Don't Stop Believing

by R_O_Y_G_B_I_V

Rating: teen
Tags: Rainbow Dash, Comedy, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Human, Sad, Romance, Original Character
Length: 32020

Lazy, carefree and lucrative meets spunky, sporty and rash. But the latter depends on the first.

Be it the result of breaking physics or mysterious magic, Rainbow Dash winds up in our world as a human! Saved from the harsh wilds of urban earth by a 20 year old carpenter, Rainbow Dash must now learn to cope in this new realm full of walking talking magicless hairless and merciless monkeys. With the help of Ray and others will the grounded pony turned human soar the skies again? Will Rainbow Dash help lighten up Ray's serious and carefree attitude? Will Journey ever get old? Does throwing a wrench into a sputtering engine fix it? Probably not.

Published 2012-08-20 10:04:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-01-08 09:31:55 UTC

Chapter 1:

"Woohoo! Yeah!" Rainbow Dash cried to no one but the wind as she raced through the troposphere at incalculable speeds. She had just surpassed mach speed after performing one of her legendary 'Sonic Rainbooms'. Normally, she would've enjoyed the remainder of her flight by coasting down to a more stable level, but today she felt adventurous. She wanted to see how far and how fast she could go.

And so she furrowed her brow, smirked in that cocky fashion of hers, and flapped her wings hard. Harder than she had ever done before...

While she was attempting to gain momentum, she found a nice thermal that would take her higher, and boost her speed a little. And so higher she went. She was aiming for the stratosphere at around seventy thousand feet of elevation. It would be rough, but she could nose dive to gain speed. So for that, it was worth it...

By now she was travelling at least mach two speed. And she was excited. Nopony she knew had flown this fast before. Not even Celestia herself. Her wings were aching and her face was sore from the resistance, but she loved every bit of it. And so pressed on...

If mach four had scared her, than she was down right horrified as of right now. Rainbow Dash was currently traveling at mach ten speeds. The wind resistance would have killed her had she not been the special flying suit she was right now. She was really starting to regret ever deciding to push these limits. Any lesser pony would have collapsed from exhaustion and wind burn, but Rainbow was an element of harmony, and wouldn't be stopped by anything as trivial as ripped muscles and severe wind damage. No, she needed to find out what her true breaking point was. She needed to know just how far she could go...

She wanted to know, and by Celestia did she find out. Now shattering her previous record, Rainbow Dash was traveling at mach twelve speeds. She could no longer see, for she had to close her eyes to protect them from the harsh winds after she had broken her goggles. She couldn't be sure where in Equestria she was, or if she was even in Equestria. All she knew now was pain. The searing pain of her burning muscles, flaming lungs and aching wings. She knew now, that this was her limit...

She was just about to call it a quits, and started to descend down into the troposphere, when she noticed a fine white jet-stream flowing from the peak of her triangular-positioned hooves. It looked just like the kind that formed when attempting a sonic rainboom. Naturally, this piqued her curiosity. Perhaps she had discovered some new trick? Perhaps the next tier of rainboom? There was only one way to find out.

And so in a last ditch attempt to try and find out what lay behind this new barrier, Rainbow plunged. She dove straight down, from her elevation of eighty thousand feet, beating her wings furiously.

She grinned when she saw what looked to be the start of what appeared to be the second tier of rainboom.

The white jet-stream now had a silver hue to it, and seemed to spark off the peak of her hooves in swirling silver tendrils. Rainbow half-regretted not being able to see it fully for herself, but she was happy enough to take pride in the new discovery, and brag about it for the rest of her natural life.

The seam was about to break and Rainbow Dash had no idea what to expect. But what had happened was definitely not what she had even taken into consideration.

A bright, white light flashed violently into existence like a lightening bolt, sending off huge amounts of magical energy. Shades of grey, black and white radiated from the magical explosion Rainbow Dash had created. Any unicorn within a one hundred mile radius would be able to pick up the signal.

Inside the flash of magic, Rainbow's skin started to tingle, and her fur was sparking with static electricity. Her flying suit had been ripped to shreds by the shear force of the wind. It was a huge surprise that Rainbow had not been ripped apart like that at all.

At first she had thought that she'd flown through an active thunder head, but upon further investigation, there wasn't a drop of water in sight.

The next thing she noticed, was that her body was starting to change. Her hind legs were elongating and filling out. Her fur and tail had disappearing but her mane remained. Her fore-legs were now elongated like here hind-legs, but now had weird, almost claw-like appendages at the ends of them. Her face started to flatten out, her waist started to curve and her chest started to expand slightly.

Rainbow Dash was officially freakin' out.

What was worst of all about the transformation though, was the loss of her wings. Rainbow Dash watched as what ever being was doing this, cruelly took away her wings from her, as they molded into her now upright back.

The change had been painless, but the most horrifying thing she had ever experienced. The next thing she saw was a mound of green and brown. Then, all was black, and she felt only the pain of being slammed into the earth. It wasn't as painful as she had thought hurdling towards the ground at mach thirteen speeds would have been. It looked as if she was at least given the blessing of a peaceful landing in compensation for her now mutilated body.

Rainbow Dash cursed up a storm while writhing on the ground in pain (it might have not been a mach thirteen impact, but it still wasn't a soft landing by any measure) for a few seconds before sitting up in a panic. That was a bad idea, she thought as she gripped her now pounding head.

She tried again to sit up, this time slower, and found that she was in a land completely unknown to her. She was surrounded by trees with leafs of varying colours and shades, and the are had a small chill to it.

"Damn, just how far did I fly?" She though to herself.

She laid back down, and then a second, more horrifying thought breached her mind. "What if... what if no one was around to see the stunt?! What if all that glory went to waste!?!?!"

Rainbow Dash was broken out of her thoughts by the sound of hoof-steps coming closer and closer. But she was to tired to get back up and see who it was, so she just laid there. Eyes pointed towards to sky, trying to find even a trace of the energy blast that had changed her body and sent her so far away.

Suddenly, a figure wondered into her peripheral vision. It definitely wasn't a pony. And it definitely didn't have hooves. It was to tall for that, and it had the same appendages that rainbow had gained. It walked on its hind-legs, making it stand about one-hundred-eighty centimeters tall. It was fully dressed in some sort of blue leggings, and what looked like some kind of black jacket. Rainbow noted that it too was hairless, with the exception of a radiant blonde mane growing from atop its head.

It was a strange sight to see. Nothing Rainbow Dash had ever seen could come close to what she saw now(maybe with the exception of the bipedal diamond dogs, but this creature was significantly less atrocious). From the looks of it, the creature appeared to be male. But Rainbow had no way of confirming this since the being's clothes covered nearly all of its body.

Rainbow Dash was suprised when she heard the creature talk. It said "Hey, uh... are you okay? What are you doing on the ground...? Naked..."

Rainbow Dash sat up and her eyes widened a bit in shock. This creature could speak, and it spoke her language! What are the odds? She didn't know exactly what to say, but she managed to ask "Y-you speak Equestrian?"

"Um... English, French and a little bit of Spanish, but not Equestrian. Horses don't have a language... they just sorta whinny" the thing responded sarcastically.

"What do mean? Who, and what are you?!" Rainbow shouted at the creature before her.

The thing in question quirked an eyebrow at Rainbow Dash in confusion and said "Um, the names Ray, Ray Marcone... As for what I am, I'm human... Like you".

The statement confused Rainbow Dash until she looked herself over. She had the exact same body makeup that this Ray had, with a few exceptions. She looked at the appendages at the ends of her fore-legs, gazed at them quizzically and asked "So, what are these?" Holding out her hands in-front of her face.

Ray deadpanned, and slapped his hand to his forehead. "Those would be called, hands" he said sarcastically while holding his hands out. "Man, why'd I have to find a kook? She must have hit her head or something..." Ray solemnly thought to himself, shaking his head.

"Okay, well um... where exactly are we?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Did you hit your head on anything?" Ray countered her question.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and said "I only flew here at mach thirteen speeds breaking the second tier of rainboom, and slammed into the ground after having my body transformed into this-" she gestured at herself. "-human body or whatever you called it by unknown magical forces! Yeah I might have bumped a thing or too" she finished, blowing a few stray strands of hair from her face and crossing her arms across her chest.

When she looked back at Ray, she saw that he had the most incredulous expression she had ever seen on anyone. Ray crossed his arms over his chest in a similar manner and rested his head on his hand. He sighed and remarked to himself "Yep, she definitely hit her head..."

Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to protest, but Ray beat her by saying, "look, you're obviously lost and confused... and naked," Ray blushed at Rainbow Dash's naked form. "So hows about you come with me, I'll get you clothed fed and figured out" he finished in a nonchalant tone.

Rainbow Dash hated how he regarded her in such an uncaring and cold tone. But he was her only hope of getting anywhere right now seeing as she had no idea where she was, or what had happened to her. So she simply huffed out a "fine" under her breath.

Ray leaned over Rainbow Dash and extended his arm to her, asking "can you stand?"

Rainbow nodded and hooked her arm around Ray's, making him quirk an eyebrow at the odd act. Rainbow just regarded him with a "what". Ray just shook his head and continued to lift Rainbow to her feet.

Once she was standing Ray took off his jacket and held it out towards her, revealing a black collared shirt with an intricate design etched into it, and said to her "here, put this on. People are going to think you're crazy if you walk around stark naked". Ray helped Rainbow Dash into it, doing up the buttons for her as well, blushing lightly the entire time. Since she was significantly shorter -about fifteen centimeters shorter- the jacket covered a lot more, reaching down to her mid-thigh. Ray was satisfied that it wouldn't make her look indecent, and started to walk away, gesturing for Rainbow to follow.

However, when Rainbow Dash had tried to walk like Ray did, she stumbled to her knees. Ray caught her before she fell flat on her face, and with a short, uncharacteristic burst of worry, asked "are you okay?"

Rainbow shook her head and said "looks like I can't walk after all".

Ray facepalmed and sighed. "Looks like I'll have to carry you then".

"Wait wha- OOF" Before she could question him, Ray picked her up and slung her across his back, carrying her in a piggy-back style. Rainbow Dash's face reddened in embarrassment at the fact that she needed to be carried instead of using her own strength, and Ray inwardly blushed at the feel on Rainbow Dash's surprisingly soft skin, and the fact that he was carrying a fairly attractive girl on his back...

Ray and Rainbow Dash walked for a few minutes in silence. Rainbow Dash was too busy taking in the scenery trying to discern where she was, and Ray just making his way back to wherever he was taking his passenger.

After a few minutes of looking around, Rainbow Dash had discovered that she had landed in a park in some big city. The city was much MUCH larger than any she had ever seen in her entire life! The buildings towered over the landscape, reaching high into the horizon. She noticed that all kinds of sounds emanated from the mysterious cluster of buildings, from squealing tires to high pitched sirens.

Rainbow Dash regarded Ray and asked "hey uh, where exactly are we?".

Ray responded in that neutral tone of his, "Toronto".

"Where's that?"Rainbow continued.

"Ontario"

"Where's Ontario?"

Ray gave her a curious look, and continued sarcastically "Canada. Of north America. Of Earth. Of solar system. Of The Milky Way. Of the universe..."

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes at the snarky reply, and said mockingly "Well thanks". After a few more moments, she said, "Wait... Earth? What's that?"

Ray gave her a calculating look, attempting to try and figure out whether she was genuinely oblivious to the fact that she was on earth, or if she was just playing around. But she seemed to serious to for shits and gigs, and so Ray explained to her in that oh so charming manner of his, "Yes Earth. The third planet orbiting the sun. Seven continents, one-hundred-ninety-four countries, six-thousand-five-hundred languages, seven billion people, and five-hundred-eight-million-four-hundred-fifty-thousand square kilometers of planetary surface... That answer your question?" He finished in a mock sweet tone.

Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes at Ray and simply said, "well I've never heard of this earth place where I'm from. And I've never seen one of you either. So forgive me from being a little curious".

Ray just rolled his eyes, making a mental note to get this mysterious girl a head examination when he takes her to the doctor's.

"So, I still haven't learned your name yet" Ray stated quizzically.

"My name, is Rainbow Dash. Fastest flier in all of Equestria, element of loyalty and idol of the people!" She replied arrogantly, thumping her fist against her chest.

"Oh wow, she's either absolutely off her rocker, or on drugs... or both. Maybe she's a hippy? That would explain her interesting choice in hair dye" Ray thought to himself, regarding the girls multicoloured hair that spilled down to the middle of her back. It seemed to frame her face perfectly, shining in the sun like a real rainbow. Such a shame that the pretty ones were more often than not crazy...

"Well Rainbow Dash," Ray said the name jokingly, "it appears as if we've arrived at our destination.

"Huh?" Rainbow looked ahead and saw that they were now standing outside of a long and tall, seven floor building made out of some kind of aging brick and shiny glass. There was ivy growing up the sides of the building, and the entrance looked like it was nothing more than a large pane of glass.

"Home sweet home" Ray exclaimed half-mockingly half-happy-to-be-home, gesturing to the building.

Rainbow Dash went wide eyed, and asked "you live here? This place is huge!"

Ray chuckled a bit, and explained, "no RD, I live in in one of the apartments here. This place is basically a large collection of separate homes".

Rainbow Dash nodded in understanding. That made a lot more sense than one person living here.

Ray walked into the building, and Rainbow awed when she saw the glass pane move just from Ray walking up to it, she assumed that either he, or it was just magic. But Ray showed no signs of being magically inclined; seeing as he picked her up with his arms instead of a magical aura. Maybe the door had an enchantment? Who knows; she wasn't a unicorn.

She saw Ray take out some sort of card, and press it against a black pad next to the door leading into the actual building. Whatever he had done with the card had made the door open by itself just like the last one had. But she made note that this one required some sort of key to make the door open.

"What was that?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"What, you mean this?" Ray replied, holding up the card he was about to place back in his pocket.

"Yeah that thing..." Dash said suspiciously.

"This is my pass key. I just press the striped side against the scanner over there and the door unlocks for me" he explained blankly.

"Oh, that makes sense... I guess..." Rainbow finished.

Ray paid no mind to the last statement, and walked through the open door with Rainbow Dash still on his back. He made his way over to some silvery doors and pressed a button that lit up after he'd touched it. Then, the doors opened up to reveal a small metallic room with mirrors on the walls.

Ray walked in, let Rainbow stand on her own for a while so he could rest his shoulders, and pressed the button that said 'seven' on it. Rainbow Dash looked at him quizzically, and asked "Wait... this is where you live? A measly little room of mirrors?"

She was relieved when she saw Ray laugh at the statement. "No RD, this is an elevator. It'll take us up to the floor that I live in. It saves us a trip up the stairs".

Rainbow Dash had no idea about what Ray was talking about, but didn't question it not wanting to sound stupid in front of him. She already worried about his opinion about her.

So instead of saying anything, Rainbow Dash took this time to examine her new body in the mirrors. She noticed that she stood smaller than Ray by about half a head. She noticed the difference in size between the two of them. Ray had a more muscular build, with defined arms and more broad shoulders; where as she had slender arms and legs with a slightly larger chest than Ray. While she wasn't as defined as Ray was, she didn't lack any muscle. It just wasn't as noticeable as Ray's.

All in all, she didn't mind her new figure. Sure, she had to deal with not being a pony, and not having wings, but at least she wasn't horribly disfigured in any other way. Though Ray might argue that her mental state was a little deranged.

Rainbow was startled out of her self ogling as the elevator dinged, signalling that they had reached their floor. Ray picked Rainbow up again onto his back, and walked through the door out into the hallways.

"Woah, warn me next time!" Rainbow Dash scolded.

"Meh" Ray lazily replied. "Hey look, we're finally here" Ray continued as he pulled out his passkey. He slid it into the black scanner, and the door made some weird screwy noises, meaning that it must have unlocked.

Ray twisted the door nob, and after warning Rainbow to mind her head, walked into the apartment...

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

A/N: There was probably a lot of physics defying bullshittery involved in that first sequence with Rainbow Dash flying, but whatever it's fiction. The chapter ended a little abruptly, but I didn't want an overly huge chapter. I hope this story is has at least piqued the interest of a few readers. I strive towards that seemingly unattainable goal of reaching the feature box. So help me out by RR, and have a nice night. Check out some of my other stories if it tickles your fancy, and don't be afraid to share this badass story with any bros you may converse with regularly.

Chapter 2:

Back in Equestria, Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna all felt the signs of the massive explosion of magical energy Rainbow Dash had produced. When she caught whiff of it, Twilight immediately sent for spike so that she could write to Celestia about her findings. But it seemed that she didn't need to, because the next thing she knew, spike had burped up a letter with the Princess' seal.

She opened the letter and it read:

My faithful student Twilight.

As I'm sure you've noticed, it appears as though there has been a massive release in magical energy near the border of the griffon kingdom. Since we both know that there isn't a griffon alive talented in the arcane arts, I have reason to believe that the outburst was brought on by a pony. I've sent a chariot to take you to their border where you will meet up with Luna and I to help investigate. You are dismissed from all other duties until further notice. We don't know if this was an accident, or planned. And with that kind of power, we need to be sure of who, or what we're dealing with.

Yours truly: Princess Celestia De Sol

Just after she was done reading the letter, there was a knock at the door. It was her big brother shining armor accompanied by two Pegasus royal guard. Twilight nodded at them in acknowledgement and hopped onto the chariot awaiting her. It was clear that this was an urgent call, and so she didn't waste any time with friendly greetings, only shooting her brother a brief smile...

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Back on earth, Ray was walking into his apartment with Rainbow Dash still on his back. When they had entered, the first thing that Rainbow noticed was the fairly small size of the place. It had a small living room with a couch and a small coffee table in the middle. The living room was connected to the small kitchenette; separated only by a change from carpet to tile. In between the den and the kitchen was a small hallway that had four doors, two doors per side. The house couldn't even hold a candle to the cloud mansion that Rainbow Dash was used to. But she didn't mind the place. It had a nice, humble feel to it.

The next thing Rainbow Dash noticed, was the curious gaze of two children -one boy, one girl- sitting on the floor of the den. Their brows quirked in confusion at the new guest.

Ray walked over to the couch and sat Rainbow Dash up on the piece of furniture. Then he turned to the two kids on the floor who were still staring at Rainbow Dash, who smiled nervously back at them.

"This is Jesse. She'll be staying with us for a while, so be nice and don't meddle" Ray said, addressing the children with a stern, older brotherly voice. Rainbow Dash took note of the girl whispering back into the smaller boys ear.

"Jesse?" Rainbow Dash asked. Ray just turned to her and placed his finger over his lip, giving her a harsh glare, causing her to shudder and simply nod her head.

