The NeverEnding Story's Prologue
The name’s Dash. Rainbow Dash. You may have heard of me as the Element of Loyalty, the fastest pegasus in existence and the only thing alive to ever have broken the sound barrier, or a part of the Wonderbolts! Well, the next big contender to be a part of the Wonderbolts. My time’s coming, you just wait and see. Also, you may have seen me around Ponyville, hard at work as the leader of the weather team. Or napping. I do that occasionally, too. Regardless of how or from where, I’m sure you’ve heard of me.
And now I’ve opened up a detective agency. So if you need the most highly skilled and speedy pony to solve your problems in a snap, just call Detective Dash. I’ll do it quick, I’ll do it right, all I ask for is some cash.
…It’s a working slogan.
Anyway, you may be wondering why a high-speed, highflying pony like myself is bothering with a detective agency. Shouldn’t I be up in the sky, proving myself to the Wonderbolts? Aren’t I letting my skills go to waste by remaining grounded? Isn’t detective work for more boringly observant ponies like Twilight? Well, yeah. Kind of. But, you see, the thing is, being a Wonderbolt isn’t a free gig, you know. You have to pay an entrance fee, there’s the flight suits, which actually cost a lot… Membership isn’t a cheap thing. And, believe it or not, but Ponyville isn’t the most lucrative town in Equestria.
I know. Shocker.
I’m the weather team leader and highest paid pegasus on the squad. That might be the problem. The first time I opened up my paycheck, I was expecting the bits to flow out. I had a cloud all ready to fill with my excess of money, just so I could swim in it. I don’t think we really need to go into the details of what happened… I may or may not have gotten a little ruffled by the contents of my envelope, there may have been a scene of sorts where I crashed into somepony’s tree house, and a certain egghead librarian may or may not have went on a tangent about equations and percentages and how it should have been obvious from the start how much I was going to be paid…
The details aren’t important. What matters is I had went out celebrating my promotion by blowing what I thought was just some extra dough a little too quickly – but, hey, I’m all about speed – when I probably should have saved that cash for “equities” as Twilight so delicately put it.
I was going nowhere fast. I’m not just about speed, you know, I also like to have a goal. And with the money I was earning, there was no way I’d be joining the Wonderbolts anytime within the next four years. And any more years is more than I can count on my hooves, so there’s no point in thinking that far ahead. What I needed was a quick cash plan.
I tried doing odd jobs here and there. In my free time I’d visit Rose and see if she needed help watering her flowers or whatever it was she did – I could never really be sure, seeing as I never needed flowers – but that was never much of a success. I was – not afraid – cautious about even going near Derpy and her deliveries. You know, because, she’s so, sensitive about, about needing assistance. Or something like that. And I had tried to talk to Cheerilee about giving her class some flying lessons, but apparently launching little earth and unicorn foals into the air is dangerous or something. I don’t know, it seemed like dumb logic to me. After all, with the fastest and best flier around to help out the little guys, what could possibly go wrong?
Apple Bloom, stepping onto the catapult.
“Now, yer sure this is safe, Rainbow Dash?”
“Sure, kid. Just flap your hooves a bit when you’re in the air. I’ll be there on the other side to catch you.”
“But, Rainbow Dash, how can you be on the other side when you’re right he –” I release the lever, and the rest of Apple Bloom’s comment is drowned out by her scream “—EEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEE!”
I fall into a brief stint of laughter, before remembering I’m actually supposed to be catching her on the other side. “Heh. Whoops.” I flash a grin, then zip into action.
And there I am on the other side, Apple Bloom safe in my mouth.
Or…
A crowd of admiring ponies stop me, and I’m forced to battle my way through the mob, by handing out signed autographs. Then, when I finally make it to the other side, Apple Bloom is nowhere to be found. Except… Unless… There’s an odd, red splatter against that tree…
I shuddered. Okay, maybe there was some logic in what Cheerilee was saying. And I’d never hear the end of it if I accidentally turned Applejack’s little sister into soup. But still, my first scenario was a much more likely outcome. And I’m sticking to that.
The longest gig I landed had to have been… well, actually, that’s a confusing one. It depends on how you measure time, I guess. Cause, well, there was that brief-but-actually-really-long stint as Dr. Whooves assistant… Er, for, uh, reasons, I’d prefer not to discuss that job. You know, spoilers, all that… No, the longest side job I had was a day where I worked with Colgate at her dentist office.
