This Art Has Been In My Family For Generations

Rainbow Dash slammed the door to her room, breathing heavily.

Twilight pulled her face out of the cloud floor. “Bwuh?” she asked.

“Where did you hear that?” Rainbow demanded.

“Rainbow, darling, we don’t know what you’re asking about?” Rarity asked. “Applejack just told us that you had ‘a cool family heirloom’?”

“Well I guess it’s pretty cool — no wait.” Rainbow rubbed her forehead. “I, uh, don’t know what this cool thing is, but it’s very awesome of you to think it was me.”

Her strained grin wasn’t very convincing.

“Ah yes, I clearly got the wrong pony,” Rarity said. “But as long as you’re here, we’re interested in learning about this cool skill this hypothetical friend of ours has. Twilight here –“

“Hi.”

“– has been eager to learn about each of our friends’, hypothetical or otherwise, family traditions to get to know each other better.”

Rainbow felt her head get magnetically drawn to Twilight’s face. Twilight obligingly returned her best puppy dog eyes.

Rainbow Dash winced. “Fine! Fine. As long as we all understand that this supposed very cool friend isn’t here, so we never have to bring it up again.”

“I shan’t dream of it, darling,” Rarity said.

“My lips are sealed.” Twilight added, nodding very eagerly.

“Right. Ok. So.” Rainbow sat down and raised an arm. “I’m an Equine Weapon.” Her foreleg lit up in a riotous lightshow of electricity.

“Way, way back then, the pegasi of fortress city Derecho wanted to create an equal to the Warrior Knights of the Unicorns.”

Gasp. “Like Rarity’s family?”

“What?”

Rarity waved a hoof. “Later.”

“… Sure. So, unicorns mostly shoot their magic outside their horns, yeah?”

“Does self-levitation count?”

A glare.

“Sorry, please continue.”

“Where was I? Right, so the pegasi decided that trying to compete in their specialty was a losing prospect, so they decided to focus on maximizing a pegasus’s natural strength in speed and body magic. The idea they came up with was to turn the pony herself into a weapon. I don’t really understand what they did, but they were able to fuse a weapon into the pony, and let them swap whenever they wanted. Wasn’t intentional, but they found out that the Weapons’ kids were Weapons too.

“Anyways, the Weapon ponies quickly figured out that turning yourself into a weapon made it kinda hard to move around, so they were paired with a wielder. Being able to vibe with the pony waving you around was pretty important, so they usually had to be close friends, yadda yadda, combat pair. Long story short, my dad passed this down to me.”

“That’s very cool, Rainbow!” Twilight said. “Can you show us?”

“Say, I do know how to use a blade,” Rarity added, raising a hoof. “I admit some interest in what a living sword is like.”

Rainbow Dash rolled the idea in her head for a bit. “Sure, why not. Think fast.” She dive rolled at Rarity.

The unicorn yelped as Rainbow exploded in light. She stuck her hooves out, and was surprised as a colorful ribbon twirled onto her foreleg. The hilt settled comfortably, and Rarity marveled and the buzzing thunderstorm held in the frog of her hoof. Stripes of the rainbow danced up the blade, sending glittering lights throughout the room.

As Rarity experimented with a few sword forms, Twilight asked, “Hey, is the Wielder Weapon pairing still being practiced?”

The lighting blade abruptly transformed back into a pony, flopping onto the ground. Rarity yelped as she realized she still had Rainbow’s tail tied onto her foreleg. Rainbow groaned face first into the floor. “It’s ... Fluttershy.”