BEYOND THE MYSTERIOUS BEYOND
Rainbow Dash was slumbering on a cloud, yet again dreaming of joining the Wonderbolts. In her dream, she had just been accepted after performing a double sonic rainboom, and was just about to go on for her first show when something cold poked her in the side of the head.
Opening her eyes sleepily, she saw a very odd looking creature peering down at her. It was scaly, like a dragon or a gila monster, but it stood similar to a pony. Well, not quite; Its back was a bit straighter, and it stood on two legs. Its front legs, which ended in claws, were small and shrunken, held close to its body. The oddest part was that not only did its face have a beak similar to a chicken’s but longer, but it also had rainbow stripes adorning it. It looked like Spike, had Twilight dropped him from the top window of Golden Oaks, headfirst.
Rainbow Dash’s natural reaction was to, of course, scream and hide behind a cloud.
Remembering that she was supposedly the “Fearless Rainbow Dash,” she peaked cautiously out from behind the cloud. She noticed that there were two of the creatures, and they were talking to each other.
“See, I told you keeping our last form would scare her!” This new voice was distinctly female. “We should have transformed into their native form, we’re more than capable...”
“Well fine, rub it in why don’t you. I happen to like this body! I’m still recovering from when we had to turn into headcrabs from that other universe, by the way...” This voice was a male’s.
“At least it wasn’t as bad as when we turned into cats for that other universe... and that universe has been dragged on far too long if you ask me. I mean, honestly. That ‘Firestar’ character should have been long dead.”
“I did like that one where we were all undersea creatures... quite a pleasant place, if you ask me. That sponge was a lovely companion. Even the starfish too, despite the fact he was a little.. dull.”
“Um, excuse me?” Rainbow Dash flew down to them. “Um, yeah. Hi. I’m Rainbow Dash. Who are you, exactly?”
The one to the left of the pegasus, the female reptile, looked slightly embarrassed. “Ah, yes. How rude of us not to introduce ourselves. We are the Rainbow Faces!”
Rainbow Dash looked at the two, then in a display of infinite tact, burst out laughing. “R-Rainbow Faces? That’s the most ridiculous name ever!”
The one on the right looked hurt. “Well, that’s hardly fair. It’s a similar name to yours, so we would—”
“Well, yeah it’s a similar name, but come on!” Rainbow Dash flipped her mane. “I’m Rainbow Dash, the fastest flyer in Equestria! Dashing is cool! Rainbow face.... that’s like asking for someone to come and pick on you.”
The female turned to the male. “She has a point. I told you would should have gone with ‘Mysterious Star Visitors.’”
The male rolled his eyes. “Rainbow Face is as just an awesome name as Rainbow Dash! ‘Mysterious Star Visitors’ makes us sound like hippies.”
“Oh, and Rainbow Face doesn’t? I liked those dinosaurs better, they were less judgmental. Well, except for that triceratops, but—”
“You guys argue a lot,” Rainbow Dash interrupted. The two rainbow faces stopped babbling to each other, and looked over at the pegasus.
“Oh, terribly sorry, Rainbow Dash,” the male said, and cleared his throat. “Let’s get to the matter at hand. We hop around from universe to universe, reality to reality, helping those we deem in need. And since we’ve got a clear schedule for the next few hundred years, we decided to do some of the ones we’ve been shifting around for a few millenia.”
Rainbow Dash frowned, obviously not kean on the idea of having to have been shafted to the backburner for thousands of years. “So, what are you here to help me with?”
“We’re here to help you with your imagination.”
Rainbow Dash’s eyebrows shot up. “W-What? My imagination is fine! It’s perfectly awesome, just like the rest of me! One-hundred percent pure grade awesome!”
“Have you ever considered imagining things outside of the Daring Do or joining the Wonderbolts?”
Rainbow Dash look slightly frightened upon hearing this. “How do you know--”
“Oh, please, Dashie. We know all about you. In fact, we were recently in that one universe quite like yours, except for that the main chain of events seemed to revolve around this horrendously misbehaved and sexually promiscuous ‘Cloud’ pegasus and a ton of other ponies who seemed as though they were written by a mentally defunct fourteen year old. That was a truly ghastly experience—”
“Back to the matter at hand,” the female said, cutting of her compatriots rant. “Or in your case, at hoof, you need to improve that wondrous tool of yours!” The Rainbow Face went over to Dashie and tapped her on the noggin. “Think of all that you could do!”
