The City of Dreams

"Remind me why we're out here in the middle of nowhere, and not going after my friends?" Spike said irritably, a scowl plastered across his scaly face. He raised a clawed forearm to block the high-noon sun and swept his green reptilian eyes all around him. "Middle of nowhere" was indeed the best words to describe the badlands; aside from rocks, some reddish dirt, some rocks, sand, and some more rocks, there was nothing as far as his eyes could see; absolutely nothing, aside from the rocks.

"Well duh, because it's a cinch if we have the scroll to actually get to the other world, and without it we might just land in a pile of cosmic acid or something," Discord calmly replied from atop his cotton candy cloud as he drifted around in a lazy search pattern. He was wearing a pair of shades and one of those silly florescent umbrella hats to give him some shade; it even seemed familiar to Spike, as if it was from Pinkie's collection.

The pair had traveled to the spot where the Enchantment had taken place, and both were in the process of searching for the cause of all their woes; The Scroll. Seriously, why doesn't it have a cool sounding name, like the Forbidden Scroll of Zucronian, or even The Elder Scroll? Instead we just call it "the scroll" how anti-dramatic, Spike thought to himself. When they had reached their destination all that remained of the six ponies was Breaburn's abandoned wagon, and Applejacks hat, which had found itself blown into a nearby cactus. The Scroll and the girls were nowhere to been seen.

Spike reached up on his toes to grab Applejack's hat from its prickly perch, "I still can't believe that we started to trust you, only to end up in the mess," Spike said coldly as he plucked a few spikes out of the Stetson.

"Well excuse em moi for not keeping tabs of every little plot I've devised over several centuries. Besides, if I had known what was going on I could have told you what it was, but oh no 'Discord might try and stop us or worse since he's such a villain. This scroll is a threat to him since we're supposedly going to make the Elements stronger, so we can't let him know about this precious scroll~'" Discord mimicked Twilight's voice perfectly, and if Spike hadn't known it was really Discord he could have sworn it was his friend. Discord spat on the ground as if to get some horrible taste out of his mouth, the spot where the phlegm had landed erupted in a small bonfire.

Spike's impatience grew inside of him; he nearly had enough of Discord's antics, they where here to rescue his friends! Spike blew out some green fire and steam though his nostrils in a feeble attempt to calm himself; it didn't help. He inhaled a large breath to prepare for a long winded rant; but just before he could say a word, a gust of desert wind blew something brown and papery into his gaping jaws. The purple dragon gagged and spat out the object, and then proceeded to hack for another minute.

"Well look at what we have here," Discord swooped in and retrieved the parchment from the sand before it blew away again, "Will you look at that, it's my scroll! Hey Spike, are you sure you're not distantly related to a Chineighese dragon? Because this is just the spot of luck we needed, honestly I thought for a moment there this thing might have been blown off to Timbucktu!" Discord shook the document to get the dragon spit off it and quickly unrolled it.

Spike resisted the urge to punch the demi-god, but with the scroll found there was hope. Internally Spike yelled out in glee and did a little dance, but outwardly he simply huffed. It wouldn't do any good to wreck his tough guy look and show some weakness around the former enemy. Discord started to 'hum' and 'ha' as he looked over the parchment; a look of concentration and seriousness adorned his face which felt odd. If Discord was confused, then that was a bad sign right there.

"Discord?" Spike asked, a tinge of worry ebbing in his voice. The chaos god looked over the top of the paper to look down on the small reptile, "Yes, what is it? I'm kind of busy here," Discord said tersely.

"I-is everything alright? The scroll i-isn't damaged is it?" Spike had to fight his crackling voice, damn puberty, why do you always have to kick in at the wrong times.

Discord looked at Spike for a moment, his face a blank mask as he regarded Spike. Suddenly it sprang into a bit too large smile, "Oh, of course everything is just peachy. Now we can head on out."

Discord snapped his lion paw and instantly a swirling black vortex ripped through into existence right behind him. The void was only tinged by a slight swirl of purple as it twisted grotesquely in and out of the center. A howl like a hundred Timber wolves all yelling out in pain escaped the portal along with a chilly wind. The smell that went along with the wind was unlike anything Spike had smelled before, if you could imaging the smell of a sewer pumped full of orange air freshener, then you had something close to the off smelly smell. As Spike looked further into it, he could see distant lightening flashing, though red lightning was something that did not look like anything he wanted to be near. It was both horrifying and mesmerizing in a twisted sort of way; as if the universe was screaming out that this "Thing" could or should never exist and that is was an abomination to everything that ever was. Yet there is was, created nonchalantly by a god whose sole purpose was to make things like this possible.

