why AJ's right darling." said a snow-white unicorn with a small horn at the top of her forehead, long purple hair, and icy-blue eyes. "We shouldn't make wild assumptions without any evidence to back them up, it just isn't fair now is it?" she asked. This mare was dressed in a frilly light-baby blue blouse with puffy short sleeves and a knee-length light-purple skirt, with a dainty deep-purple belt bearing a silver buckle. She also wore deep-purple knee-high boots with light-purple fringes at the top with real diamonds embedded there, and thin golden bracelets around her wrists. Rarity Adamant started to feel a slight tinge of guilt on behalf of her friend, as she saw more and more ponies leaving their car. "Now honestly Miss Dash, if you don't cool it down right now ponies are going to start to think you have some manner of prejudice against griffons! Is that really what you want?" she scolded.

"W-what!?" said Dash bewildered. "You know that's a load of crap! Besides, I love griffons and you know it!" she said in defense of herself.

"I'll have to remember to tell Gilda that next time we see her!" another earkin playfully chimed in. This one had light-pink skin, blue eyes and the hair on both her head and tail was a mass of long dark-pink curls. Pinkamena Diane Pie - or Pinkie Pie for short - had a pink bracelet on her right wrist and a blue one on the other, and wore a sleeveless white shirt with purple fringes which had a big pink heart emblazoned on the front. Over that, she wore a small simple light-blue short-sleeved jacket made of the softest cloth. She also had on light-blue boots laced up not with shoestrings, but white ribbons tied up in big bows at the top and a long pink skirt with a dark-purple sash around her waist tied in a large bow off to her right side.

Though Pinkie was trying to be her usual upbeat self, she couldn't help but frown as she shook from the feeling of another shiver running up her spine. As the element of laughter, one of the best bakers in Ponyville, and one of Equestria's premiere party planners, all she ever wanted was to see others smile, and the shivers she'd been having since boarding the train made focusing on making her friends laugh increasingly hard, especially since these chills didn't feel like normal ones caused by the cold, but something else, something vaguely familiar...

"H-hey! That's not what I meant, Pinkie!" Shouted Rainbow Dash. When Pinkie didn't respond, Dash opened her mouth to ask what was wrong but was cut off by a surprised yelp of pain.

"Sweet Celestia, those are spicy!" shouted a violet alicorn with bright purple eyes. She had long midnight-blue hair with purple and pink vertical stripes running down its length, a horn on top of her head and wings just slightly bigger than those of her two pegasi companions. She was wearing a long-sleeved dress shirt with a black tie, a dark-purple vest over it with a matching plaid skirt, and dark-purple socks with black dress shoes. Twilight Sparkle began frantically searching for something to drink to soothe the horrible pain in her mouth but to no avail. As the princess of friendship racked her brain to try to remember any spell which might be able to do the trick, one of her friends grabbed the culprit bag to examine the source of Twilight's distress.

"'Way-2-Hot brand spicy pretzels! Now with double the burn!'?" Rainbow Dash read the label off the front of the bag Trixie had made Starlight give Twilight before departing for Manehattan, as the alicorn stood there fanning her tongue. Twilight, having just remembered a spell for neutralizing capsaicin, lit up her horn to cast the spell, causing the pain to dissipate, and with that, let out a sigh of relief.

"Don't suppose Trixie got those just to mess with you, you think?" Rainbow Dash asked Twilight.

"No, I'm sure she meant well," said Twilight. "It's my own fault for not reading the label on the bag," she finished.

"Plus I've seen her eatn' that brand before, they're her favorite and she wouldn't just share them with anypony. I think Trixie was actually tryin' to be nice...well, for Starlight's sake anyway's." Applejack reasoned.

"Tut, tut, tut, really Dashy? Again with the accusations? Why I'm starting to think you're becoming paranoid." Rarity said, a coy smile forming on her face.

"Oh, quit teasing me, will ya?" Dash asked as a smile began forming on her face as well.

"Us, 'teasin' you'? Now why in tarnation would you ever think we'd do something like that, sugar-cube?" AJ asked, a tone of mock surprise audible in her voice, causing the girls to start laughing, all except for - surprisingly enough - Pinkie Pie, who was lost in thought. Pinkie was desperately trying to think back to when she might have previously felt these kinds of chills before, as well as why they seemed to be getting stronger and more frequent...

"Hey, are you ok?" Dash asked Pinkie. Just then, Pinkie suddenly leaped out of her seat and started looking around with a worried expression on her face.

"I remember where I've felt these chills before!" she blurted out.

"Uh...beggin' your pardon there Pinkie Pie, but just what are y’all goin' on about?" asked Applejack, an obvious look of confusion on her face.

"Yea, what "chills" are you talking about, Pink's?" Rainbow asked.

"I've been having these really weird shivers since we got back on the train to go home." Pinkie started to explain. "I just remembered the last time I had them!" she said. The others looked at one another, all of them with confused expressions on their faces.

"Were you cold at the time?" Fluttershy offered innocently, her cheeks puffing out a bit as she did so.

