Chapter 11: Of Regrets and Rainbows

written by TheCrimsonDM

Fluttershy was awake early in the morning for a brand new day of taking care of animals, spending time with her new friend Steggy, and doing her best to not think too hard. This was her usual course of action of course, thinking too hard led to questions, questions led to ideas, and ideas led to confusion or at worst depression. It was better to just not think too hard, get through the day, and hump a stuffed animal lady into sleep at night. It was better than what she'd been doing before she met her friends anyway, which was mostly spent thinking too hard and just being depressed all the time.

Looking at the calendar though, she realized she couldn't get away with that today.

The day before she had reached out to her friend about the date, but when they had declined saying that they were going to bring someone else along for uh... 'reunion', then Fluttershy felt relieved. She never did get the guilt out of her system for having failed. Sure she'd saved one pony but... looking at the calendar she shivered again. Many years ago to this date the single worst catastrophe to hit Cloudsdale had occurred, Hurricane Malevolence. She still wasn't sure she understood exactly what it was, but she knew that it was only thanks to Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia, and probably Princess Cadance too that more lives were not lost that day.

She shook her head. It was a gloomy thought, and she was sure every pegasus in Equestria was probably morning right now. Still she needed to move on with her day and get things going. She opened the door and froze when she saw two ponies she didn't quite recognize there. One was a unicorn with a flaming orange mane, and peach-colored fur. They smiled at her with a warm inviting smile. The other an earth pony with a trench coat and a pair of black shades covering their eyes.

Fluttershy stammered a response after a moment. "O-oh um, h-hello there. C-can I help you?"

the mare replied. "You sure can, Fluttershy."

"H-how did you know my name?"

"Blame that on Twilight."

"Oh did she send you?"

"Well... we're here to see her, or a version of her anyway. Right now though we're looking for our friend. Steggy the Dinosaur is still here right?"

Fluttershy's ears folded against her scalp. This was the master her doll friend was speaking of. "S-so you must be Sunny."

"Sunset Shimmer is my full name, but Sunny for short. After all the crap I've been through fighting undead alicorn monsters, ending the threat of the pony of shadows, and being revived thanks to someone's needy behaviors, I figured I could live up to having a Sunny disposition as well."

"Um... um..."

“Oh and that guy over there is Dick, he's my coworker for this mission. He's shy, you're his favorite element of harmony.”

“Oh um, th-thank you?”

"We'll at least Cadance isn't here yet to fight the threat of the succubus. That's future stuff though so don't worry about it yet."

"Future... stuff..." Fluttershy's eyes widened and she gasped. "Like in Pony Ball Z! You were sent from the f-future to save us from the androids!"

"Uh... wow, you catch on quick. Also it's a succubus not an android. Though Time is a funny thing. So try not to tell ponies about me."

"If I do then Twilight Sparkle won't fall in love with Veggie to make you right?"

"I... I'm not Twilight's daughter. But I don't mind, it just might confuse my real mom... like a lot."

"Oh."

"Anyway, I'm not here to cause problems, promise. I'm here to pick up my friend. I hope she kept you company while I was gone."

"She... um... did... a lot."

"Good, good. She's a special girl, but we need her to go home. Got some friends who miss her."

"Is um... any of this supposed to make sense?"

"Nope."

"Is it important?"

"It might be."

Fluttershy frowned, her brow furrowing in thought, the one thing she said she wouldn't do today. "Okay, so you're from the future, you are not Twilight's daughter, your here for Steggy, and... to defeat the androids?"

"Succubus not android... I'm here to also give you some advice. If you'll hear it."

Fluttershy gasped and grinned. She felt like a regular old Son Wukong. "I would love too!"

"Twilight Sparkle has a big heart. Your Twilight Sparkle. And she has a problem, she needs love, more love than anypony out there. She's so fragile and scared though that she won't likely do anything to act on it anytime soon, and by the time she does it may be too late. If you notice Twilight being interested in you, please, don't push her away. I know it's scary to trust a pony that deep, and with Twilight she'll have so many lovers in the future that you won't be able to make sense of it, but she'll love you like no other. I can assure you that what you'll share with her will be special, if you only give it a chance."

Fluttershy's eyes widened, she reached out and touched the pony's cheek. Feeling the heat and warmth there. Of course, this explained everything. This wasn't Twilight Sparkle's daughter, this Sunset Shimmer from the future, it must be... "I'm Bulma!"

Sunset looked nervously both ways. "Oh no..."

"It's okay. I promise. I won't mess up the timeline, I'll um, I'll make sure if Twilight shows um, interest in me that I return it, d-double the effort! And... I'm proud of you."

Sunset let out a sigh of contentment. "Thank you, that means so much to me. You can't imagine what Dick would do if I messed this one up too... I am so sick and tired of Taco Bell."

"Taco... what?"

The stallion behind her grumbled. “Stupid pony world, needs more Taco Bell.”

"Never mind that. Now, if it's okay, can you bring Steggy to me. I need to stretch my wings."

"But you don't have wings, you're a unicorn."

"Oh... uh... about that."

A golden flash of light made Fluttershy's jaw drop. Not even Super Saiyan could be so amazing.