"Y-yeah, Jesse... that's me!" Rainbow said, scratching the back her her neck sheepishly.

The two kids just shrugged and went about their business of staring at the small television across the room. It was playing some sort of cartoon with a talking sponge and star-fish. But it sounded like the characters were speaking in some unintelligible gibberish. Rainbow Dash made a mental note to investigate the strange moving paintings later.

Ray turned to address Rainbow Dash, this time regarding her with his usual blank expression instead of the sternness her demonstrated earlier. "This is Dante-" he said lazily, gesturing to the boy of the two, "- and this is Florence" he continued, pointing at the girl. "Their my siblings. Dan is twelve, and Flo is sixteen" he finished.

Dante gave a half-assed attempt at waving to Rainbow Dash and saying hello, but only managed to lift his arm and mumble incoherently. Florence gave a more friendly greeting; standing up and giving her a warm grin, introducing herself and what not.

"So Jesse, are you from around here? Or have you come from somewhere else?" Florence asked. Rainbow saw that her Equestrian (or English, whatever) wasn't as good as her older brothers. She seemed to have a funny way of pronouncing her words, and she didn't say them very confidently.

Rainbow Dash twitched a little at the use of her alias, but she knew that Ray must have given her that wordless warning for a reason, so she went along with it. "Um, no I'm actually from out of town. Out of province actually" she said, smiling jokingly.

Florence was silent for a few moments, and then nodded her head. Then she said, "well, welcome to Toronto. And welcome to Ontario to I guess" giggling at the last bit and holding out her hand to shake.

Rainbow Dash smiled at her warmly and bumped her hand with her fist, drawing out a confused look from Florence. Then she turned the boy on the ground ignoring Flo's confused expression. "What about you, what's your deal squirt?" she addressed jokingly. But the boy just sat there, staring at her. Rainbow gave a nervous chuckle, and asked again "what, don't you speak equestrian? Or English or whatever you call it here?"

The boy just sat there, still staring blankly at her. Florence and Ray were chuckling to themselves, making Rainbow Dash blush a bit in embarrassment.

"What?" She asked defensively.

"He doesn't speak a lick of English RD" Ray said still laughing a little. Rainbow caught a bit of his smile, which was a lot different from his usual sarcastic demeanor. It was warm and friendly, instead of his cold and uncaring expression he usually wore.

However it didn't last as long as she'd liked, and Ray walked over to the confused boy and leaned down, telling him "elle était juste dire bonjour".

The boy then blushed slightly, and turned to regard Rainbow. He was able to manage a simple "Hello" after being briefly instructed on how to by Ray.

Rainbow Dash laughed at the display, and asked "What was he speaking just then?"

"French" Florence answered smiling.

"What's that?"

"A language we speak here in Canada" Ray answered bluntly and sarcastically, earning himself a glare from Rainbow Dash. He just gave a cocky smirk in return.

Florence laughed nervously, and said "We're supposed to be a bilingual country here, but not everyone knows proper french. It makes it hard for him, so we're trying to teach him English" she gestured to Dante, who was back at watching his cartoons. "As you can see, it's not going very well" she sighed and rested her head in her hand. "But I'm glad that you'll be staying with us! I'll try my best to make you feel at home" Florence finished with a warm smile.

Rainbow grinned back. "At least someone here is nice" she yelled over to where Ray who was in the kitchen drinking some water. Ray simply gave her another smirk as he finished his glass of water and walked over to the den where everyone else was situated.

"Alright guys, clear out. I have to talk to Jesse about some things. D'accord les gens, déguerpir. Je dois parler à Jesse de certaines choses" Ray said to his brother and sister.

"M-mais spongebob" Dante started to protest.

"Je ne soins. Aller" Ray said firmly, pointing down the hall.

Florence was already gone, and Dante was on his way down the hall with his head hung low. Rainbow Dash flinched a little, not knowing what he had said to him. Who knew, what with his attitude and all.

But before that train of though could go any further, Ray turned and looked at her with a blank, yet purposeful stare. "So, tell me what happened. Or at least what you claim to have happened" he said in completely serious tone.

Rainbow Dash gulped at the tensity, but this man did probably save her immobile new body, and even offered to take her in asking nothing in return. Or not yet at least... He deserved an explanation.

And so she explained to him. She explained how she was really from a place called Equestria, a land filled with ponies and ruled by the two Alicorn sisters Luna and Celestia who controlled the sun and moon. And how in this place she was a pony. A Pegasus to be specific. The fastest Pegasus in all of Equestria. She made that part very clear.

She went on to tell him that she thinks that she might have ripped a hole in the dimensional barrier with her silver rainboom as she liked to call it. And how the warp-zone had transformed her former pony body into this new human one and teleported her here to this weird new world.

Ray had remained silent throughout the entire explanation, not moving an inch. But when Rainbow Dash had finished recalling her story, Ray had an icredulous look that practically scream are you fucking with me?

Ray was silent for a few more seconds, trying to discern whether or not the girl in front of him was absolutely bonkers, or if she was in fact just fucking with him. So he decided to ask. "Are you fucking with me right now? Or do you actually believe everything you just said?"

Rainbow Dash winced at the accusation. After she had heard herself explaining her situation, she could see how it would be hard to believe. "Look, I know it sounds extremely far fetched. But there's no other way that it would make any sense!" she exclaimed.

"Well, if I were extremely gullible and stupid, I might believe your theory. It makes sense if you disregard quantum mechanics, natural physics and believe in trans-dimensional surfing via high speeds and body shifting brought on by said universal transport" Ray said sarcastically. "But if what you say about your body is true, we'll be able to find out when we get you a physical" he finished.

"Alright, I have no idea about what you said in that first bit, but if getting a physical means you'll believe me, then fine, where and when do I get one?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Ray sighed and said "well I have to book you an appointment, and it'll probably be in a couple of days to a week if we're unlucky. So in the meantime, I suppose we should just wait until you get your memory back and get you used to normal society since you seem to be lacking in the knowledge of modern social standards..."

Rainbow Dash just nodded, not having anything much else to say... surprisingly.

"So, are your legs broken or did you pull a muscle or what?" Ray asked.

Rainbow Dash said nothing, suddenly finding the floor very interesting. When Ray addressed her again, her blush didn't go unnoticed. She didn't want to admit that she couldn't do something so simple as walking, but if she didn't, then she'd be stuck on this couch forever.

"I-I..."

"yeeeessss?" Ray asked sarcastically, drawing out the word.

"I-i d-don't know-"

"Don't know what" Ray deadpanned.

Rainbow Dash's face reddened more, and she shouted "I don't know how to walk on two feet okay?!"

"..." Ray stared blankly into Rainbow Dash's eyes. And stared... And stared....... And stared...

"... What?" She asked nervously.

"Stand up" Ray said.

"I just told you, I can't do any of that!" Rainbow defended. But Ray just walked over to her and lifted her off the couch onto her own two feet. Once he was sure that she was steady, he told her to wait there while he moved the coffee table out of the way to make a clear, open path for Rainbow Dash to learn how to walk.

Ray then walked around behind Rainbow Dash and gently placed his hand on her back, making her blush at the contact.

"Wh-what are you d-doing?" She stuttered out.

"Well, you've got to learn how to walk sometime. And with muscles like these, one might mistake you for a marathon runner" Ray replied, noticing the presence of strong back and leg muscles from where he's felt so far. (Giggity).

"Well, I was Equestria's number one flier after all. So it's not like sports aren't my thing" she said cockily, soaking up the small, uncharacteristic compliment. It was more of a statement but Rainbow's ego couldn't tell the difference.

"Yeah yeah, get walking" Ray remarked rolling his eyes. He gave a light push on Rainbow's back forcing her to fall over. But before she could hit the ground Ray caught her.

He sighed and said "Come on RD, you have to put out your foot or you'll keep falling".

"Fine fine" She replied. "Y'know walking on two legs is harder than you make it look" she defended.

"So that's why seven billion people can do it?" he countered cockily.

Rainbow Dash let out a frustrated growl, and tried out using her legs to help Ray lift her back up. She found that she didn't weigh very much. Not that she weighed an overly amount as a Pegasus, but she felt really light. Oh yeah... Ray was lifting her... Well Rainbow Dash would have none of that, and tried pried Ray's hands out from under her arms. When she used her legs, she found that this body made it quite easy to stand back up.

Once she was standing once more, she tried taking a step. But when she did, she faltered and grabbed Ray's hand before she could fall again. She looked back up at Ray who nodded in acknowledgement and said "here, why don't you use my hand for support and you try to take some steps".

Rainbow Dash agreed with a simple "mhm" and continued her death grip of Ray's hand. She noticed that it felt quite rough and strong compared to her soft and slender hands. She wondered if it was just a gender difference, or if he had some conditioning to attain such calloused hands.

On Rainbow's second attempt, she was much ore successful. With Ray's assistance, she was able to take three steps without stumbling. By the sixth attempt, she was able walk freely while holding Ray's hand. Rainbow dash was now determined to do on her own, and so she let go of Ray's support when she felt she was sturdy enough to stand.

Naturally though, she fell right down to the ground after four wobbly steps. Ray was to far away to make it in time she she ended up on her knees on the floor. But when Ray went to ask if she was okay and help her up again, she had already started to get up on her own. It took her a few tries, but eventually, she was able to get up off the ground and stand all by herself.

"You're doing good Rainbow, keep trying" Ray encouraged,.

Rainbow Dash smiled at her achievements like a toddler, and continued to practice her steps, still stumbling every once and a while, but not falling any more.

"So Ray, about that name you gave me, Jesse, what's with that?" She asked, eyes still trained on her walking feet.

"Rainbow Dash isn't exactly a normal name here... by any means at all" He explained lazily. "You already stand out enough with that rainbow hair of yours. But we're in the city, so it's not totally unacceptable here. But yeah, when we're in public, I'm going to call you Jesse. Jesse Martin. And if anyone asks, you're a friend from France".

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and said "Well fine. But you guys have the weird names! I'm at least named after what I do. I have rainbow hair and I love to dash. What kind of name is Ray? You're definitely no Ray of sunshine that''s for sure" she finished sarcastically.

For a few moments Ray was silent. What Rainbow Dash had said had actually made sense. But then he said, "well, we still use different names. And Rainbow isn't a recognized name, and you won't be taken seriously if you go by it. Hell you're lucky if you get taken seriously at all with your hair".

"The hair stays. It's the last thing I have from my world, and you're not taking it" Rainbow stopped, turning to meet his gaze.

"Fine, fine keep your hair" he said nonchalantly. "I like it anyways".

Rainbow Dash blushed a bit at the actual compliment he had given her. "I like your hair too..." she said quietly, earning a smirk from Ray.

"Well, you seem to be walking fine" Ray speculated, seeing that Rainbow Dash had been pacing perfectly while they were talking.

Noticing this, Rainbows eyes lit up and she squealed giddily at her new found ability. She even jumped a bit, but fell when she landed, only to be caught by Ray once again.

"Thanks" she said under her voice shyly.

Ray grinned a little and said "no worries". He lifted Rainbow Dash back up and looked down the hallway, "hey, under that jacket of mine you're still naked. You look about Flo's size, maybe she'll have some clothes for you to borrow" he said gesturing down the hall.

"What's the big idea with that anyways? Clothes are so restricting and uncomfortable. Why does everyone here always wear them?" Rainbow asked with a little bit of disdain.

Ray shrugged and said "it gets cold out so we put clothes on to keep ourselves warm. And then in the summer we wear them for fashion reasons, and to keep our modesty. It's a weird society thing, but I'm not complaining. I wouldn't want to walk around stark naked all the time. It'd be weird. Also you can be arrested for not wearing clothes, so you're getting dressed properly".

Rainbow grunted and nodded in agreement, making her way down the hall with Rainbow Dash. Once the were at the first door to right, Ray knocked on the door. When the door was opened, reavealing Florence, Ray asked "hey Flo, Jesse here doesn't have any clothes right now besides what she's wearing. Her stuff got lost so do you think you could spare anything?"

Florence took a second to process what she'd just heard. But then said "sure! Come on in Jesse, I can help you pick something out if you'd like" she smiled.

"Sure, that's be nice" Rainbow replied in a friendly manner , grinning nervously. "I'm not really great at clothes selection, so I'll need all the help I can get" she joked.

Florence giggled and brought her in. Once Rainbow was inside, Florence turned to her brother and said "désolé Ray, les filles ne seulement" with a giggle. Ray smirked and turned to go sit on the couch.

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Back in Flo's room, Rainbow Dash was sitting on Flo's bed while she went through her closet trying to figure out what would go well with what.

"What do you think about this?" Florence asked, holding out a pair of skinny jeans and a long sleeve shirt.

"I dunna"

"Yeah your right" Flo said with her hand on her hips. She put a finger to her lips in though, and came across something that she thought might play to Rainbow's spunky nature.

"How about these?" She asked, holding up black shorts, a blue ribbed tank top and rainbow stripped thigh high socks.

"Here, go put these on. You'll look great I'm sure of it. And Ray will totally love it too" Flo said with a mischievous grin. Making Rainbow Dash blush and stammer incoherently. Flo just waved her off and gave Rainbow Dash a sports bra and some panties before she went to go get changed so that she wouldn't be walking around comando...

A few Rainbow Dash walked out fully dressed in the new outfit. Florence was outside the bathroom waiting for her so that she could see how she looked. Obviously with Flo being the girly teenager that she was, squealing ensued and many compliments were given. Some even in French.

"Ah, Tu es très belle Jesse!" Flo exclaimed clapping her hands.

"I don't know what that means, but that you" Rainbow said, laughing nervously, scratching the back of her neck.

"Don't worry about it" Flo said. "Now, let's go get a man's opinion on this" she smirked. "Ray, Dante, venir ici!"

Ray got up from the couch and walked over to where he was called and Dante came from out of his room and did the same. When they got there, Dante blushed and walked over to Ray, whispering something into his ear. Ray whispered back and Dante said "You look very pretty" in a harsh accent.

Rainbow Dash leaned down Dante's height and rubbed the top of his head saying "thanks squirt" only causing the boy's face to redden even deeper. After that he went back into his room and closed the door. 'What a cutie' Rainbow thought to herself.

Rainbow Dash then turned over to meet Ray's gaze. She could see him giving her a thorough inspection. She blushed a little under his gaze, but when she was about to say something she saw him smirk.

"Well, you don't look hideous" he said mockingly.

Rainbow Dash was a little upset that Ray put it in such a way, but blushed deeper when Flo whispered into her ear that that was Ray's way of saying that he liked it. For some reason, that made Rainbow Dash feel good. She never really cared about her appearance to often, but she felt nice to know that someone thought she looked good.

Ray clapped his hands conclusively and said, "well now that you can walk, and now that you've got some clothes on for the day, why don't we go out for a bit and get you some of your own necessities. Then we can work on getting that appointment".

Rainbow Dash nodded in agreement and said "okay, I'm kind of curious about this Toronto place anyways".

"Good,, because you're about to see a lot of it" Ray said once more. "Flo, you're coming with us okay? I haven't the eye for fashion that you do, and you can show Rain- Jesse all of the girly places" Ray addressed his sister, who gave a nod and a grin.

"Right then, let's go. You can borrow Flo's old running shoes" Ray finished, pointing towards a pair of old blue sneakers.

Rainbow Dash put them on, and Ray grabbed his keys and bag from the door. And with that, they were off to their next great adventure in the land of Toronto Ontario Canada North America Earth Solar System Milky Way Galaxy Universe.

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A/N: Hey boils and ghouls, I really wanted to get this chapter up yesterday, but I got called into work... And then took a nap after work... So yeah. As always, please read and review, if you haven't already like and favorite this, yeah yeah you know the drill... If you think I rushed through some of the parts, please let me know. It helps me to become a better writer for you to enjoy! Oh and I fixed the italics on the first chapter so... yeah...Whelp, I will see you all on Sunday with a brand new chapter! Have a good night. Or morning. Or afternoon!

Chapter 3:

Twilight Sparkle had just arrived at the scene at the border of the Griffon kingdom with Celestia, Luna and the Griffon king all awaiting her arrival. She regarded them formally, and quickly got down to business. Celestia pointed out the giant gaping white rift that sat up in the sky radiating a silvery hue and tonnes of magical energy. Celestia had deduced it to be a time/space rift, and explained the massive repercussions that could occur if the wrong pony/being got a hold of the power it held. Luckily, the rift was far to high for any normal being to reach... unless certain speeds were reached to ascend to such a height. This fact only worsened Celestia's fears of the powerful being that must have produced this rip in space. It would need to be inspected, and there was only one way to do that...

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Ray, Rainbow Dash and Florence had left the apartment behind as they strode down Dundas street Toronto. Ray claimed that they were apparently looking for something called a 'subway entrance'. When Rainbow questioned it, Florence explained that it was basically an underground train.

That piqued Rainbow's curiosity. Of course she'd been on trains before; but the very idea of a train travelling underground was absolutely ludicrous! It made no sense! Why would someone go through all of the trouble of digging a giant tunnel for trains to travel through?

But then she noticed the amount of traffic on the roads. They black paths were littered with hundreds of noisy, colourful seemingly self-power wagons. Rainbow asked Ray about these, and he explained to her in that monotonous, uncaring way of his that they were called 'cars'. When she questioned him further on their usefulness on the grounds that they were moving extremely slow and they were too big to maneuver properly.

Ray answered this with "they're moving so slowly because there's a speed limit of 40 kilometers... and most cars can go at least one-hundred-fifty kilometers an hour".

"Is that a lot?" Rainbow question curiously. "And what's a kilometer?"

"Yes, it's quite fast," Florence answered with a friendly smile. "And a kilometer is one thousand meters"

"...What's a meter?"

"One hundred centimeters..."

"Oh... Um, what's a centimeter?"

"ten millmeters..." Florence's eye twitched as her friendly tone started falter at Rainbow's complete and utter lack of knowledge or understanding of metric measurements...

"Look, do you know any imperial measurements? Like miles, yards, feet and inches?" Ray said trying to figure out if she'd forgotten all units of measurement.

"Yeah I know my miles" she stated.

"Well, one-hundred-fifty kilometers is roughly ninety-three miles" Ray explained.

"Wow, only ninety-three? That's not too terribly impressive..."

"You must be a speed demon" Ray said sarcastically. Obviously

"Whatever" Rainbow said disregarding Ray's sarcasm. "But where is this subway thingamajig going to take us?" Rainbow asked curiously.

Ray casually said, "The Eaton center. The largest underground shopping center if you didn't know. That's where we're headed".

Rainbow held an incredulous look on her face, quirking an eyebrow she said "Wait, you mean to tell me, that there is an entire market place underground? I'll believe it when I see it..." she scoffed.

