Mystery's Mark

Mystery ran and ran, he continued running straight into town. He didn’t as much as glance back to see if he was still being chased. “The bunny rabbits is coming! The bunny rabbits is coming!” he shouted, as if he were a poor version of Paul Revere.

Suddenly Twilight appeared in a puff of purple colored smoke in front of Mystery, forcing his running to turn into a screeching halt, stopping just inches of her. “First, I had Applejack and Fluttershy divert the bunnies away from Ponyville at least a mile back. Second…’bunny rabbits IS coming?’ We REALLY need to work on your grammar skills, in addition to everything else you’ve done wrong today!”

“I was being chased by a bunch of furious little tiny white things with huge, sharp teeth. If I had TIME to correct what I was shouting out, I WOULD.” Mystery barked rather defensively. “You haven’t seen the bones!”

“Bones?” Twilight tilted her hear and quirked a brow. “What are you talking about?”

Mystery looked down for a moment. His hooves kicked the dirt road he traveled on lightly. “Um...okay I guess there aren’t any.” He raised his head and turned around to see that not a soul was chasing after him. He took the time to see that not one pony in Ponyville even cared for what he had shouted in town. “It’s nice to see that no one even cared for what I shouted anyways.”

“If the ponies had a reason to trust you in the first place. Like say, NOT causing a particularly prodigious pie mess, NOT design a disaster of a dress that could distraught even Derpy, NOT tackling down tons of trees, and oh yeah, NOT CARELESSLY coveting a cutie mark.” Twilight snapped at the unicorn.

Mystery stood still as Twilight went on her angry rampage. He merely blinked each time she said the word ‘not’ to him. “Are you finished?” he asked her. “What’s next on the list?”

“I’m starting to think that this is a waste of both of our times.” Twilight mumbled under her breath, and then she spoke up. “I can hardly think of anything else for you to do that wouldn’t cause some sort of catastrophe in the process.”

“Who are you yelling to now, Twilight?” a voice suddenly called out from above. The two unicorns looked up to see a blur of a rainbow trail left in the sky. The blur flew past them, did a quick turn, and landed beside the pair. It was a pegasus pony. Her light blue wings folded up and she turned to Mystery.

“Rainbow Dash.” Mystery turned his head to the side, acting uncaring at how this pony had just showed off.

Rainbow Dash jumped back next to Twilight. Her rainbow colored mane and tail in a mess, much like Mystery’s own. “What is HE doing here?” she shouted suddenly as angry as Twilight had been. She remembered that day as well as any other pony would have. “He cheated on that race! That’s unforgivable!”

“You don’t seem to recall that day well,” Mystery simply replied, turning to Rainbow Dash. “I never said that you would WIN by going through the clouds I marked.”

“I think it should be OBVIOUS that the first one to the finish line wins!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she suddenly pressed her face against Mystery’s own. Her eyes glaring and her teeth bore. Her eyes glanced briefly away from Mystery’s to see that he lacked wings now. Instead, the stitch shaped hide marks laid there. “You deserved to have your wings removed!”

“Exactly, you think it should be obvious. You really should learn to listen with your ears once in awhile.” It was only a short time ago that another pegasus tried to pin him down. Fluttershy was actually very intimidating, he couldn’t place why. This one though, this rainbow pony, he didn’t feel threatened at all. “As for my wings, I got them with forbidden magic. Celestia removed them before sending me here. She said I’m to never have wings again, even using legitimate methods.”

“Enough you two,” Twilight moved between the two ponies and shoved them away from each other. “Rainbow Dash, he’s trying to earn his cutie mark and I’m trying to help him. We’ve had no luck in anything. Do you think you can help him out with something?”

“Why?” Rainbow Dash flew up into the air, crossed her front hooves and turned her head with closed eyes. “After everything he did, why help him?”

“It’s a long story,” Twilight mumbled. Mystery was nothing short of being a pain in the hooves for her, but she couldn’t disobey the princess. She could only get so far by saying that it was a favor towards her.