"No! It was right before the Bugbear attacked us several months ago!" Pinkie exclaimed. The others thought back to the day of Cranky Doodle Donkey's wedding to his once long-lost love Matilda and how a Bugbear had seemingly at random attacked them, though oddly enough no one else. Of course, everything about the day in question had been...peculiar, so at the time they never really gave it too much thought. However, looking back now they did recall Pinkie complaining about having "weird shivers" up and down her spine just before the attack. Back then when this had happened, they figured she'd simply been coming down with a cold or something, but now...

"For the love of Celestia, don't tell me that's some kind of Pinkie sense for Bugbear attacks or something?" Rainbow said as she winced slightly, remembering the painful bite the creature had dealt her during the day-long battle. "Pinkie sense" was a precognitive ability that ran through the Pie clan and manifested itself similarly to rheumatism, but instead of being triggered by a change in the weather, it was triggered by...something else. What this was - no one had ever definitively deduced - but whatever caused Pinkie sense, all of them knew better than to ignore it.

"I don't think so..." Pinkie said, looking apprehensive. "...Not exactly anyway. Remember how that thing seemed determined to take us out - whatever the cost?" Pinkie asked.

"Now that you mention it, it did seem a might bit focused on us." Applejack stated, stroking her chin in thought. "Now that I think of it, the darn thing only came after us - heck, we might not have beaten it otherwise!" AJ added. True, the Bugbear had been so determined to kill them, it hadn't seemed to care about anything or anyone else, not even its own wellbeing. It had focused so much on attacking them that it had allowed itself to be mortally injured when a few brave (though perhaps a tad reckless) ponies tried to intervene, one managing to shoot it in the neck. Though not enough to kill such a powerful beast immediately it had ultimately proved fatal, in fact only once during the fight had it seemed to lose focus on the girls. It had spotted a strange yet familiar looking mare with a briefcase wearing large glasses and who had - oddly enough - a thick bushy mustache and matching eyebrows attempting to flee from it, allowing Rainbow Dash to knock the wind out of the monster and end the battle.

"Yes, I remember..." said Fluttershy glumly. Though RD and the others had avoided inflicting any serious injuries to it, the loss of blood from the earlier gunshot wound had taken its toll on the creature, and try as she might Fluttershy was powerless to save the beast. This made all the worse by her inability to talk it down when it had attacked them in the first place, which had been an unpleasant surprise as her special talent allowed her to talk to - and thus usually control - animals of all kinds. Worse still was when she had attempted to help the Bugbear, it had used its last remaining strength to keep her at bay. When she asked it why it wouldn't let her help it, with its dying breath it replied in beast-tongue, "I'm...finally...free..." then gave one final shake before passing. Given her love of animals, the whole event had left Fluttershy shaken, but she had been able to pull herself together enough in time for the wedding.

Even now though, it still bothered her greatly as she blamed herself for the creature's attack and subsequent death. "Sorry Flutters," Rainbow said, putting a hand on her friend's shoulder. Fluttershy and she had been friends since childhood and were like sisters. RD could always tell when she was in pain and knew how much it had upset her when she had failed to save the Bugbear's life. "Ok, so what about the Bugbear attack?" she said, returning her attention to Pinkie.

"Well, the only time I can remember getting shivers like this is when I or somepony around me had their life threatened." Pinkie explained. "I think we're in serious danger girls!" she finished. Rainbow Dash started to reply when Rarity interjected.

"Did anypony notice the way the other passengers on board were looking at us?..." asked Rarity, a concerned look on her face. "At first I thought they were just looking at us because - well we are somewhat famous after all - but now I'm starting to wonder..."

"Come to think of it, I've been noticin' them shootin' us dirty looks ever since we got on," said Applejack. "Thought it was just my imagination, but now..."

"Excuse me but..." Fluttershy spoke up. "Has anypony noticed that we're the only ones in this car right now?..."

"Oh, Celestia damn it!", Rainbow Dash shouted as she jumped up and immediately took a combat stance. Since becoming a recruit at Wonder Bolt's Academy, she had been taking all sorts of military combat training, as it was a requirement for all recruit's to be proficient in multiple forms of self-defense and - at least - basic weapon's training. Becoming a full-fledged member, her training was more demanding than ever, now including everything from advanced combat tactics to resisting torture. Rainbow being Rainbow, however, she'd risen to the occasion and taken to the training like a fish to water, though she was furious with herself right now as something from her training had only just now occurred to her. "Those ponies, the way they moved, how they walked and were positioned around us, plus the way they left the car...I recognize this from my training at the academy! These are military tactics!" RD explained.

"I think we've walked into an -" before RD could finish her sentence the doors at both ends of the car opened and a small object was thrown into the car from each end. "- AMBUSH!" Rainbow yelled just before the objects burst, filling the car with thick smoke.

