Kill a-la-Mode
By Wanderer D
"Ice cream, huh?"
"Yeah, they call it "a-la-mode" if you put vanilla ice cream on top. And before you ask, I have no idea why."
"Right. Right. You know," Rainbow Dash told Gilda as they both sat on a cloud high above Equestria. A large basket (with griffon down inside the base to make it cloud-friendly) sat between them. A small cloud-friendly radio playing classical music—which they both disliked but apparently the other stations didn't reach quite that high—floated in its own little tiny cloud next to them. "I never really appreciated what it was like to be Celestia until I stopped giving a buck." She grinned, stretching. "You know, kick back, let your bored students do the job for once."
Gilda nodded. The screams and explosions were barely able to reach them, but with her eagle eyes, she could still see plenty. "Are you sure you shouldn't be down there helping them?" she asked.
"I—" Rainbow Dash winced when the violins started playing. "Hey Gilda, kill the radio would you?"
Gilda shrugged. The music from the radio was starting to get annoying and so, she picked up the remote, and pressed the "kill" button. When it didn't stop the music, she shook it a little and then pressed it several more times, attempting one last, violent, effort by pushing the button down with all of her might for several seconds. "Ugh. Stupid magical batteries," she muttered, throwing it over her shoulder and reaching over to turn the radio off by claw. "Anyway, go help them."
"What, and leave you hanging?" Rainbow Dash asked, waving at her griffon friend with her hoof. "Luna perish the thought. Nope." She grinned. "The new kids got it anyway. We've been teaching them all they need to know to take care of situations like these." She reached with her hoof into the basket between them and took out one scone, throwing the whole thing into her mouth and chewing loudly.
Despite having her doubts about both, the viability of Rainbow Dash actually tasting the scone if she threw the whole thing in like that into her maw, and validity of Dash's claim about teaching the students, Gilda was impressed. Provided it was true. "You taught Gallus and Silverstream how to dismantle a battle golem?"
Rainbow Dash opened one eye to study Gilda. She then leaned over the cloud just as an explosion far below challenged the sun for supremacy for a few seconds. She squinted, then leaned back. "Sure. Why not?"
"Seriously Dash," Gilda said, taking a scone for herself and glancing down. She winced. "I don't mind if you give your students a hoof. That looked like it's going to take some time to regrow. Go help them. I'll wait here."
"Look, Gilda," Rainbow Dash said after a short period of thought, "they'll be fine. The truth is, they've been—whoa!" She grabbed the basket and moved it to the side just as Sandbar went through the cloud right between them, screaming like his life was about to end. They watched in silence as he reached the peak of his trajectory, and then started falling down again, hooves waving desperately and screaming something.
Gilda turned to look at Rainbow Dash, who shrugged. "Eh, I've seen Applejack fall from higher. He'll be fine. It's Earth Pony magic or something." She cleared her throat. "Anyway, this is really not that bad. The golem's setting is on "stun", it won't do anything serious. Besides, even from here I can turn it off. Look." She reached without looking over to where the radio was, then paused. Her hoof tapped around the area for a moment before she gave up and turned. "Gilda."
"Yeah?"
"Did you happen to see a remote control here?"
"Hm?" Gilda swallowed her piece of scone. "The radio control? Yeah, sorry. That thing wasn't working so I tossed it down there."
They both looked down at the crater, far below. Silverstream was shouting something to the sky while holding Gallus' unresponsive body close. She was shaking her claw at the air. It looked very dramatic.
"So you tried to use that on the radio?"
"Yeah. The kill button didn't work so I tossed it."
Rainbow Dash contemplated this for a moment. "You know, that was for the golem, not the radio."
Gilda nodded and took out another scone. "Yeah. I gathered as much when you asked about it. It sort of made sense right then, you know? Like, before? I thought it was just a weird naming convention for the power button. But when you said that you had a controller, it just dawned on me that I activated your golem's "kill mode"."
"I think I should go down there and help them."
"Huh," Gilda noted. "Did you know that Silverstream could do that?"
Rainbow Dash glanced down. "You mean the thing with the feathers and the—"
"Yeah. I didn't think it was possible."
Rainbow Dash's eyes narrowed and she turned her head. "I mean, I see how you could possibly do it. Like, if you tilt your flank to the left, just as you're sweeping in, then, you-know." She motioned with her hoof three times.
"Dash, the drag would be too much."
"But that's because your butt is too large."
"Your face is my butt."
"That makes no sense."
"And neither does that!" Gilda exclaimed, motioning wildly at the battle below. She turned to look at Rainbow Dash. "That should be physically impossible."
"It is," Rainbow Dash agreed, "but she's sort of like a less extreme Pinkie Pie."
The pair kept watching in silence for a few more seconds, then, "so, going?"
"Nah." Rainbow Dash leaned back and grabbed yet another scone. "Whatever is going on there might be criminal negligence from my part, but you can't tell me it didn't spur their sorry tails into action. I'll write it down as a loyalty lesson." She glanced from the scene, to her scone, to Gilda. "So, did you bring some stuff for this, or what was all that fancy Rarity talk from earlier about?"
The griffon grinned, pulling a full tub of vanilla bean ice cream out of the basket. "I thought you'd never ask."
The End