Spike instinctively backed up a step as his sub-conscious yelled at him to leave and get as far away from this horror as fast as possible. Yet Spike only moved back that one single step, maybe it was fear that rooted him in place, maybe it was a stubbornness that he had learned from Twilight, or even some sort of curiosity at the impossibility. But no, it was because he knew that he had to help his friends come back home from whatever hell hole they may be in, and it was his courage that bound him there.

Discord whistled at Spike and he turned to where Discord was, the mad man had already sunk his lower torso into the void and was looking at a watch. He turned to Spike with a wry grin, eyes full of excitement, "Time waits for no Dragon." And with that Spike tapped into that well of courage he had and ran head first into the void.

The morning sun filtered though the half closed blinds and into a quite, semi-dark room. The light slowly grew in intensity until the beams cascaded across the floor and then onto the bed in the center of the room, with its occupant moaning in protest at the offending light. It was too early for the sleeper to handle a barrage like this, and she counter attacked the offensive with a tactical pillow strike at the window. Unfortunately this only caused the blinds to release a spring and in a sudden clatter the window blinds retracted to unleash their might, it was too much for the sleeper and she knew that she was beat.

Rainbow Dash opened one of her eyes and squinted around the room with her magenta eyes. Gathering her bearings she knew instantly that this wasn't her cloud home, or anywhere that she knew of for that matter. It was strange, and something was off, she knew what it was but couldn't place it. Rainbow Dash made the mistake of looking right at the open window and was suddenly blinded once again; with a yelp she covered her eyes with her hoofs...only they weren't her hooves. For a moment she was confused, they looked like Spike's claws, only they weren't pointed or scaled. They looked dainty and pinkish, yet they had a few calluses here and there, and when she closed her grip she felt that they were strong and nowhere near brittle. And for some reason she couldn't explain, she wasn't all that worried at the new limbs, as if she had already known that they were there.

She propped herself up on the bed and took a look around the room. The room was painted in a Robin's egg blue with only a few things here and there placed on the wall; a photo and an old poster of some sort hung from across the room above a dark wooden dresser. There as a side table next to the bed, but other than that there were no other furnishings. It all seemed really sparse, as if the owner of the room never really used it much. And it was all starting to come back to Rainbow Dash now; she was in Will's room where she, Fluttershy, and Applejack had commandeered his bedroom. Speaking of which; none of them where to be found in sight. Oh well, she could search for them later.

Dash stretched out her new arms above her and heard a satisfactory click as she popped a kink out of her back that had been bothering her. She looked behind her and saw that her wings were a mess; Dash shook them until she was satisfied and started to brush them back into place. Dang, even if she was an alien creature now, she still had to go through the hassle of wing maintenance. Some things never change, she sighed to herself.

Rainbow shifted around and hopped off of the bed, she still found it odd walking on only two legs, but at least she had them. A memory of Liza popped into her mind and she felt a twinge of pity and sorrow; she couldn't imagine what her life would be like is she didn't have anything to get around on, even if she lost only her wings she would find it hard to go on. But the memory of how Liza still went about life like nothing had happened to her created respect in Dash's magenta eyes; Liza was a brave girl.

While in her thoughts Dash hadn't noticed the knocking on the bedroom door and voice asking for permission to enter, when the person on the other side didn't hear a reply they decided that there wasn't anyone inside and entered anyways. Rainbow shook herself from her little thought bubble to look at the intruder. Will walked through the doorway, and apparently he was in the process of taking off his shirt. When he looked back up without his top on he froze and turned a bright crimson, it almost made him look like Big Macintosh with his short yellow hair contrasting the flush on his face.

"Hey, what's gotten into you? You look like you've turned into a tomato," Dash laughed, she put her hands on her hips and faced him; this seemed to turn Will another shade of deep red.

"...I-I...I'm s-so sorry to u-uhm I think I s-should leave!" Will turned shades of red that Rainbow Dash had never seen before, and that was impressive since she had seen every spectrum of light.