“Yeah, Dashie!” All of the beings currently present on the cloud looked back to see Pinkie Pie, floating up through the cloud to join them via a bunch of balloons tied to her waist.
“Pinkie, what are you doing here?” Rainbow asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“Well, I was helping Twilight with her research,” Pinkie said, wiggling around and slowly beginning to rotate. “But then I started to drink these mixtures she had in her lab to see what would happen! I promised I’d wrote down the effects of what happened to me, for science, but she got pretty mad anyway.”
“That still doesn’t, you know, explain the balloons...” Rainbow Dash pointed out, gesturing to the Pinkie’s flotation device.
“Oh, after I drank something labeled ‘H2SO4’, Twilight got really angry and poofed a bunch of balloons up! Then she tied them to me and sent me off drifting into the breeze!” Pinkie waved her hooves around and made whooshing sounds with her mouth to simulate wind while a suspicious sizzling noise emanated from her gut.
The two Rainbow Faces exchanged glances. “Well, um, yes, anyway...” the male one said with a dry cough. “We need to stretch and mould that wonderful potential of yours, Rainbow Dash. An imagination is a terrible thing to waste, my dear!”
“And a waist is a terrible thing to imagine!” Pinkie chimed in with a giggle.
The male gave Pinkie an odd, sideways glance. “That... that doesn’t really fit in that context.”
“Now go forth, Rainbow Dash!” the female said with great bravado, stepping forward and holding her claws out towards the pegasus. “Go forth and show us your capabilities!”
“Well, I was writing this one thing...” Rainbow Dash said, nodding and tapping her hoof to her chin. “I suppose I could finish it...”
The female grinned. “Yes, that’s the spirit!”
“You go, Dashie!” Pinkie chirped sunnily. “In fact, I have just the song for this...”
Pinkie reached behind into her tail (hopefully) and pulled out a harmonica, blowing a single note on it. “Oooooooh~”
“When Dashie was just a--”
The male Rainbow Face gathered a wad of cloud in his claws, took two quick strides over to Pinkie, and stuffed the pony’s little face full of fluff. “We’ll be having none of that today, my dear. If anyone is going to be doing the singing, it’ll be us.”
The male cleared his throat.
“BEYOOOOOOND THE MYSTERIOUS BEYOOO—”
“Anyway, Rainbow Dash,” the female said, dusting off her hands of any residual cloud remnants while the male gagged on a clawful of cumulous. “Head off! Write us something fabulous! Show us what your mind can achieve!”
A few hours later, Rainbow Dash shot up to the cloud, a large stack of papers bound together by yarn clutched tightly against her chest. Breaking through the cloud, she landed down on her plump blue rump with a soft phwunk. The two Rainbow Faces were lounging on the opposite side, playing a game that looked like checkers. The regular pieces were replaced with large blue beetles of some sort, and the board looked as though it had been hewn from solid obsidian.
“Ah, our little creative protege has returned!” The female flung the board off the side of the cloud, much to the male’s dismay, and scuttled over to Dashie.
“I was winning...” the male said sadly.
“Wait, what happened to Pinkie?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I figured she was just going to hang around the clouds for a bit until I got back.”
“Well, that was her plan,” the male answered. “Until a giant gust of air tragically blew her away.”
“It wouldn’t have if you hadn’t pushed her...” the female mumbled, just low enough so that Rainbow Dash, whose ears had been damaged by years of reckless q-tip use and griffon punk rock, couldn't hear her.
“Shh!” the male put a claw to his mouth, and pointed towards Dash, who was cocking her head curiously at the coversation that went unheard to her. The female nodded, and cleared her throat, turning to Dashie.
“So, what have you managed to come up with?” The female’s voice was bursting with excitement. “You were only gone a few hours, and it looks like you’ve got a novel of work there! You write fast, my young pegasus!”
“Yeah, I just went off of whatever came to me,” Dashie said with a hint of a smug smirk on her muzzle. “It was kind of easy once I got into the groove!”
“Well go on, show us!” The male was equally as excited now.
Dashie held up her book, which was titled, in crayon, “Rainbow Dash (and Daring Do, I guess) Save The Universe”.
“I wrote fanfiction!” Rainbow exclaimed proudly.
The two Rainbow Faces looked at each other, their faces slowly contorting into expressions of horror. The male clasped his claws to his face and let loose a low moan. The female fell to the surface of the cloud, screaming up at the sky.
“Oh God, what have we DONE?”