I found out the hard way exactly what happens to teeth when you attempt to brush them with lightning. And also what a brush with death feels like, after being forced to endure Colgate’s overreaction.
Seriously, she acted like being fried with over a billion volts of lightning, all directly concentrated onto the teeth, was a horrible idea. But let me tell you, after I was done, there was not a single germ or cavity on those pearly whites. Uh, sure, they weren’t pearly white anymore… No, more like a charcoal-y black, but still. The point was to get rid of the decay and I did that.
When you get assistance from the Dash, you can only expect awesome and cool to clash. And some ponies just aren’t ready for that.
In the end, being everypony’s go-to situation fixer got tiring. I needed bits without falling to bits, as the saying goes. The problem was finding something easy that didn’t mess with my other jobs. You know, like being a weather pony and saving the town from droughts and being the Element of Loyalty and saving the world from potentially crumbling into a state of perpetual disharmony. That sort of thing.
I was hanging out with Twilight one day, reading an epic adventure of Daring Do, when the idea hit me...
“Hey, I have an idea,” Twilight said, looking up from her book. She was always reading something different. We had these reading get-togethers once a week, and every single week she was on a new book. And they were all big and thick and bulky and wide… And big. Totally uncool. Did she ever do anything other than read? I was still on the third Daring Do book. Reading is the only thing I ever do that’s slow. I like to… take everything in. Or something. I don’t know, books have a lot of words and sometime I get sidetracked. Like by the sky, blue and inviting, or that weird squiggle that sometimes shows up in your eye and follows you wherever you look, or that bug.
The bug that had slowly made its way up the binding of the book Twilight was currently reading. Or she had been reading, until she looked up and talked to me. I snapped back to attention. What had she been talking about? An idea, right. Okay, gotta make a retort worthy of an eye roll.
“Twilight has an idea?” I repeated in a shocked voice, feigning absolute surprise. “Quick, we better write a letter to the Princess about this unprecedented phenomenon!”
Twilight rolled her eyes. Nailed it!
“It’s about your cash problem,” she said flatly. I perked up. Anything that involved tucking some more bits under my wings, I was all ears. Until, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the bug had begun making its way up the binding of Twilight’s book. I hid a smile at the disgusted scream that would escape Twilight’s lips as soon as she realized this particular slimy beetle was inching its way across her precious copy of…
Twilight was saying something. But I only caught pieces of it. Something about an “agency” and “across town” and “a bit run down, but could be fixed up”… I craned my neck ever so slightly so that I could read the title. I was kind of curious about what completely ridiculous and logical book Twilight was wasting her time with. And if I squinted my eyes just right and kept my head at an angle… There we go. And the book was… Detective Flatfoot: Ace Investigator…?
Huh. That didn’t sound half-bad. And the name of the main character reminded me of Fleetfoot, a very impressive member of the Wonderbolts. Actually, the book sounded pretty cool. In fact, detectives… they were awesome ponies, weren’t they? And they got paid to go around being awesome. I could feel it. I was about to be brilliant.
“A detective!” I shouted, bringing a hoof down to slam the table decidedly. “I’ve got it, Twilight! I’m going to be a detective. Good business, good bits, and good… bits. Yeah, that just about covers it.”
Twilight deflated. Probably because I came up with the better idea of the two of us. Speaking of which, what was her idea, anyway? Oh well, that didn’t really matter. Mine was awesome, so I didn’t need any other suggestions cluttering my mind.
“That was what I… Oh, never mind. Good idea, Rainbow Dash.” I smiled. It wasn’t smug. Well, maybe it was a little smug, but, I mean, it was a really good idea. “Speaking of detective agencies,” Twilight continued, and now that she was on track with my idea, I made more of a point to listen, “there’s actually an old building on the other side of Ponyville that you could use as a space for it. It’s a little rundown, but I could help you fix it up and it’s really cheap to rent.”
“Sweet, thanks Twilight!” I give credit where credit is due. And while I had the awesome idea of becoming a detective, I probably wouldn’t have gotten as far with it if it weren’t for her help.
And it was that iconic moment that brought me to the other side of Ponyville, where I found myself gaping at a dilapidated building that Twilight assured me would make a great detective agency.
“It’s all in the book I’m reading,” she said. “Detective agencies are supposed to look rustic and… a bit worn down.”
“A bit?!” I shouted, my voice cracking in a charming and endearing way. “Twilight, the whole point of this is to save money. How much is it gonna cost to fix this pile of broken splinters?”