They'd found what they were looking for. It was a staircase in the middle of the street leading underground with a sign that said 'TTC'. Ray explained that that meant 'Toronto Transport Company'.

When they descended the stairs, Rainbow Dash awed at the spectacle. It was in-fact, and entire train station under ground. And it was even bigger than any train station she had been to in Equestria. The place was a large platform with tiled flooring and ceiling. The station had ticket booths, some sort of weird contraption that seemed to only open with a key, and various vendors selling all kinds of goods from touristy items to magazines and snacks. She saw the same set-up across the train tracks. It was quite mind-blowing for a small-town pony-turned-human to comprehend.

"Woah, this place is insane!" Rainbow exclaimed excitedly.

Ray chuckled lightly and Florence giggled at her giddiness.

Rainbow's eyes widened when she heard the rumbling of what must have been the train about to arrive. She saw the massive pool of people walk towards the edge of the platform, waiting for the train to roll in.

"Come on Rain-Jesse" Ray corrected himself, his sister eyeing him up suspiciously. "Let's get going before we miss it" he finished, dragging Rainbow by the hand down to the Turnstile, drawing out a blush from the Rainbow haired girl. He then pulled out another card and chipped it into the gate, causing it to rotate for him. He then leaned back over to chip his card in again to let Rainbow through. Florence copied Ray's movements and in no time the were among the crowd awaiting the train.

Just as the passed the turnstiles, they heard the loud screech of the train halting. Rainbow had to cover her ears since the train was underground in a chasm so the sound reverberated immensely. Ray chuckled at the display and Rainbow Dash stuck her tongue out at him, drawing out a smirk. Beside them, Florence was giggling at the scene and idly humming to herself.

Once the long, silver coloured train had appeared, Rainbow Dash had to do a double take. Where was the locomotive, where was the smoke, and why was it shaped so squarely?

She voiced these questions, and Ray answered blankly "That front bit and back bit are the locomotive, it's electrically run so there is no exhaust, and it's shaped to fit in the tunnels snugly".

Rainbow Dash nodded in understanding, and was drawn back to the sight of the train. She saw what looked like hundreds of people exiting the train at once. She wondered how in the world they all fit on the thing? The train wasn't small by any means, but it was still filled to the brim.

Once the train had been emptied of the passengers getting off at this station, the crowd that she was in had started to move. She clutched Ray's hand in a death-grip and nervously made her way with him on the train with Florence following in-suit.

When they got onto the train, the first thing that was made blatantly obvious was the fact that they were a lot smaller on the inside than they looked on the outside. Or maybe it was just because the Train was filled to the brim, totally shoulder to shoulder.

Rainbow was still gripping onto Ray's hand -which had now gone red due to the pressure. Ray turned over to meet Rainbow's gaze, and he said tonelessly "you're kind of crushing my hand RD".

Florence noticed this and giggled to herself, Rainbow stammered out "wh-what?" in defense, and she loosened her grip on Ray's hand, but didn't fully release it. This didn't go past Florence who gave a mischievous smile Rainbow and Ray's way. Rainbow only blushed harder, but Ray regarded his sister by starring at her blankly and raising an eyebrow as if to say 'what?' Florence just moved her eyes away from them and whistled innocently, Ray rolling his eyes as she did so.

They stood in silence for a good minute or two, just enjoying (or in Rainbow's case, freaking out) the ride, waiting for their destination. But suddenly, a voice Rang out from who knows where. The voice was a female speaking in monotone, she it said "arriving at Dundas, Dundas station".

Ray turned to Rainbow Dash, who had now moved her grip to his arm, and said "this will be our stop. Mind the brakes, they're a little jerky" cautioning her.

"What brak-" before she was able to finish her sentence, the train screeched and halted to a stop abruptly, send Rainbow Dash into Ray's chest.

"Oof" she cried out as her face made impact on Ray's chest. Ray stumbled a bit at the shift in weight, but was able to keep himself up with the assistance of the railing he'd been holding onto the entire ride.

Rainbow Dash was leaning fully into Ray's chest, not wanting to move. She didn't know why, but she found comfort and security in the sarcastic and monotonous man's hold. She could stand by herself now that Ray had taught her, but she yearned for the feel of Ray's strong arms wrapped around her body, hoisting her up onto her feet again.

She had no idea why she craved these things. Never before in her life, be in this world or in Equestria, had she found herself drawn anyone the way she was drawn to Ray. Maybe it was because she'd never actually been this close to a pony/person of the opposite sex. She never saw meaning in it, she was to focused on her training to care about anything as trivial as love. But now that she was stuck with this person whom she relied on, she had more time to become attached. Well, more time as in like, half a day so far... but still...

Or maybe it was because of the fact the Ray had saved her. Surely if he hadn't picked her up and carried her to his home and offered to take her in, she would be completely lost with no way of sustaining herself in this new world. Maybe she felt that she owed him her affections for his heroic act? Was that it?

Or maybe even, it was the subtle charm that Ray's calm, cool and unfazed demeanor that caught her attention. Like they say, opposites attract. And if ever Rainbow had an opposite, it would be the lazy, uncaring and emotionally deficient Ray Marcone. Maybe she was attracted to the change in pace that she wouldn't recieve anywhere in Equestria. The Ponies there were unnervingly nice. Not that she had a problem with nice, and not that there weren't any mean Ponies out there, but you just didn't seem to find the same overwhelmingly friendly atmosphere in this world's demographic.

Who knew what stirred these feelings in Rainbow Dash? Definitely not her, but she had no more time to think on this as the doors to train were opened and people started flooding out of the train cars. Ray ushered her out with Florence following behind.

"Well, we're here" Ray said, gesturing to everything around.

"But this is just another train station..." Rainbow said suspiciously.

"You'll see" Ray said slyly, "come on follow me" Hey i rhymed :D

And so Ray, Florence and Rainbow Dash walked down the corridor behind glass doors. Rainbow still wasn't as impressed as she thought she'd be. I mean, it was cool and all what with everything being underground. It just seemed a little... anti-climactic.

Well that's what she did think, until of course Ray and entourage walked through the long hallway leading out of Dundas station and into the Eaton center. When Rainbow laid her gaze upon the massive shopping center, her eyes turned to saucers and her mouth was left agape. She was speechless. This place was MASSIVE!

When she looked around, she saw a wide open space filled with an array of stores and kiosks filled to burst with all kinds of people wearing all kinds of clothing with all kinds of hair styles and all kinds of colours. Most of which were brown, orange or yellow like Ray's. But there were a few colourful ones like Florence's pink hair or Rainbow's multicolored locks -though none to the same extent as her. Some styles were even spiked up or tied in bundles or weaves. If Rainbow Dash thought that an underground train was cool, this had to be at least, wait for it now, twenty percent cooler! (Cliche quote is cliche)

"This. Place. Is. AWESOME!" Rainbow Dash squealed, pressing her hands against her cheeks.

Ray and Rlorence openly laughed at Rainbow's enthusiasm. They remembered they're first reactions to the Eaton center, though they were much more contained than Rainbow's mind blown expression.

"Well, is it what you expected it to be?" Ray teased, gesturing to the massive complex of stores. The ceiling was at least forty meters high and you could see that the upper floors were open to the bottom floor and connected by a system of moving staircases.

She giggled a bit, and answered giddily "Absolutely not! I was expecting some small covern or something! Are you sure this is all underground?"

"Yes Jesse, everything here is under Toronto" Florence explained with a smile on her face.

"Wow! And hey, what are those?" Rainbow gestured to the stairs the seemed to move all by themselves.

"Those? Those are escalators" Florence continued.

Rainbow just nodded and figured she shouldn't press on the matter. All these explanations seemed to confuse her. What were mechanics? Why wouldn't they just enchant them? Maybe no one here knew how to use magic. She didn't know. Nor did she really care.

Rainbow and Florence were brought to attention by Ray who cleared his throat and said "well, Florence knows a lot more about clothing for girls than I do. So I'll be leaving her with you. I'm trusting you to get Jesse clothed. You have your phone on you right?" Florence nodded, patting her bag. "Okay, well I'm going to go search around for some bits and bobs that she'll need as well, so call me when you guys are ready to go, or if you get into trouble or what ever" he finished, waving to them and turning to be sucked up into the crowd.

Rainbow frowned slightly, but Florence turned to her with that friendly smile of hers and said "well jesse, shall we go get you some clothes?"

Rainbow bit her bottom lip nervously and nodded. Florence grinned and pulled her by her arm to a rather pink looking store filled with mannequins wearing weird looking clothing with strange patterns and materials. Rainbow felt that Rarity would feel right at home here, but Rainbow Dash had never fancied clothing. But in this world it didn't seem like clothing was an option, so she reluctantly followed the giddy teenager leading her by the wrist to a store called H&M. Weird name...

Once they were in, they were addressed by a sales clerk. A girl who had black hair tied up in a ponytail. She was dressed up like one of the mannequins only she had a red name tag that read 'Hello my name is Angela'.

The girl said "hey welcome to H&M! Are you looking for anything in particular?"

Florence grinned and said "actually I'm glad you asked. My friend here" Flo gestured towards Rainbow, "needs to be measured for some bras and pants. She lost all her clothes so we need to pick up some new stuff" she finished explaining.

"Um... what's a bra?" Rainbow asked confused.

The store clerk looked at her funny, but Flo said"Sorry, she's from France. You know us French girls" she laughed nervously. Ray had told her that Jesse had lost her memory, and if anyone were to ask, that she had visited here from France. Florence knew that it wasn't true, but she trusted her brother and didn't question his motives.

Angela chuckled, waving her hand dismissively, "aha, I getcha. Well let's get her measured up" she said as she snapped some tape measure in her hands. "Follow me girls, we can go use one of the change rooms in the back" she added, walking away to the back of the store with Rainbow and Florence following behind.

Once they were in the changing room, Florence and Angela learned a few things about Rainbow Dash. First of all was that Rainbow had zero issues with being more or less naked in front of other people. Secondly however, they also figured out that Rainbow has massive personal bubble invasion problems. When Angela got close enough to wrap the tape around Dash to measure her bust, Rainbow maneuvered out of the way. Angela tried again, but Rainbow just kept on moving away from her. Soon enough, a full on chase had begun in the change rooms. Angela and Florence were chasing Rainbow Dash around with the tape measure for a good ten minutes before Florence was able to catch Rainbow and pin her down so that Angela could take the measurement.

Once they had finally gotten all of the measurements down, Florence released her grip on Rainbow who backed up against the wall immediately after and stared daggers into Flo and Angela.

The two girls laughed it off though, and when Flo apologized to Angela for the ruckus, she just brushed it off claiming that it gave some much needed excitement to the boring atmosphere.

Once they had selected suffiecient under wear for Rainbow Dash, they moved on to both of their favorite parts. Choosing outfits. (Oh Joy)

With a little input from Rainbow Dash, her claiming that she wanted as much blue as she could get, they were able to pick out three different outfits.

For shirts they chose a long sleeved v-neck shirt with a baby blue and light grey pattern, another long sleeve shirt that was more of a knitted texture to it. The third shirt they got was an off the shoulder shirt with a dark blue trim. For pants they got her two sets of skinny jeans, one black and one grey, and a pair of black gray sweatpants that had the word 'Athlete' in graffiti writing. They also managed to find Rainbow a pair of re converse shoes, though they had to fight her a little since she didn't overly fancy the colour.

Over all though, Rainbow Dash was more than pleased with what she had received. Once Florence had used the money Ray had given to get Rainbow some clothes (and her a little something too) Rainbow turned to the girl asking"why are you and your brother helping me so much? I mean, that's wasn't cheap by any means. You guys are under no obligation to take care of me..." she grabbed her arm and avoided Flo's eyes.

"Florence's eyes softened and she knew that Rainbow felt bad for having Ray and Florence do so much for her. But then she smiled gently, gazing into nothingness. "If ray didn't think that you deserved his help, he wouldn't have given it to you. You may be pretty, but Ray doesn't fall for looks. There must be something about you that he sees. And whatever it is, it's bringing out the softer side in him" she explained softly, making Rainbow look back up into her eyes. "I know my brother can be a bit harsh and seemingly uncaring at times, but he's actually a wonderful person. He's been taking care of me and Dan since he was only fourteen years old. But that's another story" Flo finished with a wide eyed Rainbow Dash staring at her slightly shocked.

Rainbow's gaze then softened and a smile made it's way to her lips, "Yeah, Ray really is something else isn't he" she said affectionately. "I owe him so much, and it's only been a day" she added.

"Yeah, but Ray won't hold you to it. He's just not like that. So if you wanna do something nice for him, stay true to him" Florence said half sternly.

"I-I'm not-" Rainbow said but was cut off by Florence.

"Just, don't make all his sacrifices go in vein. He's helping you because he knows that you're worth the effort. Stay true to whatever it is that makes him believe in you, and stay true to him" Florence ended.

Rainbow Dash simply nodded in a silent agreement. She wouldn't let Ray down. Wait, what was she saying? She needed to get back to Equestria! What's all this 'getting closer to Ray's family' stuff all about? She couldn't get too attached. She couldn't hurt these people with the knowledge that she wasn't here for good. She couldn't allow herself to get closer anymore, else she'd end up hurting them. And so she did the only thing she could do. She ran.

"Huh? Wait Jesse where are you going?" Flo asked abruptly as she saw Rainbow Dash run off.

"I'm sorry!" Was all she got in return. She noticed the tears coming from Rainbow's eyes and knew what she must be feeling. So in a panic, she pulled out her phone to call Ray...

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A/N: Well mares and gentle-colts. I said I'd have it up on Sunday, and so I did! I just got it up (ha, got it up) really late... sorry... See, what happened was I gave myself all this time to write it throughout the week, but I ended up writing the entire thing today... heheh... Aaaanyways, as usual like and favorite if you haven't already. Always open to criticism and your undying praise ^_^, so leave a comment!
Also have a goodnight/morning/afternoon, and I will see you all on Friday with a new chapter.

Chapter 4:

Twilight, with the invaluable assistance of the goddess sisters of Equestria, was able to reach the rip in the sky. It appeared whiter than blank paper, yet it held a silvery hue to it. It was almost a beautiful and majestic work of art, had it not been one of the most powerful magical anomalies in existence...

Upon further inspection, Twilight noted that the rip seemed to be two dimensional, yet when speculated on any angle, it would look the same. She also took note that the white wall of the barrier was almost like an impenetrable jelly. It would circle like water at the touch, but no matter how hard you pressed, it would not break. Also, the actual rift itself looked more like a sonic-rainboom frozen in time with the colours drained. If it was in-fact a paralyzed sonic-rainboom, then they knew who they knew who they would have to consult. And so a unanimous decision was made to contact Rainbow Dash and have her explain her thoughts on the matter...

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"Huh? Wait Jesse where are you going?" Flo asked abruptly as she saw Rainbow Dash run off.

"I'm sorry!" Was all she got in return. She noticed the tears coming from Rainbow's eyes and knew what she must be feeling. So in a panic, she pulled out her phone to call Ray...
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"Jesse!" Florence called out, but it was too late. Rainbow Dash had been swallowed up by the crowd. So she did the next best thing she could do, she immediately flipped open her phone and speed dialed Ray.

She put the receiver to her ear and listened to the ringer buzz a few times before she heard the lazy "hello?" that meant Ray was on the other line now.

"Ray, Jesse ran off in some kind of panic. She apologized for whatever reason and ran off into the crowd!" She spoke into the phone with a obvious hint of worry in her voice.

Ray was silent on the other end of the line for a moment, "fine, if she wants to run off and get lost, than that's her choice".

There was a coldness in the way Ray had said it that peeved Florence. She was taken aback by the heartless response for a few moments, but the reality of what Ray was saying unnerved her.

"Ray, what are you saying? She's an amnesiac girl with no sense of where she is, where she's going and what to do. You're just going to let her run loose in Toronto? The largest city in Canada? The girl has rainbow hair for god's sake, she sticks out like a sore thumb! Who knows who she might run into" Florence berated her older brother. She knew he was stoic, but she never would've thought he'd just abandon someone in Jesse's situation. Especially with what he's seen in his days.

"..." More silence came from the other end.

"Ray! This is serious! Que feriez Rose dire?"

There was even more silence, and Florence was starting to give up on trying to convince him, but then Ray spoke up, saying "she couldn't have gone too far, maybe if we start now we can find her..."

Florence felt a wave of relief flow over her, but this didn't last long as she quickly remembered the reason she had even needed to call Ray in the first place. They had a rainbow-haired misfit to catch. Should be that hard right? I mean, the girl was as vibrant as well... a rainbow.

"All right good. Where are you right now?" Florence quickly changed the subject to the more pressing matter. She got her answer when she felt a tapping on her shoulder. She eeped and jumped a little, then turned around to see the blank expression of Ray standing behind her.

"Don't do that" she scolded him, lightly punching his arm while blushing slightly. Ray smirked halfheartedly, than said "don't we have on Rainbow haired kook to catch" raising an eyebrow slightly.

Florence's expression hardened at that, and she said "yeah, that's priority number one. Where do you think we should look?"

Ray shrugged and simply said "we could ask around I guess"

"It's better than nothing" Florence said, holding her head hand. "Well we might as well get started".

Ray had suggested that they split up and call if either of them found anything. Flo agreed and they both went their separate ways, both asking around randomly in a seemingly hopeless effort to find the rainbow haired amnesiac girl that had caused so much trouble.

"Are you sure? I mean, she has rainbow hair! Rainbow dude! How could you miss her?" Ray asked exasperatedly.

"Then how did you lose her? If she's so hard to miss, then by that logic you should be able to see her too..." a random man in a dark jacket replied to Ray's sarcastic question.

"I- um, y'know... f#ck..." Ray darted his eyes to the ground, avoiding the strangers scrutinizing gaze.

"That's what I thought" he chuckled out and went on his marry way.

'That girl... I swear when I find her...' Ray thought to himself begrudgingly.

Another hour an a half had gone by and still no trace of the elusive Rainbow Dash. Twice had Florence called Ray to see if he had found any leads only to be answered with silence or a sarcastic remark. The two of them were starting to give up hope on this plan. Well, that would imply that Ray had any faith in the plan to begin with... So I guess Florence was the one giving up hope.

"Look, let's meet up near the fountain. This isn't getting us anywhere" Ray said through his phone.

Flo sighed and said "yeah okay, I'll be there in ten." They both hung up and made their way to the big green fountain in the center of the mall.

A few minutes later, Florence spotted Ray and waved him over. He made his way to where she was and took a seat, reaching into his pocket and tossing a penny into the flowing water.

"What are you doing?" Florence asked.

"Making a wish. What's it look like?"

