Mischief Makers

Rainbow Dash slowly opened her eyes after what had felt like days. Her vision was still slightly blurry from the bright light, but not to the point where she couldn’t see. Carefully she lifted herself to a sitting position and looked around. Instead of in the Ponyville park, she found herself sitting on what looked like a giant blue checker piece some forty feet in the air. Around her were similarly colored pieces, as well as some red ones. In total there were about twenty of each.

As Rainbow was trying to figure out just what this all meant a soft sound came from her left. Looking over she spotted Fluttershy on a rectangular grey platform with a large stopwatch floating above her.

“Fluttershy, what happened?” Rainbow called out.

The yellow pegasus was about to respond when there was a brief flash behind her. She let out a small squeak of surprise and ducked her head as Festivities came twirling down from nowhere. The playful mare giggled to herself as she landed carefully on a red piece next to Rainbow.

“Boy Rainbow, when you gamble you go all in.” she said, happily gesturing to the floating pieces.

“How did I do this?” Rainbow cried dumbfoundedly. Festivities looked at her with a blank expression and held up her die.

“You made me toss my die, so you chose the next challenge.”

“What! I didn't know that.” Rainbow said defensively.

“I know you didn't, you weren't supposed to have done that in the first place,” Festivities replied. “But since you made me toss the die it still counted as you creating a new challenge, which would explain why it takes place in the sky.” When she finished her face seemed to light up as it returned to its usual self. “Phew, Freddy, take a note. All serious discussions are to be handled by my sister.” the little eel poked his head from her mane; a clipboard in his tail and a pen in his teeth. Happily he jotted down what she had said.

Dash stared silently at the odd scene for a few moments. “Um...ok, so what’s this new challenge?”

“Hmm, I have no idea. Give me a second.” Festivities looked around at the individual pieces and lightly tapped one next to her. Instantly it changed from blue to red. “Oh I get it, we have to get as many of these pieces to our color. as we can before the time runs out.”

“That’s it?” Dash scoffed. “Piece of cake.”

“Is that so?” Festivities asked with a sly grin. Dash caught notice and her overconfident look dropped a little.

“Wait, you can’t use that die of yours. It, uh, would give you an unfair advantage.”

Festivities went silent; a small fire seemed to dance wildly in her eyes as she considered. Finally she nodded in agreement and stroked her mane with the same hoof her die was in. Freddy poked his nose out a second later and carefully grabbed it in his mouth. With a quick nod he flew off and sat himself beside Fluttershy.

“Ready Rainbow?” She asked with a quick giggle; which was met with a challenging smile from her opponent.

“That depends, do you like loosing?”

“My, my, me thinks the pegasus doth accept.” Festivities giggled before adopting a combat stance. The stopwatch above Fluttershy let out a small tick, and the hands began their rotation. “Your move.”

Rainbow eyed her opponent cautiously, not wanting to be caught in another of her tricks. Festivities noticed how analytical she was being and happily waved to the blue mare. Rainbow didn’t even give the gesture a second glance before spreading her wings and taking off towards the nearest red piece. As she was about to touch it a green hoof caught around her stomach and tossed her aside. Quickly she straightened out and turned to Festivities, a wry grin spread widely over her face.

“What was that for?!” Rainbow cried to the grinning mare.

“Well, I never said we couldn't block each other during this game,” She replied, twirling a little in the air before locking eyes with Rainbow again. “It’s still your move you know.”

Rainbow let out an annoyed snort and dashed towards another piece. Festivities flew after her and blocked the blue pegasus. This time, however, Rainbow was ready and flapped her wings suddenly, creating a burst of speed that allowed her to clear over Festivities and land on the piece. The red coloring drained from it and was soon replaced by blue

“Great job, Rainbow.” Fluttershy cheered softly. Freddy rolled his eyes at this and gave Fest an encouraging hiss.