Dash blew a strand of her multicoloured hair that had fallen across her face and started to get annoyed. "Alright, what's the big deal?" She asked as she stepped towards the blushing young man.

Will said nothing and only pointed at Rainbow Dash as he turned his head up and away from her. Dash raised an eyebrow, but followed the trail that Will's shaking hand had created. She looked at herself and saw instantly what it was that made Will so flustered. She was stark naked! She had gone to bed the night before commando style because Rarity hadn't bothered make them any pajamas to fit their tails and wings; that, and it was freaking broiling that night.

Rainbow tuned a similar shade of red that Will was concocting as her tail bristled at the embarrassment. She didn't understand why these Humans wore clothes when it was hot enough to fry an egg; but now she understood, and the embarrassing fact that she didn't have anything protecting her became obvious. She glared back up at Will who was trying to make a break for the door and became slightly flustered herself as she saw his toned upper body; but not enough to prevent her from acting out her vengeance.

"Y-you, you bastard!" She yelled as she delivered a punch that would have made Rocky Balboa proud. Will's face connected with Rainbow Dash's fist right as he turned to face the outcry; big mistake. Dash's punch slammed into Will with enough force to actually send him flying into the hall's wall; if someone were to measure the distance that he flew, they would have found that Will flew for an amazing six meters. Dash slammed the door as she retreated back into the bedroom, leaving a dazed and nearly unconscious Will slumped along the hallway.

Liza wheeled around the corner and up her brother. She peered down at him from her wheelchair and tisked as she shook her head. "Bro, you deserved that," she then wheeled off down the hall. Will looked off into space and asked one question before he fell unconscious, "Why me?"

That morning a chill had descended upon the Hartmann table, even though outside the temperature as easily above 30°C it did nothing to defrost the air at breakfast. Everyone huddled around their plates as they tried to find some shelter. Rainbow Dash munched loudly on her buttered toast while Will quietly eat his cereal, his right eye was turning a dark purple as it swelled into a black eye. Both of them refused to look at each other across the table, but the tension was so thick in the morning air that Liza could have swished her butter knife and cut right through it.

Liza had found out later on that it was a simple misunderstanding; Will had returned to his room to get another clean pair of clothes, and Rainbow had forgotten that she was, well, in her birthday suit. Liza had even tried to negotiate a truce, but it had fallen right on her head as each of the sides wouldn't apologize for their actions. And so there they where, caught in an awkward silence as each party decimated their respective meal. At one point Pinkie had tried to "Make everpony's frown upside-down" with a few of her antics, but nether really responded to the confetti being thrown in their faces. Oh boy, this is gonna be a long day. Liza thought, and then after a fashion, Where the hell did Pinkie get that confetti from?

Will suddenly plonked his empty bowl on the table and made nearly everyone jump out of their seats. He excused himself from the table and when Liza asked her brother where he was going he simply replied, "Airplane." Yeah, love you too bro. Rainbow Dash didn't even flinch as Will stormed out of the dining room; she just took another bite out of her toast and pretended to be interested in the quality of her meal.

Finally when Will was out of earshot Twilight faced her friend, "You know, that 'thing' that happened this morning was all just an accident right? He didn't mean to see you like 'that'" Twilight gave Dash a disapproving look.

Rainbow gulped down some orange juice and looked back at Twilight, "Yeah, but still doesn't mean that I can forgive him for walking in on me like that. And besides, if he isn't going to apologize then why should I have to?" And with that Dash left the table and went outside. Everybody else had finished their meal already and decided that clean up could wait, so they followed the rainbow haired girl outside.

They all found her out in front of the house looking at the sky; Rainbow Dash had a thoughtful expression as she scanned the baby blue sky above, it was a nice Sunday morning with no cloud in sight. They were all going to ask her what she was doing when she suddenly spread her teal wings out as wide as she could; which came out to an astonishing two meters from tip to tip. Dash regarded them both with a look of approval; soon she was crouched on the gravel driveway.

"RD, don't do anythin' rash ya hear!" Applejack shouted and tried to get closer to Rainbow Dash. RD looked back at the crowd and an impish smile broke out. Her tail swished a bit as she gave a toothy grin; and then she was gone. A cloud of dust remained where the pony-turned human once was.