"What did you wish for?"

Ray smirked a little and answered "Hn. Silly, you know that if I tell you it won't come true." Something about the way Ray had said it sounded a little melancholic to Florence, but she had a more pressing matter at hand.

"Right, well what were you thinking we do now?" She asked.

"Right now? We go home. It's getting late and Dante has been by himself for a while now" Ray said.
Florence's eyes widened in shock a little and she was about to protest, when Ray held his finger to her lips, stopping her from speaking.

"No Florence. We'll search again first thing in the morning. I'll let Cedric know too, he should be of use." The tone in which he was speaking wasn't his regular sarcastic or stoic manner. He stated this is a soft monotone that he only ever used when he was letting Florence or Dante know that there was to be no argument.

Florence cast her eyes down to the ground and huffed. "Fine, have it your way. But why are you being like this? This isn't like you..."

"It was her choice to leave. I offered a hand and she smacked it away. If she wants to go and get lost, then that's her choice, and I have no business stopping her-"

"Dammit Ray, this is real! What the hell is wrong with you? Would you let me run away like that if I was confused and lost?" Florence exclaimed.

"... That's different. You're family" Ray explained.

"And what about Dante?" Florence pressed on further. "You share no blood with him, yet I know you'd throw away your own life for his!"

"He's just a child! Rainbow Da-, I mean Jesse isn't... She's old enough to take care of herself" Ray countered, clearly starting to get annoyed.

"Clearly not, else you wouldn't have had to carry her on your back to our place and feed her, water her and clothe her! That hardly seems Independent to me!" Florence continued.

"And what am I supposed to do; take a total stranger under my roof? She could be insane for all we know, hell the shit she was spewing when I first met her was enough to convince me of that!"

"If she truly was insane, I know you wouldn't have even bothered to bring her home. Don't think you can fool me that easily Ray. You may not want to admit it, but you're a good person and you'd never let an innocent person perish if you can do anything about it. You've helped others before..." Florence added softly.

"That was a while ago. Now I have you and Dante to worry about. I can't keep walking around picking up any poor old bum and helping them find their wings again... Those were different times. I not a super-hero, I can only handle so much-"

"It's because of Rose isn't it..." Florence interrupted quietly.

"...She looks just like her Florence... Without that wacky hair of hers, she's even got those ruby eyes that Rose was named after..." Ray said in a melancholic tone.

"Ray, I know how you feel. Rose was very dear to me as well but she's gone now. I know that it seems so much darker when the light is turned off than if it hadn't been on at all, but you've got to find a new source of light. Not to replace the old one, but to fill the void it left behind."

"Yeah, you may be right. But I digress, we still need to get you home. Like I said it's getting late, I don't want you out at this time of night, especially with the walk home you'll have to take. And Dante has been home alone for hours, I wouldn't be surprised if there was no home to go back to" Ray joked, smiling gently at his sister.

"Wait, what?" Florence asked, blinking in confusion.

"You go home, make sure there is a home, and make some dinner for Dan. You know how he can get when his stomach is rumbling" Ray answered, half-jokingly half-serious.

"But, but what'll you do?" Florence asked, still confused.

Ray sighed a bit and said "I'll stay out here and give one last look around for Rainbo- Jesse. If I find anything I'll call you immediately. And if you get in any trouble at home, you call me, you got it?"

Florence's expression brightened up instantly and she nodded her head vigorously, smiling brightly at her older brother.

"I knew you'd come around. Alright, let's not waste any time. Dante is probably tearing a hold through the apartment as we speak" Florence joked.

"Yeah, he's a little tornado that one." They both laughed lightly at the thought of a rampaging Dante. He may be testy at times, but he was still a good kid.

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Ray and Florence made it back to their apartment in about thirty minutes, and were greeted by a tackle provided by Dante as he shouted "Remerciez un dieu tu es rentrée! Je suis affamée!"

A laugh was shared between Ray and Florence, and then Ray told Dante -who was less than pleased about it- that he would be going out again for a bit. When asked why he simply told the twelve-year-old that he had to go get some things and that he wouldn't be long. And so reluctantly, Dante released his death-grip on Ray to go sit at the kitchen counter where Florence was making some kind of stew for him.

"You remember to call me if anything happens okay?" Ray reiterated.

"Yeah, I know. And you too! Keep me posted on what's going on" Florence replied. They spoke in English so that Dante wouldn't pry. "Oh, and will you be taking the car?" Flo added.

"No, ironically, it'll be harder to see with the headlights. And if she's anywhere, i doubt it'd be on the main roads"

"Yeah I guess. Okay well, good luck! there'll be stew when you get back, if you're not home by twelve I'll put it in a microwave dish".

"Yeah okay, merci beaucoup. Voit plus tard" Ray called over his shoulder as he left the apartment building to go continue his search for the route of all his stress as of right now. He left his bag at the apartment this time though. Better not to risk these things in the busy streets and shady alleys of Toronto at night.

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Ray though that he'd try his previous tactic, and asked a few people if they had seen a Rainbow haired girl walking around, probably causing a ruckus. As he had expected, no one had seen her. No one, except one scuzzy looking bloke with long hair and a patchy beard. The man smelled of liquor and bile. He had claimed to know someone that had seen a girl that matched the description to a tee. It wasn't much of a lead, and it was probably a load of horseshit, but it was the first lead Ray had gotten all night; and so even if it came from a bumbling drunken bum, it was still better than nothing.

And so Ray followed the man to a shady looking alleyway in between a couple of old convenience stores. The place seemed to look like the mans makeshift home. It was composed of old milk boxes and some box-board he had managed to snag. Talk about a humble abode...

Ray thought for sure that the man was bullshitting him and that this person who "had seen the Rainbow freak" wasn't here or didn't exist. But right when Ray was starting to turn on his heel, he saw the pile of trash move. It moved and shifted some more until a man about one-hundred-ninety centimeters tall emerged from the pile.

He was a burly man with dusty skin and one hell of beard. When he spoke, his voice was deep and rumbled when he used it. "Are you the one looking for the girl who calls herself Rainbow Dash?"

Rays eyes widened for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure. He knew that working with people like this required a certain... finesse.

"I might be. Why, you got any information on her whereabouts?" Ray said nonchalantly.

"Of course he does, I already told you tha-"

"Quiet!" The tall man interrupted the smaller drunk with a thunderous voice. It was clear who the dog on top of these guys was. The smaller man cringed and went to go sit in the trash that his superior had previously been enveloped in.

"I might know where your friend is, I might not" the giant of a dude continued in a calmer tone.

Ray subtly danced a coin across his fingers, knowing now that he was dealing with a thug instead of just a bum. "Could you be persuaded to remember?"

The thug put his chin in his hand in mock consideration, obviously over-dramatizing this as thugs often do.

"Depends on the one joggin' my memory..."

"How about the queen and her sister?" Ray said slyly, scrutinizing every move the man before him made. Ray had dealt with his kind before, and know that things could get ugly at the blink of an eye. You can't offer too little, or they'll think you're playing with them. But you can't offer up too much or they'll know you're loaded and just mug you anyway.

The look in the thug's eyes said it all though. He was a desperate amateur. He practically drooled at the very thought of forty bucks to spend on whatever he was addicted to. Ray could play this off without burning a hole in his pocket if he played the game right.

"Hmmm, homie knows I love twins. But triplets is better..." he said rubbing at his beard.

"Triplets are better. But her majesties aren't going anywhere until I see those gears in your head start turnig..."

The man nodded his head slightly and slowly started to recount a bit of information. "Hmm, yeah it's coming back to me now. Yeah, there was a girl with rainbow hair, average high, real cute... oh, and she had beautiful ruby eyes".

Ray nodded his head and slipped the man a twenty dollar bill, then made a gesture for him to continue.

"She ran by here all teary eyed and stuff. I don't know what you did, but it really messed her up..." the man continued.

Ray glared at him, and started to put away the money.

The man narrowed his eyes, but decided to continue his explanation.

"While she was cryin', a bunch of hoodies just so happened to be in her way, and she accidentally stumbled into one of 'em".

Ray was all ears now, but he didn't show his worry, that'd be showing weakness. Not something to be done around guys like these.

"them boys weren't too happy 'bout her bumpin' into e'em like that. Said it was mighty rude of 'er".

Ray didn't like where this was going. Not one bit.

The man stopped talking and made an obvious fake cough while holding out his hand. Ray reluctantly gave him the next twenty dollar bill and the man continued again.

"Them boys said they was gunna teach her a lesson. Teach her 'bout manners 'n such. I'd wager they hauled 'er off kickin' and screamin' to their alley-"

That was all Ray needed to know. He knew exactly where the thugs had taken Rainbow Dash, and it was not a good place to be taken. Especially for a confused, lost and worst of all good-looking girl with rainbow hair and no way to defend herself.

"How long ago did this happen?" Ray asked, dropping his stoic exterior and submitting to the overwhelming panic that took over him.

The man coughed again, hold out his hand. Ray just grunted angrily and slammed the money down on the man's hand.

"Hey now boy, don't make me teach you a lesson 'bout manners" the man said while glaring at Ray.

But Ray readily out glared him with the most malicious, violent and threatening glare man had even seen. He say the thug infront of him visibly shrink.

The man surrendered to Ray's stare and said "a-about twenty minutes ago".

Ray's eyes widened. He immediately turned on his heel and ran down the street to where he knew Rainbow was. He knew who he was dealing with, and he knew that it was going to ruin his night. He was about to tango with the legendary "Red Jacket" gang. A notorious gang of thugs and lowlifes that ran the Greater Toronto Area's underground world.

But Ray had no time to think about things like that. He had a rainbow haired Rose to save. And so he dashed down the street, turning right into a shady one-way street that was known to be run by the Red Jackets.

Ray had continued to run down the street, hastily searching for some sign of where Rainbow Dash might be. but he didn't have to look any longer, for his adrenal trance was broken by a single scream. a scream that belonged to none other than Rainbow Dash...

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A/N: What the hell Avery, it has nearly a month since you last updated ಠ_ಠ. I don't even have an excuse like writers block or family commitments (゜_゜). I was lazy, plain and simple. But I will try my absolute hardest to never make you guys wait that long for my pieces of shit ever again! I don't deserve to be saying this, but please like and favorite this story if you haven't already. Feel free to leave a comment scolding my unforgivable tardiness, and I will see you all on Saturday with a new chapter. (Seriously, I've already started on it, it should be cool-beans to get it up on Saturday).

As an apology, I give you a retardedly sexy anime picture (Credit to whoever the fuck drew it)

~Avery

Chapter 5:

Ray had continued to run down the street, hastily searching for some sign of where Rainbow Dash might be. but he didn't have to look any longer, for his adrenal trance was broken by a single scream. A scream that belonged to none other than Rainbow Dash...

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"HEEEEELP~!" Rainbow's voice rang out. "ANYPONY, HELP!"

"Rainbow! I'm coming!" Ray shouted out and sprinted towards the sound of Rainbow's voice.

"Ray? Is that you?!" The voice became clearer as he rounded a corner. He'd turned in to an ally way with a dead end. A dead end and the Red Jackets, all huddled around Rainbow Dash grabbing and groping the poor girl.

There were three of them in total. Each of them sporting the standard red jacket representing their gang. A red vinyl coat with white cuffs and streaks down the arms and the gang emblem - a graffiti styled "RED" - on the back. Two of the thugs had their hoods drawn and all three wore grey bandannas over their mouths. The one without a hood had a wildly spiked purple Mohawk and piercings all along his ears and eyebrows. All of their pants had that stupid sag to them, revealing their boxers; and each of them wore bright white sneakers. For thugs, they had fairly decent uniformity.

Nonetheless, the harassment they were putting Rainbow Dash through made Ray see red. (No pun intended)

None of the gang members had noticed that Ray had infiltrated their small road while they were busy indulging their selves on the screams of the rainbow haired girl that had fallen prey to the sleazy thugs until Rainbow Dash had screamed calling Ray's name.

At that moment all of the fondling and groping ceased and the three thugs turned to meet the fiery glare Ray was burning into them.

The two wearing the hoods looked slightly startled by the look of pure malice and the vicious-intent radiating from Ray. Now mind you that while Ray was no body builder, he was still well built due to his profession, therefore making him an intimidating figure to behold when his temper short-circuited. But the one with the Mohawk -much to Ray's dismay- seemed unfazed, amused even at Ray's arrival.

The man with the Mohawk smirked, and stated sarcastically "oh don't tell me this knight in shining armor has come to save his fair maiden from the evil clutches of the dark warriors?" He got his desired effect when the two formerly cowering gang-members now stood fully and snickered at the remark.

Ray let out an angry huff and replied equally as sarcastic. "Well who else will save the day by slaying the spiked dragon and his two minions?"

The spiky haired man and his two followers sneered at the jab -only making them look more sub-human- and the purple haired one started to walk towards Ray, stopping just inches from where he stood.

The thug pulled down his bandanna and stared straight into Ray's eyes, burning holes into his skull with his intense glare. They stood at an even height, the thug maybe having a centimeter or two on Ray.

"Mouthy motherfucker ain'tcha?" he said, faces no only centimeters apart. When the man spoke, Ray noticed that his teeth had been filed down to be sharper than any human canines should be.

Intimidating as the figure before him was, Ray didn't back down from the challenge and looked the man right back in the eyes, staring his own daggers into his opponent. Rainbow Dash could do nothing as she fought to no avail to break free of the other two thugs' strong grasps.

"Ray! Go now, I'm not worth it!" Rainbow cried out in a futile attempt to save Ray from harm. She was the root of his problems after all. She just kept causing more and more trouble for him. But what she didn't know about Ray and was about to find out, was that Ray never backs down. Ever.

"Oh cute, what a storybook perfect scene. The girl tells the boy to run and save himself" Ray was brought back to the situation in front of him while the man he faced moved closer and closer, closing the small gap between them until their shoulders touched and his mouth reached to wear Ray's ears were.

"But it's too late to run now" the man whispered sadistically into Ray's ears.

The next thing Ray noticed was the sound of clothe shuffling as the thug's arm reached back into his back pocket to pull something out. Ray heard the light clatter of metal and a click. A knife. This guy was serious.

Ray had but a split second to react when the knife came out from behind his opponent's back. He quickly stepped back a few feet just barely avoid the slash meant for his gut.

Ray narrowed his eyes at his attacker. "Bringing a knife to a fist fight? Real classy."

The thug's eyebrow twitched slightly and he grunted in frustration, thrusting the knife forwards again to try and spear Ray's shoulder. The thug's accomplices cheered when the fight started, whooping around like wild dogs.

Ray managed to dodge the second strike and even was able to jab his right fist into his assailants solar-plexus; causing the man to cough and lose his breath momentarily.

But the thug easily recovered in no time, and taking advantage of Ray's momentary stupor at his resilience, thrust the blade forward and slicing Rays left cheek.

Ray's eyes widened, but quickly narrowed in anger. While his opponent swung for another hit, Ray redirected the blow away from himself by swinging his arm to bloke the oncoming attack.

Ray had grabbed the man's arm and twisted it around in a painful maneuver, but his assailant was quick to retaliate by sending his clenched fist across the right side of Ray's face, effectively freeing his caught arm and allowing him time to regain his balance.

It was all Rainbow Dash could do to scream pleading for the men to stop fighting. But her cries fell on deaf ears as Ray simply spit out a mouthful of blood, wiped his lips and sent a fist flying towards the purple-haired man's face.

The hit connected with the man's jaw, cracking both it and Ray's knuckles in the process. But neither made a move to nurse their injuries and simply continued on fighting it out as the endorphins coursed through their veins, numbing all the pain that their fight inflicted.

The little scuff had lasted longer than either of the men had expected it to, and they were both starting to tire. But it seemed that neither was going to back down, tap out or otherwise give in.

Ray now sported a deep cut along his arm near the elbow, a black eye and one fairly painful gash in his right shoulder. But his opponent wasn't unscathed either, barring multiple bruises on his face and body from the ruthless jabs and kicks Ray managed to produce.

The fight had to be coming to a conclusion sometime soon, Ray thought as he and his opponent leaned on their legs momentarily catching their breathes.

Rainbow had been reduced to a sobbing wreck and the two gang members restraining her were becoming bored and more and more frustrated as the fight drew out; constantly yelling at their member provocative encouragements.

Ray's heart pounded in his chest, his breath drew in and out rapidly and the adrenaline from earlier had worn off now leaving him to feel the full impact of his injuries. He could see that the man he was facing off against fared no better than himself, hunched over clutching his stomach. Yes, what happened next would declare the victor.

Ray shifted his feet and stood up straight again, his opponent doing the same when he realized that the momentary reprise was over.

The thug flipped his knife around in his hand idly as he waited for Ray to do something, at the same time stared daggers at him. Ray returned his gaze with an equal amount of malice and shifted his foot on the pavement, subtly getting into a stance ready to pounce at any moment.

Time seemed to stand still for the two combatants. Not even the desperate cries ringing out from Rainbow Dash nor the ego-boosting whoops from the two thugs behind them were acknowledged as Ray and the Red Jacket locked each other in a stare-down. Each daring the other to make a move.

The thug was the first to act and thrust the knife forward, managing to once more stab into Ray's already bleeding shoulder. The man twisted the knife in Ray's shoulder, drawing out a howl of pain from Ray. The first sign of agony he had shown the whole fight.

The man made to stab him again, but Ray caught the man's wrist before he could once again plunge his weapon into Ray's flesh. Ray twisted his assailant's wrist past where it was meant to, breaking it and forcing his attacker to drop the knife. And in once fluid motion, Ray brought his fist around to make contact with the side of the man's skull, right in the soft and unprotected tissue of his temple.

It was by far a lucky shot, but that lucky shot had managed to finally subdue his opponent by knocking him out.

The purple haired thug fell limply to the ground, silently declaring Ray the victor.

The two thugs and Rainbow Dash all looked on with incredulous expressions splayed across their faces. The wide eyes of the two thugs narrowed angrily at Ray -who was now on his knees clutching his bleeding shoulder wound- and they charged at him.

Rainbow Dash let out a scream thinking that they were going to attempt to fight Ray further, but was relieved beyond relief that they had only stopped to pick up their unconscious teammate and scurried away with him to who cares where.

Immediately after they had let go of her to go retrieve their fallen comrade, Rainbow Dash ran to where Ray was now sitting on the pavement and fell to her knees next to him.

"Ray!" She cried. "What the hay did you think you were doing? I told you to get out of here!" She managed to squeeze out through her sobs.

Ray coughed up a bit of blood and spat it out. "I'm the knight in shining armor, and I rescued the damsel in distress" he said through a pained smile.

Rainbow Dash smiled weakly at Ray while tears ran down her face.