“You have to spend money to make money,” she responded with a smile that told me it was going to cost a lot. I groaned and planted my face in my hoof.
And then a third voice entered this scenario. A high-pitched, loud –
“Aw, don’t worry, Dashie! Want to sing a song about it?”
A voice that can’t be contained or even wait to be properly introduced in my own story. It was Pinkie Pie. And what was that noise? There was some sort of underlying music coming from somewhere… I looked around, but couldn’t find the source. It seemed to be coming from all around us. The music was surrounding us, encompassing us. I realized a little too late what was about to happen. Pinkie did exactly what she asked. She belted out a tune. “Rainbow Dash is a pegasus pony of incredible skill, but there is currently one problem making her ill! It isn’t her latest trick for the Wonderbolts she’ll ace, that is causing her to make that silly filly face!” And she appeared above me, squishing my face into all kinds of painful positions.
“Hey!” I shouted, indignant. She disappeared, reappearing only seconds later a few feet away from me. Except, everything around her was dark, except a spotlight hitting her. She posed, looking slightly sad, for the next part of her song.
“Instead she’s fallen into a total gloom, over a completely different type of doom! She’s not a work pony like Applejack, not that strength is a trait she does lack… But the real issue causing her such pain, is that muddy, gritty, dirty window pane!” And Pinkie zipped back over to the building that was going to become my new detective agency. She pointed at the particular pane she had been singing about, overly dramatically and with an exaggerated horrified face.
Yeah, because that muddy window pane was the worst part of the covered-in-holes, broken down building in front of us…
I blinked. Multiple times. Pinkie Pie’s songs were contagious. And once she starts them, you can’t stop her. Or get the stupid tune out of your head. I groaned. Twilight bounced her head happily along. And then I watched in amazement as Applejack trotted over, a towel in her mouth, and began scrubbing away at the gross window pane Pinkie Pie had pointed out in her song.
But wait. I could still hear the music, light and lulling, in the background… And by the choreographed head bouncing of my three friends, I could tell the song wasn’t over yet. Even worse, I found my own head bobbing along. Like I said, Pinkie’s stupid songs were contagious…
And then Rarity walked out of the shack, a shiny smile on her face. The door fell to the ground as she stepped out, but she didn’t seem to have noticed. Instead, she began the next verse of the song. “Have no fear, Rainbow Dash! My styles never do clash. Your house was once a monstrosity, but with a helping of my generosity…”
And Fluttershy, the timid pony that she is, fluttered down from somewhere above, adding background effects, “Aaaaaaah, ah, aaaaaaaah…”
“You’ll find that my design,” Rarity continued singing, eyes shimmering, “will only help your new home shine!”
“It’s not my house!” I found myself adding, completely in time with the music. “It’s my new detective agency.”
This news seemed to excite Fluttershy, who ran up to me, singing, “Oh, Rainbow my dear, it’s all so very clear! A detective you shall be, solving problems for the other ponies!”
Twilight strutted over, pulling us both into a hug. I gave a halfhearted hug back, until she began singing, too. Then I let go and hung there in her arms, rolling my eyes with a disgruntled look on my face. “With a little hard work together we can do anything!” Switching up the rhythm I noticed. Did that mean the song was almost over? I hoped so, because my lips were quivering and I felt myself getting a little too into the beat. “It’s true that with friends to see each other through, there’s nothing we can’t do. And so it’s to these morals and values that you all have taught me that I do cling!”
Twilight let go and spun me. I found myself ramming into Applejack, who chuckled and helped me back onto my feet. She dusted me off with the towel. And then she belted, with a country twang, “Ah reckon you’ve caused lots o’ trouble…”
“I don’t cause it!” I snapped.
“But we’re always there ta help on the double,” she continued.
“I’m gonna vomit,” I mumbled, rolling my eyes again. And then I froze, wide-eyed. Did I just rhyme? Cause it… Vomit… Did that count as a rhyme? Did I…
“All it takes is a lil bit o’ hard work and elbow grease, ta make the bad in this here house cease.”
And Applejack kicked me, sending me flailing into the house. I would have been stopped by the door, but since Rarity knocked it down nothing prevented me from tumbling straight into the rundown…
Whoa. The inside wasn’t bad at all. In fact, it looked brand new and clean. It even sparkled. Fluttershy was inside, adding vocals, “Ah, ah, aaaaaaaah, ah, aaaaaaah,” and cleaning up portions of the place. I turned around to see Rarity walking in and fixing the door into place with her magic.