The dust didn't kick up too much but Liza had a hard time seeing where Rainbow Dash had gone. Surely she hadn't taken to the sky; that was impossible, undoable with those wings even if they looked like they were built for it. It was too unbelievable for Liza to accept, she had to be around here somewhere. But a holler and whoop of joy above her disproved her beliefs about her aerodynamics; well, it really wasn't all that much harder to believe than sentient Pony creatures from a parallel universe being stranded in her front yard, so she let it slide this day and looked up in amazement.

Rainbow Dash felt the rush of air sweep past her face, she felt the air currents beneath her, and most importantly she felt the freedom that flight brought. Even though the first bit of her flight was a bit wonky with this new body at first, it eventually evened out as she got the hang of the new wings. Sure it felt weird, but nothing like walking around on two legs, now that was weird. The wings themselves where actually a bit boarder and wider than her original ones, but they had to be in order to keep her in the air. Altogether they weren't a bad pair of wings she had on her back.

Looking down from her aerial view she saw the farmhouse and the hanger out back, she saw that there wasn't all that much around besides a shed or two. Her friends and Liza were all waving at her as they cheered and yelled. Man it felt awesome to be so awesome.

RD closed her eyes and left the air currents to take her a bit higher. In the air she was in her element; well, not her Element of Loyalty, but you get the picture. Here in the sky she was free, nothing to worry her and certainly nothing that can catch her with her speed...nothing that can catch her sped eh? She remembered last night's little duel between Will's machine and her wings. A laugh escaped her mouth, how could he even get that thing up in the air anyways? Pinkie's little gyro and balloon were certainly at least more air worthy than that blue hunk of metal; and even though Pinkie was behind their construction, at least they made enough sense for their flight. But she remembered that look of pride and trust he had for the "Sparrow", and it made her uneasy to not know for sure if what he said was false or not.

As she soared in another pass of the house she remembered the earlier events in the morning and blushed slightly in embarrassment, now that little duel was personal on another level. She would beat him and his little machine and laugh as Will's pride shattered; after all a black eye was the bare minimum for such a humiliation.

Well, even if he can get into the air I'm sure my wings won't let me down. Rainbow Dash made a mental note of her current altitude and speed; she also felt inside herself and asked "Can I go faster than this?" And the answer was always a complete "YES!"

William Hartmann stepped back from his work of art. It was a marvelous sight, and he was proud of his work. The Sparrow had all of the tarp coverings removed and it now the modified Supermarine Spitfire stood in the centre of the rusty hanger. After Will had finished with the vital systems he had gone the extra mile and applied an extra coat of polish to her and now she gleamed in the morning light that fell in from the open hanger doors. No matter what anyone said, she was his baby and he loved her.

A pain shot though his right eye that reminded him of his bruise there, Will regretted Liza's offer to hand him an icepack when he had the chance. Will could even see his black eye even in the fuselage's polish; it almost looked like an eye patch on him. Well, at least he looked a bit cooler, but he still hadn't though up of a story to along with it when the guys would ask him about it the next day.

"Oh I just happened to walking in on an alien pony-turned-girl butt nude and she decked me so hard I was knocked out," Will had to laugh at that, when he said it out loud it really did sound ridiculous. Maybe he could say he got in a bar fight? That was likely enough, but the other mechanics ether spent every night in most of the bars in Reno or they knew someone that was there, they would know about that lie and it didn't help to gain a reputation as a liar.

Still, there was the more pressing issue on the home front; how was he going to make up with Rainbow Dash? He couldn't function at home if they still had that ill will between them. Maybe he should just apologize? Yeah, but what for? It's not like he intentionally did that, seeing her naked and all, at least he now knew she really didn't dye her hair like that and that it was all natural....moving along! When Will reviewed the events in his mind he really did act as gentlemanly as possible, there really wasn't anything more that he could have done, and besides it was his room after all! She should have been more aware before she decides to go commando!

Eventually Will's little brooding session was halted by whoop of joy and the sounds of cheering coming from the house. Looking outside the hanger doors he saw a flash of colours zoom over head and decided that it was worth checking out; it wasn't every day you got to see a person with wings fly, even if that person was currently in a cold war with you. There was no way he could pass that up. Will took one last look at the Sparrow before he left the hanger towards the merry cheering.