"C'mon, enough water works-" Ray was interrupted by a sudden coughing fit, leading to more blood being coughed up.

Rainbow Dash held her hands over her mouth in horror, and then said "you guys have hospitals here right? We need to get you to one. You're in terrible shape. C'mon can you walk?"

"No, no hospital" Ray stated firmly.

"What? Are you crazy? You're hurt! You need a doctor-" She started but was interrupted.

"If we go to a hospital, they'll know I got into a fight. And that means they'll want to press charges on someone, and knowing the Red Jackets, that someone will be me" Ray explained. "So we'll go back home. Don't worry Florence knows a thing or two about medicine, she'll patch me up nice and good" he finished.

Rainbow Dash wasn't satisfied with his answer, but knew that it must be true. Ray was pretty street smart she thought, so she'd go on whatever he said.

But still, there was the matter that she had been the cause of all this. "I can't show my face around there. I'm the reason this happened to you. If you'd just listened to me and run-" she was once more interrupted by Ray who put his finger to her mouth.

"Flo is much more forgiving than you think. And what happened to me I brought on myself. It was my choice." He reasoned with her.

"You didn't have to do it though"

"Yeah, I did"

"Why though? Why help some random girl you just met? I've seen plenty of people around here that need just as much if not more help then I do!" Rainbow exclaimed.

"Because they at least have some idea of what's going on around them. That, and you..." Ray started, but was unable to finish.

"I what?" Rainbow asked.

"You look like... you look like someone who was very special to me. I couldn't stand to see you lost. It brings back too many memories..." Ray said, melancholy clear in his voice. "Well, and also now that Flo's gotten to know you, she'd kill me if I lost you" He said, filling in the awkward tension with a goofy grin.

Rainbow laughed lightly at Ray's slight blush, and wiped away the tears that fell from her ruby eyes. Another part of her that reminded Ray so much of Rose. The way the shone in the moody moonlight, the way her tears glistened in her eyes before they fell down the soft lightly tanned skin of her face. Yes, had it not been for the rainbow hair, Ray might've actually mistaken her for Rose.

Rainbow Dash blushed lightly at the distant stare Ray was giving her, but snapped back to attention when she remembered Ray's condition.

Rainbow Dash cleared her throat, wiping away any remaining tears, and said "well if you're adamant about avoiding a hospital visit-"

"Which I am"

"-Which you are. Then let's get going. Can you walk?" Rainbow said, the concern clear in her voice.

"Yeah, I'll manage" Ray replied. With a groan of pain, he made to stand, and with a little help from Rainbow, he was able to make it to his feet.

Ray noticed that Rainbow Dash had ripped off a significant part of her shirt. When Ray made to inquire, Rainbow Dash spoke before he could, saying "this might hurt a little, but we need pressure on that shoulder wound or you're going to lose too much blood" her tone was still dejected, but slightly less shaky.

Ray simply nodded, and quirked and eyebrow when he saw how she went about wrapping the cloth around his shoulder. She held the cloth with her palm, and raised to to under his arm. Then using her other palm, she flipped the cloth up onto his shoulder. To tie the knot to secure it in place, she used her teeth, and impressive sight to see but strange nonetheless.

But the end result was what mattered, and Rainbow Dash had managed a fairly decent field dressing. Regardless of her methods...

Thanks to the make-do bandage, the sharp pain in Ray's shoulder was numbed down to a dull throb.

"Thanks, I'd be in much worse condition to walk without this" Ray praised.

"Yeah" Rainbow replied meekly. "C'mon, let's get going" she finished, throwing Rays good arm over her shoulder so he could use her as a crutch.

Ray simply nodded and they made their way back to his apartment.

After what seemed like an eternity -and after many odd stares- they'd made it back to Ray's apartment building and were now standing in front of the apartment's door.

Rainbow Dash stood still in front of the entrance. He shoulders squared and her hair covering her eyes, a shameful expression displayed on her face.

"What's up Dashie?" Ray asked mockingly. But then he remembered why Rainbow would be hesitant.

"Look, even if Florence gets mad at you, she will forgive you. Just... just don't worry about it 'kay?" Ray said reassuringly.

Rainbow sighed and kept her gaze on the ground. But she hesitantly swiped the key-card Ray had given her earlier and opened the door to the apartment.

When they walked in, Florence had a purely ecstatic look on her face at Rainbow Dash and Ray's arrival. But when she saw the condition the two were in -namely Ray- her expression hardened in concern.

She gasped and ran over to where they were. Rainbow's eyes were still locked with the floor when Florence asked "What happened to you two?!"

Ray simply laughed and scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. "Well, y'see we got into a bit of trouble with some ruffians. Long story short me and a knife tangoed and now I need patched up" Ray said gesturing to his shoulder with the cut hand.

Florence didn't stay to ask another question, but instead went to go fetch the first aid kit from the closet in the back of the hallway.

When she returned she instantly went to work. Rainbow Dash could have sworn this wasn't the first time she'd done it. She watched as Flo went about cleaning and stitching the gash on Ray's arm, wincing every time the needle went through Ray's skin. She had to wonder how Ray seemed to not react to the pain he had to have been feeling at the needle sowing through his skin.

While she was doing this, Florence to the chance to inquire further about what had happened.

"Okay, so what really happened Ray" she not once took her eyes off her work.

"Rainbo- Jesse over here got tangled up with the wrong people somehow, and when I managed to find her, they were close to having their way with her" Ray explained seriously.

Florence gasped and looked at Rainbow Dash with a concerned expression.

"Wait... what kind of wrong people Ray" Flo asked suspiciously.

Ray looked away from her and said nervously "th-the Red Jackets-"

"RAY!" Florence interrupted him, shouting at the him. "You can't keep getting involved with them. You know what their capable of!" she scolded.

"I know, but they had Jesse-"

"Speaking of which, how in the hell did you manage to be snatched up by them?"
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A/N: Where have I been you may ask? Doing shit all! Nah but seriously, I was being lazy. And earlier in my blog post (lol who reads that) I said I'd have it up the next day, the reason I didn't was because my computer restarts on a hairline trigger if anything hits it, and naturally right when I'm knee deep in writing, it restarts and I lose everything. So I didn't write out of spite. Anyways, see ya when I see ya, peace!

~Avery

Damn I release these chapters at retarded times...

-

Chapter 6:

"Speaking of which, how in the hell did you manage to get snatched up by them?" Florence questioned, raising her voice in frustration.

Rainbow Dash looked to the ground with a shameful expression, and Ray tried to help the situation by saying "It wasn't her fault. You know how those thugs are, they see a pretty piece of meat and they take what they think is theirs." But his words fell on deaf ears it seemed, as the Florence held her stern gaze fixed on the rainbow-haired girl in front of her.

The tension in the room was palpable, and only got worse when Florence reiterated the severity of what had happened. "Jesse, do you know who those guys are? They practically run the underworld of not only Toronto, but the entirety of Ontario. They aren't petty thugs, they're legitimized and they know how to 'play the game'.

Not only that, but Ray has history with them. Do you think that they'll just turn the other cheek to having one of their members hospitalized? And by a Frenchman no less?"

Rainbow Dash held her eyes firmly on the ground, wincing as the woman before her drilled it into her how serious this was.

Flo's expression softened as she watched Rainbow's quivering form. Her hair covered her eyes, but the light betrayed her and one could clearly make out the glistening tear stains marking her roughed up, tan cheeks. It was evident through her body language that the girl felt tremendously guilty for what had transpired. Anyone could see it was tearing her up inside. Florence knew this but she needed her to know just how serious getting involved with the wrong crowd is.

"Look, just understand that you need to be very careful when moving about a city with over three million people living in it" Florence explained in a much softer tone. "I get that what happened wasn't your fault, but try harder next time to avoid contact with the less... friendly looking people." Florence pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a large sigh.

Florence was about to speak again, but Rainbow Dash beat her before she could, saying through choked breath "I'm sorry..."

This caused Florence to look back up at the strange girl, and caused a curious eyebrow to quirk on Ray's face when they saw Rainbow Dash raise her head to meet Flo's stern -but wavering- hazel eyes with a melancholic expression of her own. She saw the rainbow-haired girl grab at where her heart was and grip the fabrics of the sweater she'd borrowed from her tightly in her hands. All the while the subtle flow of tears from those rare ruby eyes of hers continued to gently roll down her face and onto the floor below.

Rainbow continued on, saying "I still have no clue why you decided to help me of all people; even if I do look like this 'Rose' person Ray was talking about-" aforementioned man flinched when Rainbow Dash mentioned Rose. "-But since I got here almost a day ago; you've done but show me kindness and helped me when I had no idea where I was. I still don't really know though..." she went off on a tangent briefly.

"But in return, all I've done is be a burden on you. I made you both worry about a complete stranger and I even got Ray hurt." She glanced over at the injured young man, his eyes avoiding her gaze. Rainbow's felt a twinge of pain at the act. But with a new-found determination, she faced both Ray and Florence with a sharp look in her eyes, and said "So please, if you can find it in you to forgive a crazy girl and her delusions, let me make it all up to you. In any way I can!"

Ray and Florence simply stared at the rainbow-haired girl wide-eyed. Neither of them knew exactly what to do, and Florence looked to Ray searching for some hint for as what to do.

When she looked to Ray however, she noticed a subtle smirk playing at the sides of his lips, soon beaming across the boy's face. When she was about to ask about his unexpected reaction, Ray spoke directly to Rainbow Dash, ignoring the incredulous look he was getting from his sister.

"Well for starters; bravo. That was quite the performance" Ray said, clapping his hands together mockingly, still with that goofy grin on his face.

Rainbow blushed a little, puffing out her cheeks in a vein attempt at showing her disdain, and exclaimed "H-hey, that was from the heart you jerk! Last time I'm sincere with you..." she huffed, crossing her arms across her chest.

Ray simply laughed at Rainbow's befuddlement, and spoke once again; "Secondly, don't run off like that again" Ray stated in a serious tone. Rainbow winced a little, but Ray continued in a much more lighthearted manner, winking at the girl, "I wouldn't want to have to rough up another red-coat wannabe."

A smile made its way across the Rainbow-haired girl's face. She liked that Ray could make light of something like that. "You're so lame" she teased lightheartedly.

"Done, and done" Rainbow added, dusting off her shoulders.

The strange girl who had put her through so much stress in only one day turned to Florence, another guilty glint flashed in her eyes and the two girls simply stood at about an arms breadth away from each other.

Rainbow looked into Flo's own wavering eyes, tears glistening in those hazel orbs, threatening to spill over onto her pale cheek.

The girl in front of her averted her gaze shortly, but once again locked gazes with her and said in a voice barely audible at all, "and how about you Flo? Can you forgive me?" Rainbow rubbed her arm lightly.

There was silence for a few moments, but that silence was quickly filled with Flo's swift movement as she all but tackled Rainbow Dash into a tight hug. Rainbow Dash stood shocked for a moment, but soon wrapped her own arms around the trembling girl embracing her.

"Don't ever scare me like that again!" Florence cried out from her death-grip she had on Rainbow Dash. Both girls clearly tearing up.

Ray smirked again, showing off his sharp white teeth. He always found it funny how attached his sister could get to people she hardly knew. It warmed his heart that she was so trusting, even after all they'd been through. He smile grew melancholic at the memories, and he was lost in the moment.

Not too late afterwards he was broken out of his trance by the odd look the two girls were giving him.

"Uh Ray? Why are you just staring at us...?" Florence asked a little awkwardly.

"Huh? Oh sorry, my mind wasn't on this planet is all" he replied sheepishly.
`

Ray then got off the kitchen chair to make his way to go sit on the couch. But when he made to move, his arm moved and gripped his shoulder as he fell to one knee.

Rainbow Dash and Florence both gasped audibly and rushed over to Ray's side, Rainbow wrapping his good arm over her shoulder.

Rainbow asked worriedly "Ray! Are you okay?"

Ray flinched at the contact and winced as he applied pressure to the now reopened and bleeding wound. He made his way over to the couch -with the assistance of Rainbow Dash and Florence- and collapsed onto it.

Florence immediately started to apply fresh bandages to the throbbing wound.

It was all Rainbow Dash could do to look on at the scene with worry in her eyes as she held her hand over her mouth to stop her from crying out...

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Meanwhile in Ponyville, Twilight sparkle and and the other elements of harmony were beyond worried. They had looked all over the town for the rainbow-maned element of loyalty, but the spunky Pegasus was nowhere to be found. Not only had they searched Ponyville, but by now they had nearly searched everything between the Ever-free forest and white-tail woods.

But their searches yielded nothing but dead ends and false leads. Everyone's thoughts were concerned about the missing weather-mare, but even more so they were concerned with said pony's disappearance at conceivably the same time as the silver rip in swirling in the sky.

The hole in the sky seemed to be pulsing in algorithms, various amounts of magical energy surging out of spice-rip.

Celestia was about to approve of an exploration mission to find out more about the strange phenomena. Her quill was hovering just over the dotted line, waiting for its orders when the doors to here personal study were slammed open by an exhausted looking brown earth pony with an hourglass cutie-mark shinning on his flank.

The princess of the sun quirked an eyebrow at the act as she saw the strange pony tackled by her royal guard. She moved her quill away from her parchment and made to address the situation, an incredulous expression displayed across her royal features.

"And what, pray tell, is this all about?" She spoke calmly to her guards and the pony they had pinned down.

The brown pony made to speak, but was cut off by of the Pegasi guards.

"As you can see milady, we caught this bugger runnin' 'round the castle. Apparently he was lookin' for ya" the guard spoke and a deep, burly voice.

"Yeah, he was running frantically all over the place practically threatening the nobles to tell them where they could find you" the other guard spoke after what appeared to be his commanding officer.

Celestia was silent for a moment, a calculating look in her eyes was present as she bore holes into the opposing pony. Said pony didn't cower at her display of dominance, but instead matched the princess' gaze with his own determined glare.

A smile crept its way onto Celestia's face, and she spoke lightheartedly. "Well clearly if he made such an effort to gain my audience, he must have something worthwhile to tell me."

The two guards were shocked by their princess' reaction and shared a glance at each other. When the looked back to Celestia, they saw make a gesture for them to release their captive. And so reluctantly, they released their hold on the pony.

"Make it quick" the burley guard said in a malicious tone.

But the pony stallion paid them no mind, and shook his coat to relieve it of the dirt it had accumulated during his visit with the floor.

The brown pony them brought his hoof up to his mouth and cleared his throat, and proceeded to say - in a Hoofington accent interestingly enough, "Greetings Princess Celestia, raiser of the sun and ruler of Equestria."

"Please, just call me Celestia" the princess of the sun interjected.

"Right... Celestia..." the brown stallion repeated indifferently.

"My name, is unimportant. But if you wish to address me, feel free to call me 'The Doctor'" The pony now known to the princess as 'The Doctor' said.

"Interesting..." Celestia said calculatingly.

"Not overly" The Doctor replied. "Well, getting past introductions, as fun as that was, how's about I tell you why I made a mess of this in your castle eh?"

The way this pony spoke, it was far to fluidly. The words seemed to roll off his tongue, and had Celestia been anyone else, she might be swayed by whatever honey came out of his mouth.

"Yes indeed, it's not everyday ponies come barging into my office like that" the princess laughed lightly. Though her demeanor was relaxed, she was fully on-guard with this stallion.

"No wouldn't think that really. Actually I'm surprised I made it this far" The Doctor scratched his neck with his hoof sheepishly. "Anyways, back on topic. I'm here to stop you from signing that paper and send those ponies to their deaths..." he spoke in a low hushed tone, indicating his seriousness.

Celestia could tell this wasn't a petty protest by the way the stallion in front of her had presented his concern.

"Oh? And how do you know that they will die should they investigate?" her eyes narrowed slightly as she said this. The two guards at the door looked on, the gruff Pegasus with a suspicious glint in his eyes.

"I'll tell you exactly why its a death sentence" he stated casually. "Because that hole up in the sky there radiates a magical energy that unless you were to pass through it quickly, and I mean faster than any pony you command could fly, you would be burnt to a crisp instantly."

Again, the way he had presented his case; he sounded so sure of what he was saying. The princess had to hear out what he had to say.

"Go on..." the princess said rolling her hoof in a gesture for The Doctor to continue.

"Right. So basically, that there tear up in the great blue yonder is exactly that. A tear." The Doctor continued confidently. "I've seen one before. I've experienced one before."

If he didn't have Celestias full, undivided attention before, he sure as Tartarus did now. The princess' ears perked up at the strange pony before her. Suddenly she discovered a new-found interest in this pony. So silently, she listened intently to what The Doctor was saying. Even if it was all a mad-pony's delusions it still made for an interesting hypothesis.

"That rip in the sky is what's known as a 'trans-dimensional space-time wormhole-vortex interstellar-opening tele-portal'. Or, 'TDSTWVIOTP' for short" the doctor explained as if it was the most elementary concept in the omniverse. But all he succeeded in doing was confusing the princess, who was by now starting to get annoyed with The Doctor's mindless rambling.

"Please, simplify your explanation" Celestia stated annoyed, putting her hoof to her face.

The Doctor simply sighed, replicating the princess' movements.

"Look, basically, that big silver thing in the sky? Yeah not only is it extremely dangerous, but essentially its a doorway to an entirely different dimension. If you your ponies up there, even if they were somehow able to break top supersonic speeds, you still have no idea what awaits o the other side. It could open up into the void of space, it could lead to a peaceful planet of sentient beings. Or it could not. The risk is too great to risk these ponies lives for the unknown."

Celestia pondered on what The Doctor had just said. If what he was saying was true, than it would be too great a risk to absentmindedly send in ponies like it was a simple reconnaissance mission. But before she could make a decision, she had some questions to ask the pony before her. He was far too knowledgeable about this foreign subject to not be suspicious.

"Can you tell me how you know so much about these occurrences? And also, you said that you've experienced one of these 'TDSTWVIOTPs' before... If what you say about them is true, how did you survive?" Celestia asked carefully, eyeing up the brown stallion for any indication of anything out of the ordinary. Well, using this term loosely with this particular character...

"Ah, thought you might be curious on that. Yeah well, to sum it all up nicely, would take centuries. So I'll spare you the boring details, but I will tell you this. I'm no regular pony"

"-I could tell on my own" the princess interjected teasingly.

The Doctor simply smirked at the remark and continued, "Basically, this isn't the first alternate dimension I've been in. And I doubt that it will be the last" He explained. "And as to how I survived the space rip? Well when you've got a spaceship the likes of mine, these things tend to be trivialities" he gave a wink at that.