Festivities giggled happily at the action and flew towards another blue piece. Rainbow launched herself into the air and pursued her opponent. She caught up to the fiery eyed mare and wrapped her hooves around her waist. Rainbow grinned triumphantly at this, until Festivities flashed her a playful smile. The green mare then raised her hooves straight above her head and slipped out of Rainbow’s grip. She spread her wings and flew off, happily giggling to herself about nothing.

Rainbow turned around in the air and shot after Festivities. Just as her hooves were to come in contact with Festivities’s side the green pegasus threw her body to the left, completely dodging the attack. she twisted in the air and straightened out above Rainbow’s left wing, which she then lightly tapped to get her attention.

“Hello.”

By the time Rainbow turned around Festivities had slipped behind her back. Whenever the blue pegasus moved to search the area Fest stayed right behind her. She covered her mouth with a hoof to surpass some giggles and leaned up to the blue pegasus’s neck.

“Psst, Rainbow.” Fest whispered into her ear, causing Rainbow to spin around in response. By the time she did, however, Fest had slipped beneath her and touched the piece she’d been guarding.

Rainbow eyed her opponent as she watched the piece change to red beneath her. Fest noticed and flashed her a happy grin.

“Say Rainbow, you’re fast right?” She asked.

“Yes.”

“Good,” she spread her wings and flew up to face her at eye level. “Because we’ve only a minute left on the clock. Better gest a movin!” She let out a flurry of giggles and flew over to another blue square. She didn’t get far though before Rainbow clamped down on her tail and pulled the giggling mare back to her starting point. Fest winked at Rainbow and twisted her body in ways a pony shouldn’t normally be able to do. Then with one swift movement she swerved completely over the blue pegasus’s, freeing her tail and landing perfectly on another of Rainbow’s pieces. “I was voted most flexible in the Young Flyers Competition.” She said proudly.

“So you can do a few tricks, I’m still the fastest flier in all of Equestria.” Rainbow cried. With a quick push of her wings she went zooming off towards one of Fest’s pieces, extending a hoof as she neared it. Fest caught notice too late and flapped after the blue mare, but even at her top speed she couldn't hope to catch up.

Rainbow face formed a triumphant smile and reached out to touch the piece. To her confusion, however, her hoof simply passed through. Before she could ask about this the piece jumped back from her and stacked itself on top of another red one, and was then joined by the rest of Fest’s pieces. Rainbow noticed that her blue pieces were doing the same thing.

“Aww, too bad Rainbow,” Fest giggled as she caught up to the confused pony. She brought a hoof to Rainbow’s face, the stopwatch laying flatly on it. Both hands were pointing to where the number twelve would have been, but instead there was a stop sign. “It looks like our time together is done and we count up the score!”

As if on cue the checker pieces all merged together and became tiny score cards. A sudden gush of wind then blew them over to the spectator platform, where they landed in front of the two occupants. Both of them eyes the cards with caution.

“Please pick them up and show us the score.” Fest called happily.

Fluttershy carefully lifted her card up and looked at it before flipping it in the direction of the pegasi. Instantly a bright neon light came from it and formed into the number 19. Freddy hissed wryly and flipped his over; after a similar show of lights it displayed the number 21.

“Aww, too bad Rainbow, you came so close to,” Festivities said with a look of pure glee. Suddenly her die jumped from where Freddy had placed it and landed perfectly in her hoof. “But not close enough I’m afraid.”

Before Rainbow could even open her mouth Fest tossed her die into the air. It spun several times over before making its descent back, where it was caught on the tip of her wing. With a huge grin she showed the die to Rainbow; It had landed on the number two. Suddenly bursts of purple and pink magic began sailing out of it and wrapping themselves around the blue pegasus’s body.

“Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy cried. “W-what are you doing to her?!”

“Oh, nothing much,” Fest replied. “Just a few little change.” She then flew over to the yellow mare and collected her eel. He hissed happily and buried himself back in her mane, quickly being lost in it. “You’ll both be going back to the ground now, have a nice autumn! Oh wait, I messed that up. I mean to say-”

Before she could complete her sentence the light from her die went even brighter until it consumed the entire area. When it finally died down the green pegasus was left flying by herself in the air.

“...Dang it!”