“With a little magic and flair…”
“The style is very… daring.” I couldn’t help it. The place looked nice. I felt the words tumbling out of my mouth, completely in tune with the rest of the song, before I could stop myself. Hey, singing isn’t just for showponies… It can be pretty awesome sometimes. Especially Pinkie productions.
“I can take this problem…” Rarity continued her line.
And I cut in with mine, once again, “In anticipation, I’m trembling!”
“And with a simple execution…”
I found myself picking up pace, moving faster, the music following my new speedy beat as I sang, “For an agency of mine, it has to be more than fine. I need something awesome, cool, it’s gotta rule, for somepony like me, it’s gotta have courage for all to see!”
“I’ll find you the perfect solution!” Rarity finished, drawing out her last note, as Pinkie, Twilight, and Applejack entered the agency and joined Fluttershy behind Rarity. They picked up on Rarity’s note, helping to finish the song with a power chord of emotion. Or, uh, awesomeness, I mean.
“And Rainbow, I just bet,” Twilight finished once the last note died, “we’ll make an agency out of this place yet.”
The music ended. I looked around at my friends, trying to suppress my own smile. Like I said, those songs are contagious… Pinkie bounded forward and jumped on me. I couldn’t hold her weight and we crashed to the floor. She cuddled into me with a goofy grin on her face. I rolled my eyes and pushed her off. She stood right up, all smiles, staring at me expectantly. I stood up and dusted myself off.
“Okay, okay, not bad,” I said, a lopsided grin appearing on my face.
“Oh, do you like it, dear?” Rarity asked. “Now, be honest.”
“You guys did an awesome job,” I conceded. “In such a short amount of time.”
Maybe I was downplaying it a little bit. I scanned the inside of my new detective agency. It was a two-roomed building. We were currently all standing in the waiting room, which was big enough to fit a dozen ponies pretty comfortably. There was a couch that was probably of Rarity’s design for ponies to sit, a desk area for the secretary I would eventually get to sit and sort out paperwork, a couple plants and pictures thrown in to liven the place up… But really, best of all was that the holes were all patched up and the walls and floors had been redone so that the entire place looked structurally sound and stable. All in the span of one song!
I moved into the next room – my office. It was a lot smaller. Definitely made for more one-on-one intimate appointments. It housed two chairs for the clients and a pretty cool-looking desk for myself. Rarity really knew what I wanted in terms of style. Now I really was grinning. The designs had a cloud-like effect, and the walls were painted light blue with a rainbow lamp to give the place a splash of color. I felt like I had just stepped into a room in the sky.
“Wow, Rarity, this really is awesome,” I said. “Thanks a lot!”
And then I was herded outside.
“Ah fixed up the outside best Ah could,” Applejack said humbly.
It took every muscle in my body to keep my mouth from dropping. The shack was no longer a shack. In the midst of that impromptu song, somehow, my friends had all gotten together and created the agency I thought was going to take days of hard work and a lot of money to spruce up. And, well, it had needed a lot more than sprucing up.
The holes were gone, it had been refinished, it was completely scrubbed clean… And for an added effect, a rainbow had been painted, going over the door.
“Do you like it?” Fluttershy asked quietly.
“I don’t like it,” I said, very seriously. There was a collective groan among them and my smile widened. “I love it! Seriously guys, you did great. It’s… So. Awesome.”
Anyway, we can skip over the part where we have a group hug and chatter about sappy stuff, Twilight takes out her quill and we dished out a pretty decent friendship report about how you can accomplish any task you’re faced with if you work together with friends. The point is, that’s the story of how I got my detective agency.
And really, this was just a story leading up to the story. So, sure, I got my agency. The fun part comes when I actually do my detective work. I mean, that’s the breadth of most mystery novels, right? It’s all that sleuthing and stuff. I can’t be a hundred percent sure of that fact, I haven’t actually read Twilight’s Ace Investigator book series yet. But I think I get the gist of what a real detective novel needs.
And then there’s the story of how Pinkie Pie, of all ponies, became my assistant. But, then again, that kind of ties in with my first real case.
So if you wanna follow the coolest pony in all of Equestria, Detective Dash has her share of awesome mystery and intrigue to dish out.
And I promise you, awesome and cool with a dash of Rainbow never disappoints.