"Hmm, well you've definitely given me a lot to think about Mr. The Doctor." She said jokingly. "Hows about you stick around for a while until we sort out this mess? You seem to have more experience than even I do on this topic" She offered.

The Doctor scratched his head in contemplation, and settled on agreeing to stay in the castle.

The princess would need to keep a very close eye on this one however. She knew that whoever this stallion was -she wasn't even sure if pony was his true form- that he would e an asset, or burden. Which one was yet to have been decided...
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

A/N: Well, sorry about the short chapter you got for the long wait. But it felt right to end it off there... Anyways, tell me what you think? Next chapter will be much, much longer guaranteed. Oh and happy Nightmare Night!

Chapter 7:

It had been a week and a bit since Ray and Rainbow's little 'excursion' out in the streets of Toronto, and despite Ray's constant complaining, he appeared to be doing much better now. Rainbow Dash still felt guilty and winced slightly whenever she thought about it. She knew that Ray wasn't mad at her, but this was the first time in her life that she'd been responsible for something like this. She felt like such a burden, but Ray kept reassuring her however, and tried to leave it in the past. She was glad about that, but it still didn't completely relieve her of her lingering remorse.

Florence and Rainbow Dash were on much better terms again. Even better than before. The girl was impossibly forgiving, and Rainbow Dash wondered how ponies -or people in this case- could be so kindhearted and caring. Though she was thankful nonetheless for the girl's generosity.

The two of them began to bond more and more over the days and grew closer as friends. Florence was ecstatic to finally have another girl in the house, and would often times coax the rainbow-haired girl into something sisterly like doing her make-up -though she hated it, she put up with it and tried to be enthusiastic- or trying on different outfits and giving each other feed back. She didn't mind that bit, Florence wasn't nearly as forceful as Rarity when it came to this, and she kind of liked human fashion. It seemed more... advanced? Regardless...

Once Ray was all healed up, he started to take Rainbow Dash out to see the city and to get her acquainted with the lay out of the land. Toronto was much bigger than any city she had ever been in, and she marveled at the sight of the towering sky scrapers and expansive roads with strange colourful contraptions racing down them. Ray explained these things to be 'cars'. They were apparently a kind of self-propelled chariot of sorts. Rainbow definitely couldn't wait to see one up close.

It was all unlike anything she'd ever seen. The overwhelming amount of people moving about the busy downtown streets, all the bright colours of the city that lit up the night sky and all of the sounds emanating from the metropolis. It seemed as though there was never nothing going on. There was always street performers, vendors and people. Always were the streets filled. It was exciting to say the least.

Although as much as she liked being a part of the hustle and bustle of the urban rush, she was surprised when she found that she was much more fond the few quiet places -namely the parks- that could be found throughout the the expansive built-up area. When Ray discovered her love for the parks, he saw to it to show her as many as there were. Some parks were quiet and contained only people who lounged under the dazzling colours of the fading tree-leafs. Other parks were busy and filled with young people playing sports and running around having fun. Rainbow liked those places.

But the place she liked the most was a nice quiet little clearing just a few blocks away from where she was staying with Ray. The park itself was closed off by a thick line of trees and nearly no one used it. It soon became Rainbow's haven away from the hectic city. It was small, but just large enough for her to run around and release some of her pent-up energy. She was glad to learn that Ray was quite energetic and was -for the most part- able to keep up with her... When she paced herself of course. This made for a good work-out partnership, something that the both of them had needed.

Now the two found each other running alongside one another in the afternoons. It was a nice break from everything and good chance to burn off the energy that had been piling up inside Ray since he was forced to rest and let his injuries heal. Thankfully nothing had gotten infected, but that didn't stop Florence from going into strict doctor mode. Though admittedly, without her help it wouldn't have healed as nicely as it did. So for that he was thankful.

During their jogs, Ray and Rainbow Dash would take the rare opportunity to talk to each other in private. It seemed that whenever Ray was at home, he had to compete for time with the rainbow-haired pony-turned-human. Though he liked that the two girls were bonding, he still had things to talk about with her every now and again. And maybe, just maybe he liked her company... Maybe.

At first they started talking about what Ray did for a living, about Toronto and about random aspects of 'human life'. But then it moved on from that. They started talking about each others lives a little bit more. Ray would tell her about his life in France -the brighter sides- and though he was mainly humoring her when he listened, she would talk about her life back in Equestria. Rainbow had told him all about the princesses and her friends/fellow elements of harmony. About all of the adventures she'd had with them and all the ups and downs of her life in Ponyville. Ray would inwardly laugh at what an imagination the girl held. Yet she seemed so sure of herself...

But today however, when the two of them had finished their daily jog and were now leaned up against one of the colourful trees, a subject that Ray had thought he'd never hear of again surfaced when Rainbow Dash asked him "Hey Ray... Who's Rose?"

The two joggers were sitting under a tree that still had its colourful leafs when she asked. They had been talking again about what their plans for the rest of the night were. That question alone however, was enough to completely silence him. He was at a loss for words as mental images of Rose raced through his head at a million miles an hour. It was all he could do to stare off into nothingness as his jaw hung slightly open.

Rainbow Dash was going to say something, but she saw the blonde boy shake his head and close his gaping mouth. Now he simply stared off at the treeline, taking in the beautiful autumn colours. The burgundy browns of her hair, the bright reds of the unique eyes she shared with the girl next to him, the glinting sunlight shining down on him like her beaming smile. All that was rose was crystal clear in the world before him. And in the girl that sat but centimeters away from him, looking up now from her menial attempt to weave some sort of, thing, from grass.

She looked deep into his wandering eyes, searching for something other than the non-nonchalance that was ever so present in the boy. Searching for what was there only seconds ago. But to no avail.

She was about to drop it when Ray spoke up. "Rose was... Rose was a very special person," Ray started.

'Was' Rainbow thought solemnly. Her eyes softened at the melancholic smile that graced the boy's face.

"Rose was, simply put, one in a million. She was the kind of girl who would just as soon smack you upside the head as she would bring you into the tightest embrace. She was spunky, eccentric, and a little bit crazy. But she was also the reason I'm still here today..."

Rainbow Dash curled her knees up to her chest and sat, picking at some grass as she listened to Ray's story unfold.

Ray sighed and continued. "I guess the best place to start is from the beginning..." He scratched the back of his neck and picked at a patch of grass in front of him like Rainbow had been doing.

"Back in France, things weren't always as cheery and nice as I made them out to be. In fact, those were pretty much the highlights of our life back there. Flo's, Dan's and mine I mean.

"I know that it sounds like a lame cliche from a bad soap-opera, but together we were foster kids. This was back almost seven years ago mind you. But anyways, we somehow managed to find a foster family to take Florence and me in. That's where we met Dante. He may not have been our blood brother, but we treated him like he was regardless. The poor bugger was only five years old and was in the same situation as us." Ray let out a soft chuckle.

Rainbow Dash nodded in understanding, and continued to fiddle around with a stick.

"Let's just say that the living conditions in the house were... less than favorable..."

Rainbow's ears perked up at this, and she asked "What do you mean?" Concern evident in her voice.

"They weren't really people to tolerate slip ups. Meaning you spoke when spoken too, do what you were told and kept your head down. And if you didn't..." Ray let Rainbow Dash put two and two together at that.

Rainbow gulped audibly. It wasn't unheard of for parents to beat their fillies in Equestria, but those who did were very far and very few in between. And even then it wasn't more than a firm slap on the wrists... Hooves... But if the tone in Ray's voice indicated anything, it was that they had more than sore arms at the end of the day.

"We lived like that for quite some time actually. Day in and day out only doing as we were told. It was quite a miserable existence, but at least we had a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs. But it all went downhill when our foster parents learned about Flo's keen athletic abilities."

Rainbow Dash's eyes widened when she heard that. "Whoa, Florence is an athlete too? Is Dante sporty as well?" She asked enthusiastically. But she realized that she had spoke too soon, and felt something was off when Ray didn't reply with some sort of jab.

"Yeah well our care-takers were just as enthusiastic, though for different reasons. Flo was really, really good for her age. Good enough to compete."

Rainbow thought that would've been a good thing. How could athletic talent ever be a bad thing? The thought was unfeasible

"Why was that a bad thing? Did she not like competing or what?" Rainbow asked curiously.

Ray chuckled lightly and said "Quite the opposite actually. She loved competing. But that was it. For her it was more of a game. Winning never really mattered to her, she was just happy to be seen doing something she loved. The rents however, they were much more keen on victory."

"And they should be! Winning's the greatest! Nothing like squashing the competition!" The spunky rainbow-head exclaimed.

"Yeah, maybe. But that's only if losing didn't mean no dinner, verbal -and on occasion physical abuse. When the stress and pressure gets to a certain point it stops being fun!" Ray unintentionally raised his voice. Though it wasn't directed at the rainbow girl, it definitely didn't look that way to her; and she reeled back a little bit in surprise.

Ray caught on to this and turned his head to face her. "I'm sorry, I wasn't angry at you. Just at the injustice of what Florence had to go through at her age. To be put under that much stress at only the age of twelve..." Rainbow gulped, but visibly relaxed afterwards, crossing her legs to sit and idly grabbing her toes as she stared at the grass.

Ray took a deep breath and sighed, "So that was the breaking point I guess. Florence tried harder to keep winning to try and stave our foster parents' brutality, but the more she won, the more losing became more severe..."

The girl next to him shivered slightly, but Ray continued on with his story.

"One day, she was competing at a big tournament that would determine whether or not she qualified for a sports program that led to the Olympics. The sport was lane swimming by the way.

"Anyways, she ended up losing on the second race. That night was the worst night of my life. The worst night of her life.

"I came downstairs one night because I heard shouting coming from the living room. Our foster dad was shouting at Florence, calling her a failure, worthless trash and all other horrible things. But then he did something unforgivable, something that to this day I curse his name for. When I came down I immediately intervened. The old man was already pushing and shoving, I got a cheap shot to the stomach for getting in between them. But the more I tried to stop him, the worse it got, until finally he did something that I still curse his name for to this day. The bastard clocked Florence right in face, full force. Knocked her cold."

Rainbow's eyes were widened in shock and horror. How anyone could even think about hitting a girl like Florence, the very thought was ludicrous.

"Everything from then on fall off the edge. All I could see was red, and immediately I jumped him, puching him right back in the face. We fought for a while until I finally managed the get him to submit. It must have been the adrenaline, 'cause that man could fight.

"But that night, after the fight when Florence woke up I grabbed her and carried her upstairs. I got Dante too and told them to pack their things. We weren't going to be staying there any longer. It was something I should've done ages ago, but back then I was just a kid. I was still just a kid, but now I knew that we couldn't stay there. It was too dangerous for Flo and Danny.

"And so that's where Rose comes in."

Rainbow Dash's eyes were glossed over with unshed tears. A lump had formed in her throat at the horrifying acts that the young-adult next to her described. How anyone could be so cruel was beyond her. These kinds of things never happened in Equestria. These two worlds were so similar, but at the same time so different.

Rainbow was stunned silent, so all she did was listen intently to Ray's story.

"When we left the house, Rose found me busking in the street -I'd been taught how to play the violin, and I wasn't going to allow my sister or brother to beg- and we struck up a conversation. When she learned about our situation I was completely shocked when she asked if we wanted to stay with her for a while. Until we got back on our feet. It was an offer I just couldn't refuse.

"And so we went and we stayed with her and her mother. Her mother was such a wonderful person. She took us in instantly and without question. Everything was great. We finally had a place to stay; a good place to stay." Ray smiled warmly at the memory.

"Ha, I still remember waking up on Saturdays to pancakes and bacon. And every day me and Rose ended up attending the same high school. She was such a good alarm clock too, always up at six thirty sharp. And don't get me started about when she was eager for the day, no one in the house was asleep by five a.m." Rainbow giggled slightly at Ray's reminiscing. She would've liked to meet this girl.

"But while everything was okay on the outside, we were all still hurting on the inside. We were essentially homeless. Along with the the scars we bore inside and out, we had nowhere to go once our time with Rose and her mother was up. It's not that Rose's mother didn't want us there, we loved her and she loved us back. But she was a single mom working to support four kids. It was a tough burden and we all did what we could, I even got a job in construction, which is why I'm doing that now. But it was never enough.

"But by the time we had to say goodbye, Rose surprised us all by saying that she wanted to come with us. I was seventeen at the time and she was just barely eighteen, so we could rent a place together if we wanted. And so we did. Her reasoning was that she didn't trust me to raise Florence and Dante, so she demanded that she come along.

"I was more than happy to have her come. But Rose had always had a weak immune system, and would often times get sick for long periods of time. That made me nervous to have her working hard to try and raise a little boy and barely teenage girl. I tried to talk her out of it, tried to tell her to stay with her mother and to live a peaceful life. A life she deserved. But she would have none of that. And soon enough, we found ourselves with a new member in misfit family."

A bright grin beamed from Ray's face, and Rainbow couldn't help but smile stupidly along with him.

"Those really were the days. Life with Rose in charge was a new adventure everyday. She had to make a spectacle about everything, from grocery shopping to the beautiful turning of the leafs in the autumn. Everything was bright and sunny for her. Soon she became my sunshine. And things were great. Better than they had ever been before. I was happy. For once in my miserable life, I was truly truly happy.

"But then it happened. One day I came home to find Rose laying limply on the ground with a panicked Florence leaning over her crying out for her to wake up. Immediately I rushed over and looked for a pulse. There was one, but it was rapid and she was sweating terribly. I put my hand to her forehead; she was burning up intensely. It was clear that she was having a bad fever. So we quickly took her to the hospital. Those were the longest hours in my life. But when the doctor came out, he said that she was too far gone. She died that night in my arms..." Ray took a deep, shaky breath.

"I wish you could see the way she puffed out her cheeks whenever she got mad. The sparkle in her eyes when she smiled. They way she would freak out and curse up a storm when she burnt dinner."

Ray was laughing now, a beaming smile showing off his white teeth. But there was something more. Something harder to see. Yes there it was. Rainbow Dash spotted sliding down his cheek, the tell-tale glistening of tears reflecting the late afternoon sun. Ray was, crying? In all her time spent with him, Rainbow didn't even know Ray was capable of the act. But here he was, tears silently falling down his face as he continued to remember all that he wanted to forget.

"The way she blushed when she was complimented, the way she sang in the morning, mischievous grin she wore when she knew she did something bad, the way-" Ray's words were coming out stuttered and scrambled as he fought the lump in his throat.

Rainbow put her arm around his trembling body, and for a few moments they just sat there. It was the most vulnerable Rainbow Dash had ever seen him, but she wasn't going to hold it against him. After all, we've all lost someone dear to us before, and the feeling of having your heart ripped out is a pain that rarely heals.

After a few more minutes, Ray re-composed himself and said "Well that's embarrassing" while wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

Rainbow Dash also had tears in her eyes. Ray's story was too much for her to handle, and the next thing she knew she had grabbed Ray and squeezed him into the tightest embrace her arms could manage. Which was quite a lot. She buried her face in Ray's chest and nuzzled her face in. The two of them stayed that way for quite sometime until Ray nudged Rainbow to get her attention.

"Hey, we gotta go back soon, it's getting late." He said softly. It was true, the sun was starting to kiss the horizon and was painting the world in a yellowy hue. As much as he wanted to stay here with her and watch the sun make it's way to the other side of the world, he knew that Florence would be worried. She always was overprotective, and she was the one he was supposed to be protecting.

"Just a bit longer..." Rainbow complained from withing the depths of his arms. She raised her head to look into Ray's eyes, silently pleading to enjoy the moment for a while longer.

Ultimately Ray rolled his eyes, a smirk on his lips. Rainbow took this as her confirmation and nestled her head back onto his shoulders, staring up at the beautiful night sky.

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A/N: What'dya think?

Chapter 8:

"Hey, Rainbow girl, wake up we got shit to do today..." Ray spoke in his regular sarcastic tone.

Rainbow heard a strange yet oddly familiar voice ring out to her from within the confides of the warm, comforting, not cold blanket fortress she remained curled up in. It came through as no more than muffled gibberish, yet she was sure it was addressing her. What could it be? What did it want?

"Wake up Jesse dear, you need to get up. You and Ray have a lot of things to do today." Florence spoke gently, her soft voice doing nothing but soothing the girl deeper back into her slumber.

Ray and Florence stood in front of the crumpled mass of sheets that lay on his couch trying to wake the rainbow-headed adolescent. Ray and Rainbow Dash had a doctor appointment they had to make and they had less than an hour to eat, wash up and get there. Well, Rainbow had less than an hour to eat and wash up. Ray had woken up two hours prior to the time he told Rainbow that she'd need to be up by. Which, by the way, she was half-an-hour late for.

Ray bent down onto his knee and started to shake the clump of girl that hid beneath the warm shield of cloth and wool tried -in vain- to rouse the girl out of bed and start the day.

"Réveiller, despertarse, okinasai, GET UP ALREADY!" Ray shouted as he rattled the girl before him.

'No, the outsiders, they're attacking! They're trying to steal my warmth! Well I'm not going going out without a fight!' Rainbow thought to herself, curling up into a tighter ball, willing all her might against the outside intruding force trying to rip away the bliss of rest from her. By the pillow she clutched she would go down fighting!

"Right then, back up Flo, desperate times call for desperate measures." Ray warned his sister who meekly nodded and moved away to the kitchen to try and make something quickly for the sure-to-be starving rainbow-haired tenant.

"Okay Dashie, je vais vous donner le compte de trois... Un, deux, trois... That's it, time to GET UP!" Ray raised his voice as he grabbed a hold of the blankets under Rainbow Dash and gave them a quick tug, sending the girl tumbling down to the hard wooden floor.

'What's this? A threat? I'll never back down.' Rainbow thought to herself. 'Oh no, they're attacking!' She mentally cried as her death grip on her pillow tightened even more than thought possible. 'Must retaliate!' She bellowed another war whoop, though this one actually come out of her throat.

"Aaaaaaaaaah!" A shrill cry rang out from the girl Ray had just dismounted from his couch as Rainbow Dash hooked her leg around behind Ray's knee and brought him down to her level with in a tumbling mess. She then reversed their positions and pinned the blonde boy by sitting on his chest with her hands pressed sternly against his shoulders, holding them to the ground and rendering Ray locked and at her mercy. Rainbow bore holes into his head with her glare and all Ray could do was stair blankly back at her.

It had all happened so fast that Ray had no clue what had actually transpired until it was all over and he lay under the not-so-crushing weight of the flaming tempered Rainbow Dash. He would never let it show on his face, but his heart spoke volumes about his surprise and momentary panic. And maybe a bit of excitement given their current position and Rainbow Dash's current... attire, consisting of very revealing boxer shorts and a spaghetti-strap half shirt... What he's a guy and she's a girl, these things happen...

