Running from the Past

Lloyd was tired. He had just played video games for the past three hours, (It was mostly TF2 and XCOM Enemy Unknown) realizing how fast time went by. He then asked himself, *How did I even have a connection to the internet?* Lloyd shrugged and turned his laptop off. He walked around and streched out his wings. He had been laying on that bed for the past three hours, he needed to get up and go. He went outside, ready to fly.

*I should go and visit Vinyl, she wanted that music.* He quickly flew over to Vinyl's house. Lloyd knocked on the door. He knocked again and waited a few more seconds. Nopony came to the door. He opened the door a little. Lloyd quickly heard shouting. *Here's....Johnny!* he thought as he opened the door. He looked around, and heard incredibly loud dubstep going off inside of the house. *Holy crap, that's loud.* Lloyd walked towards the source of the music, and ended up inside of a large room. He saw Vinyl standing next to two, extremely large speakers. The whole room was shaking due to the volume of the music. A mare with a gray mane and purple eyes was shouting at Vinyl.

"Turn it off! Too much wub!" Octavia shouted over the ear-deafening music, covering her ears.

"NEVER TOO MUCH WUB!!!" was what Lloyd heard from behind the speakers. He ran up to the speakers as fast as possible.

Lloyd looked around and saw Vinyl immersed in the music. He walked up to the speakers and unplugged them, stopping the insane flow of music. Vinyl quickly turned around, and had the biggest frown on her face that Lloyd had ever seen.

"What did you do that for?" Vinyl asked, with a sad look on her face.

" Awww, come on! Turn that frown, upside down!" Lloyd said with a smile. He held out his iPod and had his laptop under his arm.

"Woah, what are those?" Vinyl asked, her frown instantly dissapearing and replaced by a look of curiosity.

"Stuff for the music, you'll see." Lloyd quickly turned on his iPod and put the laptop on the ground next to him.

"Here, let me show you." Vinyl was eager to listen, Lloyd could tell by the look on her face. After showing her a bunch of different songs from different genres, Vinyl still wanted to listen to more of it. When Lloyd turned off the iPod and laptop, Vinyl looked dissapointed.

"Come on, one more song!" Vinyl pleaded.

"Alright, one more. Here. This is one of my favorite songs."

Youtube Video

"As much as I want to stay, Vinyl, I gotta get going."

"Alright, fine. But you're going to have to show me more of that music later!" Vinyl said as she got up.

"Sure Vinyl. Just remember, don't try to make other peoples ears explode by way of music, it isn't exactly...healthy."

"Okay, bye Lloyd!" Vinyl said, waving as Lloyd got up to go outside.

"See ya!" Lloyd said casually. He was walking towards the door, and looked to his left to see Octavia whispering,

"Thank you."

"Yeah, no problem, bye!" Lloyd said as he walked out of the door. *Where should I go next?*

*Maybe I should go and visit Cloudsdale, never got the opportunity to go there.* Lloyd quickly decided to do just that. He started flying up towards Cloudsdale. He started gaining altitude quickly and wasn't paying attention. He crashed into a mailmare. They both got knocked to the ground. Lloyd rubbed his head, and got up.

"Oh no, I'm sorry I ran into you." Lloyd said. He quickly saw that he was looking at a gray mare with crossed, yellow eyes and a cutie mark that had a bunch of rising bubbles. He stared for a second, before snapping out of his trance.

"It's ok, I guess." The mare said, dusting herself off. Wait a sec, are you that new guy in town?" The mare asked.

"Yes, I'm Lloyd, and you are?" Lloyd asked in a happy voice.

"Derpy Hooves. I'm the mailmare." Derpy said with her signature crossed eyes and smile.

"Here Derpy, let me help you with that." Lloyd said with a smile. *Seems like her smiles are contagious.* It only took Lloyd a few more seconds to get all of the mail up off of the ground and put it back into Derpy's mailbag.

"Well Derpy, I guess I'll see you another time!" Lloyd said, waving to her while flying away.

"M'kay, see you later, Lloyd!" Derpy waved as she flew in the opposite direction.

Lloyd then reached Cloudsdale. *Holy crap, this place is awesome!* Cloudsdale was just that. It was filled with clouds, (obviously) but there were many cool, large buildings that looked quite epic. *Is that a....coliseum?* It was hard to tell, the sun was in Lloyd's face. He got closer to get a better look. *Heh, looks kinda like the Roman Colosseum.* Lloyd decided to fly right around Cloudsdale, see just how big it is.

Rainbow Dash was just passing through the area, done with training for the morning. She was just walking by and heard someone screaming. *Where is that sound coming from?* She looked around and quickly saw Lloyd, except he had wings. Her jaw dropped.

"Wooooooo! I'm not going down!" Lloyd said as he flew through the clouds. He was having quite the time. He just kept flying, with the wind behind him. He was also flying quite fast, for his fourth time. Quickly, A blurry flash of cyan left him in the dust. He looked to see Rainbow flying right by him. She looked back and blew a raspberry.