Fluttershy would never tell a soul about what she saw next, but it was all the proof she needed that this Sunset Shimmer from the future, was here to make things right. Soon she returned Steggy to her owner and watched them fly away, probably to their time machine with the word 'hope' painted on the side. Fluttershy smiled warmly at the sight. "Mine and Twilight's unborn future daughter looks so beautiful."

Fluttershy was one hundred percent positive that she was reading the situation correctly without any mistakes at all.

***

Rarity and Rainbow Dash had taken the day to go and visit Rainbow Dash's parents. To Rarity's surprise, they hadn't taken a train, or flown, or done much of anything other than walking. They were walking quite a bit of distance outside of town, but not even so far as Rarity had gone to look for gems in the past. Though what bothered Rarity was how Rainbow Dash was so quiet, so solemn. She was never down like this, not except for that one time she broke her wings. She must be really nervous about Rarity meeting her parents.

"It'll be quite alright darling, I'm sure I'll make a good impression on them." Rarity tried to sound convincing for her lover's sake.

"I'm sure you would."

Would? That was an odd way to praise it. had their relationship strained so far that even Rarity at her finest couldn't persuade them? This smelled like a friendship problem. Rarity would make sure to be on more than her best behavior. If this was the pony she was going to marry someday, have a child with, perhaps multiple if they did adopt some special pegasus first, then she would do her utmost to mend any rift in Rainbow Dash's family tree first.

They approached a small lone cottage at the top of a hill. As they climbed it the grass around here began to decay, growing dark yellow, gray, dead. Odd, this land hadn't been touched by a good rain in a long time it would seem. The cottage was some way off still, but she wondered who would live there? It was too small for a family as large as what Rainbow Dash hinted at to live in. Perhaps it was only the parents now, and her siblings had all moved out. This was more sensible than the deal with Pinkie's family, though Rarity had a suspicion the choosing stone didn't fall far from the boulder if one caught her drift.

"So, is the cottage nice?"

"Yeah, its fine I guess. No one lives there."

"N-no one?"

Rainbow Dash was quiet for a moment. This gave Rarity time to think and then she realized it. A vacation home, of course. If her family was wealthy then they'd clearly have a vacation home, duh. Well this place was just too dreary for a usual vacation. perhaps it was beautiful during the winter though? Oh endless fields of snow surrounding a lone hill, such a pretty mental image. If that was the case though, why was the ground dead?

"R-Rarity?"

"Yes dear?"

"Do you know about Hurricane Malevolence?"

Rarity had heard that name before, she really had to work her brain hard to remember it. Slowly things began to come back to her memory as she spoke out loud. "Some... ten years ago? Cloudsdale was hit by a massive hurricane, one caused by an evil spirit of some sort that was attacking the city. If I recall the story correctly, Celestia had come down with a younger Twilight Sparkle to fight and destroy the evil spirit, but the destruction was great. It damaged some... twenty percent of Cloudsdale? The worst catastrophe since the Lunar Storms some centuries ago."

"That's pretty close actually. Most unicorns and earth ponies don't get it. But each and every single one of us pegasi know it, and it fueled us, made us worship Cloudsdale like a god and desire to keep what was left safe and rebuild."

"I'm so sorry."

"You were wrong about one part though. It wasn't twenty percent, it was closer to fifty percent of Cloudsdale that was destroyed in a single night. So many ponies... just... gone. One teenage Filly could be standing on a street looking at their family sitting in the park happily. Only separated from them because some timid yellow pegasus was almost screaming about some catastrophe and the stupid idiot teenage filly thought they were just having a panic attack and didn't believe them. Then a second later the park... gone. Just... empty space. A straight fall to the earth below. A dark cloud with evil eyes glaring down at the city as two ponies high above were shooting laser beams at it. But the teenager didn't care, no they were staring at the spot their entire family used to be, only saved by the shy pegasus who she'd been arguing with..."

Rainbow Dash's voice was trembling as they reached the top of the hill. "That stupid teen could have saved her entire family. If only she'd listen to Fluttershy. If only she'd believed her instead of thinking she was just freaking out over a small change in the wind."

Rarity reached out to pet Rainbow Dash, her mind working double time to put it all together when she could finally see over the hill and her heart froze. Graves. So many graves. Dozens, no hundreds, no perhaps even thousands of graves laid before her in a field of dead gray grass. A lone memorial plate stood on a pegasus statue nearby reading 'Memorial site for Hurricane Malevolence, may the princess guide their souls to rest in the other world."

Rainbow Dash turned to face her, tears streaming down her cheeks as she spoke in a fragile, timid voice that would make Fluttershy sound like a loudspeaker. "Here's where my family are."

Rarity wrapped Rainbow Dash into an embrace and held her close and tight. Letting the mare sob into her shoulder as she looked once more at the sight before her. Rarity swore then and there, to never, ever let Rainbow Dash go again. It was time to finally show her own secret to Rainbow Dash... once they got home of course.

Looking out once more at the field of graves, she had to wonder if a certain orange pegasus filly didn't have her family here too...

Author's Note

Finally got to this chapter. Hope you enjoy the continuing story of R and R