Ray's and Rainbow's faces were but centimeters apart and Rainbow Dash held her glare at the boy. Ray momentarily averted his eyes as an unavoidable bit of red seeped its way into his face, and said "Well Mr. Miyagi, good morning to you to. Care for some breakfast?"

At the mention of food, Rainbow Dash forgot all about how her beauty sleep had been so rudely interrupted and immediately got up and ran to the kitchen, slipping and almost falling on her face on her way to the dinner bar.

Ray chuckled lightly at the display and walked over to the kitchen, opening the fridge and drinking straight from the milk bag. When he put the milk back and closed the door he noticed a plate full of eggs, toast and bacon sitting on the table in front of an ecstatic looking Rainbow Dash who eyed up the meal as if it had descended from the gods themselves.

"Little hungry are we?" Ray joked.

"Starving! And Florence is such a great cook, this all looks so great!" The rainbow girl exclaimed as she took a bite of eggs and tried a bit of bacon.

"Man this stuff is good, what is it?" Rainbow said as she held up a piece of bacon.

"That would be bacon Dashie, a gift from the heavens." Ray said dreamily as he snagged a piece off of Rainbow's plate without her knowing.

"Well, what's bacon?" Rainbow inquired further.

"Pork" Ray replied absentmindedly as he crunched into the crisp browned meat.

"Ummm... what's-"

"Pork?" Ray interrupted having already guessed that the lunatic girl would ask that next. "It's pig, you know that pinkish fat animal raised on farms? Or did you not have those in Ponytown?" Ray continued sarcastically. Though it wasn't until he refocused his eyes on Rainbow Dash did he realize the look of sheer horror on her face.

"What?" Ray asked with growing concern.

"Th-this is... pig? As in the animal? Not some kind of weird pink vegetable or something?" Rainbow gulped audibly. Her face having lost all colour.

"Oh, oh god don't tell me you're a vegetarian?!" Ray nearly shouted, grabbing at his hair.

Florence gasped from across the room, eyes wide as saucers as she rushed over to the now shaking form that was Rainbow Dash.

"What? Was this a living creature? This is meat?!" Rainbow kept asking, starting to hyper ventilate.

"Jesse I am so, sorry. I had no clue you didn't even know what meat looked like. You should have told us earlier that you were a vegetarian! I'm so sorry" Florence spoke in a rush, smoothing Rainbow's hair against her back while apologizing profusely.

Ray simply paced around with his head in his arms. This was no small thing that had just happened, from the looks of it Rainbow had never even known meat was a food group, and here they were having fed it to her all week. Whatever he felt right now she must be feeling a thousand times worse!

"Look, Rainbow it's alright, it was an accident. It happens all the time in nature, so-" Ray said trying to calm the girl down a bit, but it only seemed to make things worse.

"What? You mean it's regular to kill for food here? Are you all savages?! How could you eat something that was alive?" Rainbow exclaimed briefly lifting her head up from within her arms to do so. You could clearly see that the girl was much less than happy about what had transpired.

Ray sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose saying, "Look, I'm really really sorry about this. I didn't have a clue that you were vegetarian, and clearly it's a big deal to you so from now on we'll only cook you vegetarian friendly meals. But you need to straighten up, seriously we have a doctor's appointment in less than half an hour and Cedric is on his way to pick us up, so you need to get wash up, get dressed and get ready to go."

"You're still going to be eating meat?!" Rainbow almost shouted at Ray.

"Look, seriously get in the shower, we'll talk about this later I promise, but we really do need to be going very soon, Cedric messaged me saying that he's about five minutes away and you're still in PJs. Get going!" Ray said hurriedly, pointing down the hallway to the washroom.

Rainbow averted her gaze to the ground, but silently consented with a wordless "Okay".

"Come on Jesse, I'll help you in" Florence offered the still shaken

Florence shot back a concerned look at Ray who only gave a shrug of the shoulders. After a few minutes of Ray sitting zoned-out of the couch, the buzzer rang by the door letting Ray know that Cedric must be here. So he hopped of the couch and made his way over to the door to see if it really was him, -not that Ray had been expecting anyone else but force of habit took over- and sure enough, the thick southern England accent that belonged to none other than Cedric rang through the microphone by Ray's door.

"Hey open the damn door right? It's damn well freezin' down 'ere!" Cedric shouted playfully into the microphone.

"Yeah yeah don't shit yourself chav boy, it's open" Ray responded sarcastically with a smile plastered to his face.

A few minutes later and a knock could be heard on Ray's door. He opened it up and in bounded Cedric, jumping into Ray's arms bridle style screaming dramatically "Catch me Ray, catch me and don't ever let me go!"

Ray just rolled his eyes and dropped his friend on the ground. He landed with a thump and sat rubbing his behind making a show of his pain and over-dramatizing the scene. Ray simply laughed at his friend's display and helped him to his feet.

Cedric was taller than Ray by about five centimeters, so they were close in height, and they were built similarly though Cedric was a tad leaner than Ray. Cedric had green eyes, fiery wavy orange hair and fair skin, and scare freckles along the bridge of his nose. Contrary to the stereotype, he had perfect, pearl white teeth =that Ray had always been secretly a little jealous of- giving him a bright smile that he showed off almost constantly. He wore a green wool sweater, brown corduroy pants and black skate shoes.

Cedric sighed and wrapped his arm around Ray's shoulder in a friendly gesture and asked "Well, how've you been doin' mate? Been holdin' up okay?" Cedric was one of the only people that knew about Rose aside from Dante, Florence and now Rainbow Dash. He knew better than anyone how Ray would still sometimes beat himself up over it.

"Yeah I've been doing good. I dun goofed though" Ray said nonchalantly. Though Cedric could tell it was bigger than he lead on.

"Oh? And what might said 'goof' have been?"

"Jesse, the girl we're taking to the doctor's, is a vegetarian apparently! And we've been feeding her meat for almost over a week now, though she only thinks that she ate it today when she had bacon." Ray explained, grimacing at the memory of that morning's incident.

"Sssss-aaaaaaah, that's a nasty bit a business you got there." Cedric replied, wincing at the revelation.

"Yeah, she was pretty shaken up about it. hopefully she'll be doing better soon enough" the blonde young-adult sighed and flopped back down on the couch in sync with Cedric, both lifting their feet onto the coffee table at the same time.

"Speakin' a which, where is the lady of the hour?" Cedric inquired looking over at Ray.

"Oh she's just getting ready. You know how girls are with taking hours for something so trivial." Ray waved off the question with his simple answer.

"If there's one thing I know, it's that" Cedric nodded in agreement.

Right after their little exchange had finished, right on queue, Rainbow Dash and Florence emerged from Flo's bedroom. Rainbow was dressed warmer for the cold weather, opting to wear dark blue/black jogging pants with some sort of logo running down the leg and a baby-blue long-sleeved shirt. The back of her hair was tied in a pony tail but the bangs stayed where the usually would be. Even though her attire was simplistic it still did a good job of making an impression on Cedric. And maybe, just maybe Ray thought it was kinda sorta a tad cute.

"Aren't you a stunner!" Cedric called out to Rainbow giving a wolf-whistle to show his approval. "And you're looking as fine as usual Flo love." He continued, winking at Ray's sister who blushed slightly at his bright smile.

Ray rolled his eyes with a smirk on his lips and said "Well as rude as it is to leave just after you got here, we really do need to get going. We can probably make it fifteen minutes late but anymore than that and I don't even want to think about having to schedule another appointment. We were damn lucky to get this one so soon." Ray hurried everyone to the door, grabbing his coat and bag of the rack as he waved goodbye to Florence.

"Flo, wake up Danny for me and tell him le gâteau est un mensonge!" Cedric said as Ray pushed him out the door.

"Man what is with you and that?" Ray said laughing lightly while fastening the buttons on his jacket.

"It gets him so riled up, I love it. I don't even know what it means myself!" Ray's red-headed friend laughed lightheartedly.

Rainbow Dash was still silent, though she smiled at the two friends' joking.

Once they were in the elevator, Ray and Cedric had quieted down and now stood in the metallic box silently, an air of awkwardness taking over the small closed space.

"Well, I think introductions are in order" Cedric said trying to lighten the heavy mood in the elevator. Rainbow just looked at him curiously, quirking an eyebrow at him. But Cedric didn't give up and continued.

"My names Cedric, Cedric Micheals, I'm Ray's friend, y'know the bloke who pouts a lot." That got Rainbow to smirk and chuckle a little. It wasn't much but it was something to work with.

"So, what's your name miss..." the man waited for Rainbow to fill in the rest for him.

"Rainb- I mean Jesse. My name is Jesse... Trudeau?" Rainbow said, trying to remember the alias Ray had given her. By the look on Ray's face when she checked to make sure, it looked like she had gotten it right.

"Trudeau huh? Another Frenchy eh? Oh well you seem alright." Cedric concluded.

"Ah, looks like we're hear." Cedric said as the elevator dinged and the door opened to the car park that Cedric had used.

"So many of them..." Rainbow Dash whispered to herself, but Cedric had accidentally heard her.

"So many what?" He asked.

"Huh? Oh, there's so many... auto-ma-cars here, I mean..." rainbow replied sheepishly. She got a strange look from Cedric, and when she looked over to see Ray she saw him with his hand in his head.

"What did you call them?" Cedric started but was cut off when Ray pointed out Cedric's car. It was a small black Volkswagen Jetta 98 model that looked a little worn for ware.

"Ah yes, your chariot awaits fair maiden" Cedric said, making a big deal of unlocked and opening the door for Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow timidly stepped in and immediately noticed how small and cramped it was. Ray had given her a brief explanation on what a car was and does, so she got the gist of what was to happen, but it didn't make her any less comfortable. The last self propelled vehicle she had seen was a giant golden apple, and that didn't turn out very well at all. So when Ray got in beside her she immediately grabbed a hold of his hand and held it in a death-grip, turning ray's hand white.

Ray winced a little and Cedric asked "What, no shot-gun this time? Usually pretty keen on that."

"It's her first time in a car." Ray explained plainly.

"Really now? That's strange, where do you come from some kind of car-less Rainbow cult compound?" Cedric teased.

"Haha funny, now start the car we need to beat traffic." Ray said motioning his hand in a rolling gesture.

"As you command Lieutenant Marcone!" Cedric mock saluted Ray and turned the ignition on, and with a roar of the engine -that sent Rainbow Dash quivering- started off towards the highway.

Once they were going, Cedric turned on the radio and cranked the volume, eliminating the need for any more awkward conversations between the three of them. Cedric had to admit to himself that he felt a bit like a third wheel. Though he was glad to sacrifice that much to see his friend happy again. Perhaps this is what he needed, he thought.

While they drove down the highway (about thirty clicks faster than the limit) Rainbow kept her grip on Ray's hand which had long since lost feeling. Pity to, he was starting to enjoy the closeness. He even so dared as to brush his leg up against hers, a daring move for one such as Ray. She responded in kind with leaning on Ray, to which Cedric had a clever tease ready for them.

The rest of the ride was ridden in comfortable silence (well, silence conversation wise, the music still blared) and soon enough they found themselves in the parking lot of St. Micheal's hospital. Cedric dropped them off at the door with the promise to pick them up in two hours if he doesn't hear from Ray sooner. And with that, the two rush in through the doors and make their way to the elevators.

Rainbow's mood had lightened up significantly since her run in with meat that morning, and she seemed to have almost forgotten about the experience entirely. Now she was just excited to see the inside of such a large building. All the hospitals in Equestria were fairly small and although they didn't necessarily have a bad feel to them, this place seemed just so much more... exciting! Everything in this world was exciting.

"Wow, this place is huge! How the hay are we gunna know where to go?" rainbow asked as she hopped about looking every thing and anything.

"First we gotta register. You don't have id so I'll have to sign you in myself." Ray explained, though Rainbow Dash seemed to barely be paying attention.

"Hey did you here me?" Ray made sure.

"Yeah, sign in, no id, you gotta do it, what's taking so long let's hop to it!" Rainbow said quickly and started running down the hall earning the stares of doctors and patients alike. Ray simply sighed and ran after her.

.....

Ray had finally caught up the Rainbow Dash and signed her in just in time to make the appointment deadline. Though that didn't seem to change the fact that they were now still waiting in the waiting room for their appointment as they had been for the last fifteen minutes.

At this point Ray was idly scanning through a pamphlet about influenza and fever while Rainbow Dash sat upside-down on her chair, twiddling with her bangs and lightly kicking her feet against the wall. She hadn't even shifted into that position either, she just sorta flipped herself onto the chair after exploring the floor they were on for ten minutes or so.

Ray was about to reprimand her for it when a nurse came out and called them over.

"Ray Marcone and Jesse Trudeau? Dr. Clarkson will see you now." The nurse smiled lightly and waved them over.

"Finally!" Rainbow Dash cried out, flipping back onto her feet from the chair and stretching her arms, a few patients laughing quietly at the girls eccentricity.

Ray sighed for the umpteenth time that day and resigned himself to following the nurse back to where the doctor's office was with Rainbow following in suit but touching everything she could.

Once they had reached the office they were let in by the doctor, a man with a frog-face and a white lab-coat over-top of a white shirt and dress pants. The office itself held all sorts of machines and medical mannerisms. It took all of Rainbow's focus to stay focused and not run out of the room shrieking in horror from all of the sharp things that littered the room.

The doctor looked up from a file he was reading and addressed the two formally. "Hello, my name's Dr. Clarkson."
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

A/N: I know it ended a bit abruptly, but I had to give you guys something for waiting so patiently. I won't take as long next time for sure. A Big shout out to Azurini who is an awesome total bro. Go check out his story if you haven't already. Let me know what you thought of this chapter.

Chapter 9 & 10:

Once they had reached the office they were let in by the doctor, a man with a frog-face and a white lab-coat over-top of a white shirt and dress pants. The office itself held all sorts of machines and medical mannerisms. It took all of Rainbow's focus to stay focused and not run out of the room shrieking in horror from all of the sharp things that littered the room.

The doctor looked up from a file he was reading and addressed the two formally. "Hello, my name's Dr. Clarkson. You must Ray Marcone correct?" Dr. Clarkson extended his hand.

"Live and in the flesh." Ray took the doctor's hand and shook it. "And this here is my monkey-" Ray nodded back towards Rainbow Dash who narrowed her eyes at the comment. "-She needs a check up." He finished nonchalantly.

"I have a name you know" Rainbow Dash complained from behind Ray.

The doctor laughed lightheartedly and asked jokingly "well, what's your monkey's name?"

Rainbow Dash pouted further and made to speak, "my name's Rai-mmmff!" But before she could finish, Ray held up his hand to her mouth silencing her, and with a forced grin said "Jesse. Her name's Jesse Trudeau."

Dr. Clarkson merely nodded with a knowing smile. Ray had contacted him earlier and explained -albeit vaguely- the reasons why Rainbow Dash, or Jesse would act strange, and why she didn't have any of her papers on her. Dr. Clarkson was under the impression that Rainbow Dash was Ray's friend visiting from France, but along the way had lost all of her papers in luggage on the plane ride over.

She's supposedly having a check up due to a , as Ray put it, hell-of-a-tumble she'd had when she fell down his apartment stairs. According to the story, she was knocked out cold and woke up with a light case of amnesia, and what she had thought to be a broken rib. Ray informed her about that side of the alibi but kept her in the dark about the amnesia. It'd be more believable that way.

Under normal circumstances, this kind of "check-up" would be denied, but Ray knew a guy who knew a guy and so on. But in essence, this was a favor from the doctor to Ray. And a big one considering the depth of which this examination would be analyzed.

"Well, right this way Miss Trudeau" Dr. Clarkson smiled kindly towards the Rainbow headed nervous wreck of a girl. She didn't show it on the outside until they actually had to enter the doctor's office; at which point all of her inhibitions came back with a vengeance. Rainbow Dash hated hospitals and doctor examinations in Equestria, and she was damned sure not to enjoy them on Earth.

When Rainbow Dash didn't move, Ray simply rolled his eyes and grabbed her by the arm, attempting to drag her in. But she was surprisingly rooted right to the floor, stubbornly refusing to budge and inch.

"what the-... Come on Jesse we're just getting you checked out, make sure you're all healthy" Ray spoke as if he were talking to a child. But still the girl did not budge.

"Come on Jesse, it'll be fine. There's nothing to be afraid about, we're just going to do a few test and make sure that you're alright. Nothing more." The doctor encouraged her patiently.

"Come on, you're being a child about this. We'll get this over with and then we can go explain to Dmitri why I haven't been able to work for the past week."

Once more, nothing...

"Alright Missy, I give you to the count of three..." Ray said threateningly as he raised his hand, making a claw-like shape with the appendage.

"One..." Rainbow still did not move, though her eyes shifted to Ray's hand, curious as to what the threat was.

"Two..." Ray was wiggling the figures on his hand, furrowing his eyebrows at the stubborn block before him. Rainbows eyes grew wider with realization. He wasn't planning on doing that was he?

"You asked for it" Ray shrugged. "Three!" And with that, his clawed hand shot down to her sides, and in one viscous flanking attack, tickled the girl with all the might and fury of a thousand blazing white suns. While the girl before him screeched out in shock and involuntary laughter, Ray found no joy in this underhanded tactic. He especially felt no fancy for the need to deploy such measures in a public place for all to see. And all did see. Eyes were plastered to the scene of a wildly colored haired girl being tickled into the doctors office. But Ray didn't really care, whatever got her in the room...

Contrary to Ray, Dr. Clarkson found the scene that had unfolded in front of him to quite humorous indeed. He chuckled lightly to himself until Ray had succeeded in herding the rambunctious rainbow girl into the doctors office. Once she was securely in the room and seated on the examination table with that god-awful parchment paper that the doctors give you hell for crinkling- (I mean seriously, what are you supposed to do, hover on it?) Dr. Clarkson closed the door and took his seat by his desk.

Rainbow Dash was still sitting stiffly, feeling exposed -ironically- being the center of attention in the bland, sterile looking room. Ray noticed the slight trembling in Rainbow's shoulders, and in a rare act of sympathy, walked over to stand beside the exam table and grabbed Rainbow's hand in his.

The act made her jump a little at first, but once she registered what happened she relaxed significantly. Dr. Clarkson finished the necessary paper work and noticed Rainbow's much more relaxed state, deciding then to start with the examination.

Dr. Clarkson walked over with what Rainbow Dash recognized as a stethoscope. Actually, there were a lot of tools similar in design to the ones used in Equestria. But among the varying tools, she also noticed the masses of stranger equipment that she'd just seen for the first time in her life.