"I'll take that as a challenge." Lloyd quickly picked up speed, and was right behind Dash in a few seconds. She was still ahead of him though, and he was trying desperately to get ahead. Lloyd couldn't tell, but Rainbow was trying quite hard to keep ahead.

"I'm gonna get you, Rainbow!" Lloyd said, smiling. He quickly got ahead of her, looked back and smirked at her. He put both of his hands behind his back and did a barrel roll. Rainbow wasn't gonna give up, she just kept going. Dash flew by him, again. However, she was only a few inches ahead. Lloyd then caught up with her. They were neck and neck, neither of them gaining enough speed to go any further. Rainbow was slowly, inch by inch, getting ahead of Lloyd. She saw a cloud ahead and just went up and stood on the top of it.

"I win!" Rainbow said with glee. She was cheering and hopping up and down.

"Yeah, yeah, I guess you're right." Lloyd said with a bit of a smile. Rainbow shoved him.

"You guess? I'm Rainbow Dash, the best flyer in all of Equestria!" Rainbow said, doing a heroic pose.

"Alright, you win. Good job. You beat a rookie at your own game." Lloyd laughed. She shoved him again. Lloyd looked out across Cloudsdale, and couldn't see where he started flying.

"Lloyd, what's with the wings?" Rainbow asked, pointing right at them.

"I just woke up with them this morning, strange, right?" Lloyd said, streching them out. Rainbow touched one of his wings and looked at it closely. *Again, a bit too close for comfort there, Rainbow.*

"Yeah, they make you look about 20% cooler." Rainbow said.

"Aw come on, only 20%?"

"I have spoken!" Rainbow said in a judge-like voice. They both laughed.

"Well Rainbow, be seeing ya!" Lloyd said. Just as he was about to fly off, Rainbow grabbed him.

"Please don't leave! Let's hang out a little longer." Rainbow said in a pleading voice. *Just like last time. I don't want to hurt her feelings this time, but I want to be alone. Doesn't matter, friends first.*

"Alright Rainbow, you can come, but we're going to go where I want." Lloyd said, pointing to himself. Rainbow nodded quickly.

"Heh, the look on your face." Lloyd said with a laugh. Rainbow quickly shoved him.

The two of them then flew back down to Ponyville, and grabbed some lunch. They sat down at a table at the same restaurant that Lloyd had gone to with Twilight a day or two earlier. The same waiter walked up to him.

"Hello again, sir. What would you like today?" *Seems like he isn't gonna be fearful this time.

"I'll have a daisy sandwich."

"Alright, what would you like, miss?" Rainbow then ordered. They waiter walked back in to the kitchen. They waited a few minutes. Strangely enough, Rainbow just stared at Lloyd most of the time. Lloyd just twiddled his thumbs and whistled. *This is awkward.....where in the hell is that waiter?* After a few more seconds, the waiter walked out with the food and set it on their table, with haste. The two of them began eating. After finishing lunch, Lloyd left a tip and then they both left.   They started walking, althrough where, Rainbow didn't know. *I wonder what happened over at that clearing.* They started walking towards the Everfree forest.

Lloyd started talking to Rainbow.

"Hey Rainbow?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I tell you something a bit personal?"

"Um, sure, yeah. Go ahead."

"Rainbow, promise me that you won't view me any differently than you already do after I tell you this. Promise?"

"Yeah, I promise." Lloyd sighed, and began.

"I've been having nightmares, for the past few days, and they're getting worse and worse by the day."

"What were they about?" Rainbow asked. Lloyd told her exactly what he had told Twilight. Rainbow stood there, dumbfounded, just like Twilight before her.

"Pretty nutty, right?" Lloyd said. Rainbow nodded, with a shocked look.

"Wait a sec, what did I say about your promise?" Lloyd said after a few seconds of silence. Rainbow quickly snapped out of her trance.

"Don't worry about it Lloyd. I promised, didn't I?" Rainbow said.

"Yes, yes you did." Lloyd said with a chuckle. They soon reached the clearing. Lloyd got out of the bushes, and looked around. He wanted to make sure that he wasn't gonna be in the hospital again. He got up out of the bushes, slowly but surely. Lloyd looked over his shoulder, and sure enough, Rainbow was right behind him. He looked over to where the spell went off, in the middle of the clearing. Oddly enough, the ground was black, and it formed a circle with something inside of it. *Oh no....* Lloyd looked at the symbol, and realized it was the creature, again. Rainbow gasped.

*How in the hell is this possible? I keep thinking to myself that it couldn't get any worse, and yet it does. How can something like this even happen?* He looked around some more to make sure he wasn't being followed. *Better safe than sorry.* After a few more minutes of looking around, Lloyd relaxed and let out a sigh.