Planet Gimlé, Equestria, Edge of Ponyville (Friendship Station), April 15th, Year: 2, Reformation Era, 12:21 PM -

A small orange filly with short pinkish-purple hair, deep violet eyes and a pair of wings unusually small for an eleven-year-old pegasus like herself, sat on a bench at the train station happily humming to herself as she kicked her feet back and forth. Scootaloo Slipstream was a proud member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who were a small group of fillies who helped others with issues involving their crests, whether it was obtaining one in the first place or rediscovering its meaning. She wore a dark cool-grey hoodie with a light-blue shirt underneath, with a pair of green cargo shorts, light-blue socks with dark cool-grey sneakers, and a light-blue watch on her right wrist which she checked every two minutes. "Rainbow Dash said she and the others would be here around twelve-thirty," she said aloud to herself.

She knew Rainbow and the others wanted to go to the spa once they got back, but was hoping to convince RD to hang out with her later that day. She was her big sister after all, at least in spirit, and it had been a while since they'd done anything together, and seeing as her aunts were out of town on business at the time, and the other CMC's were off doing their own things right now it was just her, all alone. Her Mother and Father were also "away on business", or, at least, it was what her aunts had been telling her for the last several months, but Scootaloo was sure she knew the truth...

*BOOM!* Scootaloo leaped what felt like a mile into the air and when she looked in the direction of the sound - a few miles down the tracks - she felt the bottom fall out of her stomach. "Oh no..." she said in a barely audible tone. "I gotta get help!" she thought to herself as she hopped on her scooter and sped off toward Ponyville.

Planet Gimlé, Equestria, Ponyville (Twilight's Castle), April 15th, Year: 2, Reformation Era, 12:14 PM -

"Just a little more...-" directed a purple scaly twelve-year-old boy - just a tad taller than the colts his age - with a tail and green spikes growing on the sides of his head, as well as in a forward direction starting just above the base of his neck bone and along the center of his head. He wore a dark-red vest with a sleeveless dark-yellow t-shirt and blue jean shorts, though he wasn't wearing any shoes, then again dragons like Spike typically didn't. Twilight had hatched Spike back when she was just a filly and since then, he'd been her number one assistant and she'd raised him as his surrogate big sister. "-...and...perfect!" he exclaimed happily.

"*sigh* What a relief!" said a light purple unicorn mare who had long purple hair with white-blue highlights and blueish-purple eyes. Just under her neck was a crest resembling a dark-purple four-pointed star with a white four-pointed starburst behind it and two smoke swirls coming off the top, each one-half light-mint-green and the other half dark-mint-green. She was dressed in a dark-mint-green V-neck t-shirt with a sleeveless leather black vest over it and a pink t-shirt underneath. She also wore black jeans with holes up and down them, black high heel boots with pink shoelaces, a black watch with pink hands on her left wrist, and a pink toboggan with a white sparkle pattern all over it. The former cult leader and time-traveler who had nearly ended the world, sat down - relieved the hectic mess her best friend had landed her in, was over. Having recently led three of her friends to save the most powerful ponies in Equestria from the now - mostly - reformed changelings as well as graduating from being Twilight's pupil, Starlight Glimmer had been extremely busy over the last several days.

"You said it!" said the other mare as she too took a seat, she was a light-blue unicorn with long white hair and dark purple eyes. She was sporting a purple wizard's hat covered in various stars with a matching cape bearing a crystal clasp, a short blue long-sleeved dress with a small dark-blue vest laced in front with purple strings, and dark-blue boots. This was "the great and powerful" Trixie Lulamoon, a traveling stage magician and wannabe rival to Twilight Sparkle. She was being taught some new magic by Starlight, but unfortunately for all involved Trixie had gotten a little carried away when attempting a teleport spell. This resulted in Trixie accidentally teleporting Twilight's "friendship map" - a powerful device that led the elements to those suffering "friendship problems" - to what had turned out to be Ponyville day spa, and the two had just finished returning it to the castle.

"And just in time too!" Spike said, taking a seat before continuing. "The girls should be getting back any second now..." They knew the elements should have hit town several minutes ago and should be walking through the door soon - yet as the minutes ticked by with no sign of them, something seemed off.

"That's strange," said Starlight. "They should be back by now and it's not like Twilight to be late."

"Oh I'm sure they're just taking their sweet time walking back here is all." dismissed Trixie with a wave of her hand. "Hey! Since they're taking so long, how about you teach me some more magic Starlight?" Trixie asked, an eager look in her eye. Starlight shot her a stern look, making the light-blue unicorn sink deeper into her chair, a nervous look on her face. Starlight loved her friend and wanted to help her with her magic, but she'd had enough of Trixie's shenanigans for one day.

"Maybe something is holding up the train? '' I'll just go down to the station an-" Spike was cut off mid-sentence when the door to the castle burst open, and a horribly distressed looking Scootaloo stumbled in, panting and looking like she might start to cry, or pass out, or both.

"*pant* Y-you -*pant*- g-got too -*pant*- hur-hurry *pant*" the filly struggled to get the words out. Spike and the girls hurried over to Scootaloo to try to calm her down and see what was wrong.

"It will be alright Scootaloo, just take a deep breath and tell us what's the matter." Starlight said, trying to comfort her.

"No, there's no time!" Scootaloo shouted, a look of terror on her face. "Its the train! It blew up!" Starlight and the others gasped in unison, their faces now sharing the horrified look of Schootaloo's own as they all feared the worst for their friends.

Chapter 1: Finished