And just like that she felt like a little filly again going to get her wings plastered when she'd botched a stunt back in her foal-hood. That was the first time she'd visited a hospital, and she remembered being just as frightened as she did now. And it took a lot to scare the fearless wonderbolt-to-be daredevil that tamed the wilds of the great blue yonder and perfected not only the sonic rainboom, but now the -as dubbed by the flier herself- the silver-rainboom.

But apparently doctors with strange equipment in a world entirely new to her was on the short list of shit that drilled its way into that small crevice of natural instinct known commonly as fear that resided in the back of Rainbow Dash's head. And once again, she found herself trembling as the doctor neared her.

"It's okay Jesse, I'm only going to check your pulse, but I can't do that if you're under this much stress. Surely you've seen one of these before?" The doctor held up the stethoscope for Rainbow's inspection.

Rainbow Dash nodded meekly.

"Dashie, deep breaths for me. It's going to be okay" Ray tried comforting Rainbow using a soft voice that she'd only ever heard him use just now. It had its desired affect, and along with a reassuring smile tugging at Ray's lips, Rainbow was able to relax once again.

A light smile made its way across the doctor's features. "Alright then, let's see here..." Dr. Clarkson stuck the diaphragm against Rainbow's chest and listened.

Ray made to take his leave to sit across in one of the chairs, but Rainbow's grip on his hand tightened as when he moved, and when he turned around with an eyebrow quirked he saw the pleading look in Rainbow's eyes. I guess this really is hard fore her he thought and resigned himself to stand next to the table and be the girls support bar for the process. A sigh of relief escaped the girls lungs and Ray smirked knowingly and leaned on the table crinkling the paper and earning himself a death glare from the doctor.

Sheesh

The doctor continued to perform the basic examination tests: heart rate, blood pressure, reflexes, eyesight and lung capacity/clarity. Everything seemed be be perfect, and both Ray and Dr. Clarkson were surprised to find that Rainbow Dash had the lung capacity of an Olympic swimmer and the eyes of an eagle.

The only real oddity was in her measurements. She weighed almost fifteen kilograms less than what her BMI would imply. And with no visible excuse. Muscle and fat wise she was perfectly balanced. But still she weighed less than she should...

Aside from the mild discomfort of the cold of the metallic tools used, she found that she wasn't going to die. Which definitely relaxed her much more. She even began speaking cockily and bragging to the doctor after only a few minutes of inhibition.

However, when she had to surrender her left hand to be inspected, and with that let go of Ray's hand, she seemed to stiffen right up again. Ray and Dr. Clarkson both saw the pattern that had appeared, and with not but a quick wordless exchange between the two, Ray made physical contact with Rainbow Dash again by lightly rubbing her shoulder while the doctor examined the toned and refine muscles in Rainbow's arm.

Once again, the the contact helped to calm down Rainbow significantly. At first Ray simply thought that she was being a clingy baby, but he noticed that she wouldn't consciously acknowledge when Ray would break the connection aside from freezing up again. She wouldn't look over to him, or make it known that she wanted the reassuring presence. It was more like she needed it, but didn't know she did. Or at least wouldn't let herself know she did.

But holding her hand, or placing it on her shoulder wasn't too big a burden, so Ray obliged. After all, if he wasn't making himself useful like this, he'd just be sitting in an uncomfortable chair while Rainbow Dash was man handled by that doctor...

Wait what? Where did that come from? Ray thought to himself. He wasn't entirely sure, but for a few seconds, he thought he'd felt something he hadn't felt in a while. He wasn't getting jealous was he? No it couldn't be...

But as the examination continued, and the doctor only got his hands on Rainbow Dash even more, he felt that familiar heat rise in his chest again. He knew that the doctor was only doing his job; doing him a favor, but he just couldn't help the feeling. Especially when he inspected the muscle in Rainbow's leg that she had been complaining about ever since one of their jogging excursions a few days ago.

"hmmm, I'd say you might have just suffered a nasty Charley-horse and pinched that muscle. Give it time, but stay of it as much as possible. I know you athlete types" Dr. Clarkson tapped on Rainbow's leg making her flinch a little and chuckled to himself remembering when Ray came in one day with a similar injury and was back again the next day with a sprained ankle. The same ankle he'd been advised against over-exerting.

But Ray's mind was miles away from the topic past trivialities, and was more focused on the unnecessary amount of attention he'd given that leg. In his defense it was a very nice leg, and given the same opportunity, Ray would also probably abuse it a little. But he couldn't help having to bite his lip to keep from speaking out against it. He still wasn't even sure if the doctor really had given it that much attention, or if it was just his overactive imagination.

But there was one thing he was definitely sure of, that being that he couldn't wait to just get out of that office. He was starting to feel a little claustrophobic. Now it was Rainbow's hand that was comforting him, he felt.

Ray felt absolutely ridiculous. It seems like he and Rainbow had completely switched places. Now Rainbow Dash was talking animatedly with the doctor, completely free of her former fears, and Ray was wishing they would just be done with it already so he could rest easy.

But they were soon back their original positions when the topic of "x-ray" came up.

"Alright Jesse, have you ever had an x-ray before?" Dr. Clarkson asked.

"A what now?" Was Dash's reply, a incredulous look on her face. Ray inwardly sighed, he knew that his was going to traumatic if nothing else was.

The doctor chuckled again in his lighthearted fashion and explained "Well an x-ray examination allows us to see your bones. It uses electromagnetic waves known as 'x-rays' to take pictures of the bone structure of your body."

"Eh? How can you see inside me?" Rainbow asked slightly confused.

"The x-rays go through your body, but certain parts of your body are harder than others, for instance your skin is much softer than your bones. The x-rays look at all of the solidity differences of your body and represents them on a sort of graph that shows us the make up of the part we're scanning." He explained.

But it all went in one ear and out the other for both Ray and Rainbow. Though for different reasons. Ray was just worried about how Rainbow Dash would react to seeing the contraption that takes the x-ray photographs, and Rainbow just didn't understand the science-babble coming from the doctor's explanation.

But they didn't have much more time to mull over their individual concerns as they were soon escorted from the office to walk down to the x-ray center.

On the way to the room, Rainbow and Ray never released their grips on each others hands. But now it was more of a mutual thing than a one sided dependency.

During the walk, Rainbow Dash used this time to voice her concerns to Ray.

"So... how do they do this z-ray thing...?" She asked nervously, biting her bottom lip.

"X-ray" Ray corrected. "And they just have you lay down on a table like the one in the office, and then they have a dinosaurous-rex come and tickle your feet while you watch re-runs of Spongebob." Ray teased, a smirk tugging at his lips.

"Not funny," Rainbow Dash giggled lightly, doing her best to pout while resisting the erg to laugh at the absurdity of what Ray explained.

"No, but they actually just lay you down on a padded table and take pictures with this weird looking camera while you chill under some military grade metal blanket." Ray explained reassuringly. "It's over before you know it. Just don't freak out when you see the thing. It won't hurt you. Also I'll have to wait with the doctor, so you'll be on your own for a few minutes."

Rainbow Dash gulped audibly, and Ray's eyes softened and he gave a light squeeze to Rainbow's hand. The rainbow headed girl reciprocated the gesture and smiled at the ground, curling a lock of hair behind her ear. Ray's smirk widened at the adorable display. Yup, she's definitely easy on the eyes... Ray thought to himself fondly...

Once they had gotten to the room, Rainbow Dash took a deep breath, and pushed her way through the heavy iron doors. Once they had Rainbow all set up and covered ready for here x-ray, Ray finally let go of her hand for what must have been the first time in at least one and a half hours. And Ray felt just as alone as Rainbow did when they parted. The sensation was all to familiar, and all too real for Ray. But he'd worry about that later, right now he should be focused on Rainbow Dash. Who know's what she must be thinking!

-Man this thing is taking foreeeeeveeeeeerrrrr... I'm kinda hungry...

Oh yeah, she's gotta be thinking the worst! Ray thought to himself worriedly. But the next thing he knew, the x-rays had been taken. He figured this out by the shocked gasp and expression that came from Dr. Clarkson and his college. That definitely sent up some red flags in Ray's mind.

"What! What is it?!" He asked suddenly, startling the two doctors in the room with him.

"Look at this" Dr. Clarkson ushered him over to the display screen and showed him the x-ray pictures. All Ray could do was look on absolutely flabbergasted. What he saw on the screen before him, was the bone structure similar to that of a bird's.

"What is this?" Ray asked completely confused. If it meant what he thought it meant...

"It's an explanation as to why she weighed fifteen kilograms less than what her build should." The doctor explained. "I haven't a clue why, but she has hollow bones. Normally that should be a crippling if not fatal condition, yet she makes up for it by having the bones constructed out of naturally occurring carbon-fiber... It's like she was made for speed..."

Things weren't looking good, and Ray found himself feeling dizzy and light headed...

"And the weirdest part of all... it looks as though her bones have been shifted to to fit her body, which explains why she's been complaining about sore muscles. They're being pinched by the bone itself!" The doctor was getting more and more excited as he continued his explanation.

"But why would her bones need to shift to match a human body if she wasn't already..." Dr. Clarkson stopped dead in his tracks. A look of realization gracing his face.

The other doctor in the room voiced his opinion on the matter. "That's crazy Henry, she's obviosly human. There's no way she could be anything but. I mean, just look at her!" the doctor beside Clarkson gestured out the windowed room towards the rainbow headed girl, who waved back lazily.

"She looks human to me."

"But look at the scans! This could be- no this is revolutionary! This hasn't happened in the history of medical science! We have to tell someone-"

Dr. Clarkson was unable to finish his thought before Ray grabbed his shoulders firmly and shook the man angrily. "You will tell no one of this. Not a soul!" Ray then made his way over to the computer and immediately deleted the x-ray files from the computer.

"Hey you can't just-" The assistant doctor called out to Ray, who quickly turned around, and with an apologetic look on his face explained in a calm tone of voice to the man, "Look, I really need you to keep this quiet. I can't tell you why, you'd think I'm crazy-"

"I already think you're crazy!" The man interupted.

Ray set a pleading gaze on the man before him, and put his hand on his shoulder, the other hand was keeping Dr. Clarkson at arms length should he decide to do something stupid. "Just trust me. It's better that you just don't get involved in something bigger than you. Besides, this never happened" Ray nodded towards the blank computer screen.

"Dammit!" Dr. Clarkson cursed through clenched teeth.

"Look, I really am sorry. But this is bigger than just some crappy science fare blue ribbon. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have to." Ray Finished and made his way out the door, grabbing a confused looking Rainbow Dash and dragging her out by the arm, her shooting questions at a million miles an hour.

"Aren't you going to stop them? Call security of something?! He just made off with the discovery of the century!" The doctor's assistant cried out.

"No, there's no need. He's a good kid, I won't bother him" Dr. Clarkson sighed. "Besides, he didn't make off with anything more than his girlfriend" The doctor said menacingly, flashing his assistant the USB stick he'd taken from the computer...

Once they were in the hallway, Ray took out his phone and dialed Cedric's number. But before he could put the ear piece up to his head Rainbow Dash planted her feet firmly on the ground, stopping Ray along with her.

"Ray, what's going on? What happened in there?!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.

"I think I'm ready to believe your story." Ray said calmly, once again redialing the number on his phone.

"What story-..." Rainbow Dash trailed off when she realized what he was talking about.

"Yeah, that story." Ray replied quickly.

"So where are we going now?" Rainbow asked as they started moving again.

"Well, first off we have to go see my boss. I have to talk to him anyways, and this wouldn't be the first time I've hidden with him." Ray said as he raised the ear piece to his head.

"Wait what? Why would we need to hide?" Rainbow asked.

"Well, I might have pissed off the doctors who made an... interesting discovery." Ray explained, trudging through the hospital. Thankfully he only ran into a few nurses and patients on his way out.

"Quiet now, I gotta make a call." Ray said as he answered the phone.

"Hey." Ray started.

"What's up?" Cedric was on the other line.

"start the car and be ready at the front gate." Ray spared no time with pleasantries, and Cedric seemed t have sensed this from the beginning.

"She's already fired up and waiting for you at the gate." You could practically hear the grin on Cedric's face.

"What? How'd you know we needed-"

"I figured you'd manage to fuck something up and need a bail. So here I am." Cedric said once again in his sarcastic tone.

"You're a life saver." Ray thanked him and hung up.

Once he'd ended the call they arrived at the hospital main entrance, and sure enough, there was Cedric's Green Honda Civic waiting for them with open doors.

"Quick, swan dive!" Ray cried out and grabbed Rainbow Dash, and before she could even question what he meant, jumped into the car's back seat with Rainbow Dash in his arms. Once they were in, Cedric immediately sped off and onto the highway.

And after the few shocked seconds of "holy-shit-what-the-hell-was-that", Ray and Cedric burst out in laughter.

"Just like old times eh mate!" Cedric cried out between laughs.

"Hell yeah Mr.Bond!" Ray also said between gasping laughs.

Rainbow Dash however was lost, but didn't question it. Stallions will be stallions she thought with an inward shrug. Though she witnessed another thing for the first time yet Ray was genuinely laughing...

All Ray had to do was mention the name Dmitri and Cedric knew exactly where he was supposed to go. Ray and his construction team had been working on a series of joint session houses for a developing subdivision out in the boondocks of GTA. (Greater Toronto Area. An acronym used by people living close to or in the GTA, not the game series)

Once they had reached their destination, they were bid farewell from Cedric who claimed to have had "shit to do". And thus, they were left with not but a wave of the hand and the roar of an engine. But before he left, said "Oh and tell my brother I send my regards!"

From where they were left off, they walked the remaining distance to one of the mostly complete houses where Dmitri was sure to be slacking off and yelling at the various workers slaving in the cold autumn weather.

As they made their way down the line of house to the end, where the most complete houses sat, Ray was greeted by his fellow carpenters, and a few braver of his colleges opted to greet him with wolf-whistles and cat-calls in honor of his 'guest'.

When they reached the more completed houses, Ray called up to one of his co-workers who was nailing shingles to the roof. Nearly completed roof.

"Hey, where's the boss man!?" He shouted up at the roofer.

"Boss man's down south three flats!" He called back.

"Roger-roger!"

"...What?" Rainbow asked confusedly.

"He's down here" Ray said and led the way to where he would surely find the beast of a man he had the 'pleasure' of calling his boss.

Once they made it to the building, Ray slammed on the door four times in a unique pattern, making different pitches with each knock, and after a few minutes, heard the tell-tale sign of thumping, tumbling and crashing as whoever was in there ran to get the door.

"VAT ISH IT!" A giant of a man bellowed down from the house's porch.

When Rainbow recovered from the shock of the hundred decibel battle-cry, she was nearly knocked back on her ass from the mere sight of the man that stood at least two-hundred-ten centimeters tall. He loomed over both her and Ray. Though Ray seemed to show no sign of fear at the sight of this behemoth. Instead, he actually beamed up at the scruffy, unsaved mess of a man, who only reciprocated the grin with one of his own.

"Vhat is this!? Vhy have you not been calling? Vhat heppened to you- You got in FIGHT again yes?!" The giant asked in his booming voice. Dmitri spoke with a thick Russian accent.

"Juuust a little bit" Ray said holding up his fingers a few centimeters apart.

The man Rainbow Dash assumed was Dmitri clicked his tongue and shook his head saying "Come come, let Dmitri see vhat ze damage is." Dmitri quickly ushered the two in.

"First zings first, who is Rainbow girl?" Dmitri asked pointing with a thick callused finger over towards the piece of person that looked the most out of place on a construction site.

"That's Rainbow Dash. We call her Jesse though to keep people from questioning too much. Jesse Trudeau, so please, use that name when referring to her."

"Yes yes, rainbow girl, dashing girl, Jesse girl, is all same to Dmitri. Is she reason vhy you miss two weeks?" He asked, speaking calmly for the first time since Rainbow met him.

Though when that topic resurfaced Rainbow Dash's expression seemed to drop, and she stared at her hands in her laps with a crestfallen look upon her face.

"No, she wasn't. The Red Jackets were." Ray answered, surprising Rainbow enough that she lifted her head to listen.

"Ah yes, you have had many clashings with these children, I remember. Come, let me see vhat was done" Dmitri said, sliding over to Ray.

"No no, Dmitri it's fine really, Florence patched me up goo- woah!" Dmitri ignored Ray's protests and lifted his jacket and shirt above his head, revealing the scars left behind from Ray's scrap with Toronto's 'baddest'.

"Hmmm... NATHAN COME HAVE LOOK AT RAY!!!" Dmitri bellowed at the top of his voice, forcing Ray and Rainbow to cover their ears.

All that was heard in reply was a large thump, and scattering foot steps. The next thing they say was a disheveled man panting for breath with a more than irritated look on his face.

"Dammit Dmitri I was working on the roof!" This new person spoke in a similar fashion to Cedric Rainbow noticed.

"Oh hey Nate" Ray greeted the person now identified as Nathan. "Cedric sends his regards."

"Yeah yeah, tell the bastard I said hi. Anyways, what's all this about taking a look atcha?" Nathan asked.

"Our little Ray of sunshine has been getting into fights again" Dmitri chided mockingly. "He has boo boo that needs licking."

Nathan just rolled his eyes at the man and moved over to properly inspect Ray's wounds. "Mmmm, yeah that's a doosy. Ho long since infliction?"

"Two weeks-ish."

"Florence did a god job, but not good enough. You got some swelling and it wasn't cleaned well enough. Here let's do this..." Nathan said distractedly talking to himself as he rummaged through a first aid kit that had been placed on the table mere seconds ago by Dmitri.

"Aha! Here we are. Bite down this WILL hurt" Nathan said as h proceeded to cut out the stichings, effectively re-opening the wound.

Ray let out a pained cry and it was all Rainbow Dash could do to not scream with him. She wanted to look away as the old feelings of guilt came back with a vengeance. She would've gladly taken his place in this, but nothing she did could make that happen. So she did the only thing she could do. She reached out for Ray's hand, which he gladly took in his own and squeezed a little too tight for comfort. But Rainbow Didn't move to take her hand away and sat through it all, wincing every time Ray let out a cry of pain, her very own set of tears stinging at her eyes as Ray's wound, the wound she inflicted was cleaned and sowed shut for a second time.

Author's Note

Whew, fina-fuckin-ly. Two chapters, to say I'm sorry for the terribly long wait. Well, what'd you think?
As always your patience is appreciated, I hope you liked the chapter, and have a good night.

P.S: Sorry for no nekkid Dash Nathan :(

Spoiler: Next chapter we re-visit Equestria, and there's some more development between your favorite rainbow-haired heroine and her super sarcastic savior. Will it be good? Will it be bad? Who knows... >:3