“The sooner you help me, the sooner I don’t have to speak to any of you ponies again,” Mystery suddenly gave an answer for her. “We’ve had our differences, but Celestia’s orders are orders. Even if you only try one thing for me, it’s at least an attempt that we can honestly tell her about.”

Rainbow Dash barely had to give it any thought. She unquestionably was loyal to Celestia. “Alright, but I’m only helping you out with a few things. And I want to start with a rematch! Another race! No magic and the first one to the goal will win, deal?”

“What do I have to lose,” Mystery shrugged and looked over to Twilight. “Care to teleport yourself a good distance away from us then, and give the starting signal?”

Twilight gave a small nod as she teleported, yet again, a good distance away from the pair. She was no more than a few blocks away as she traced a line on the ground using her hoof. “Ready?!” she shouted from the far end.

Both Mystery and Rainbow Dash stood side by side. The pair faced the direction Twilight was with their front halves lowered. Rainbow Dash nodded to Twilight with a leer in her eyes and a grin on her face. Finally, she was going to get a fair race to see just who was faster.

“Go!” Twilight shouted at the top of her lungs. Her horn glowed and a flag appeared from nowhere in front of her face. The flag waved repeatedly in front of her as she gave as many signs to start the race as she possibly could.

Rainbow Dash lived up to her name by dashing off and leaving nothing more than a cloud of dust and a rainbow streak behind her. She paid no attention to what was behind her, merely in front of her. It seemed that, just as soon as she had started the race, she had crossed the finish line and came to a screeching halt. She turned around and opened her wings proudly. She stuck out her chest and closed her eyed as a hoof struck her chest. “What do you think of THAT, Mystery?” she said with a grin on her face.

After not hearing a response for a moment, Rainbow Dash opened her eyes to see that Mystery was still at the starting line! He had barely crossed it with half of his body as he was making his way to the finish line. “What the…?” her pose failed her as her hooves hit the ground and she tilted her head with her eyes wide. “THAT’S how fast he can run?”

It felt like an eternity to Rainbow Dash for Mystery to finally reach the finish line. Comparing speeds, he was going only slightly faster than Twilight’s own running speed. “I’ll say it for you,” were the first words he stated. “Running isn’t my strong suit.”

“You can say THAT again. Whatever happened to being able to compete with me for speed? When you were that…thing…you looked like you were just as fast as me, if not faster. That doesn’t make any sense!”

“A dark pony’s strength, and speed, is raised based upon their negative emotions.” Mystery turned away from her. “And I have a lot to spare. You got your rematch though; think of something else to try.”

Rainbow Dash didn’t try to comprehend the concept of what exactly a ‘dark pony’ was, merely that he had been one at some point and they weren’t good. He didn’t seem to be bad now at the very least. “Alright let’s do one more thing. Twilight, stick with us please.”

Twilight understood what Mystery was talking about. She couldn’t believe that he had just that much negativity inside of him, and much less so much that this was his running speed! “Right,” She simply stated to Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash led Mystery and Twilight to the top of a large hill. She had it easy with wings while the two unicorns had to climb their way up to the top. “Hurry up you two!” She shouted down the hill to the ponies.

“We aren’t runners, and I can tell you that we aren’t climbers either,” Twilight grumbled. It felt as if she were almost travelling vertically upwards on top of the hill. Just behind her was the gray pony, Mystery.

“That was in the long list of things I showed you earlier, Twilight,” Mystery replied to her casually. Despite how much running and climbing he was doing, he was preserving his energy, much like Twilight did herself. “Rock climbing, hill climbing, tree climbing, Ursa Major climbing…”

“Climbing an Ursa Major? Sounds like fun,” Twilight looked away from Mystery as she rolled her eyes. How can a pony even climb such a huge thing?

“I don’t remember how it went actually.” Mystery raised his head as he tried to recall the memories of climbing the monsters. “It’s all a blank. I probably should have worn a helmet.”

“This explains a lot.” Twilight groaned as she made it to the top of the hill finally. Her frustration wasn’t caused by the climbing though.

Once the ponies made it to the top of the hill, Rainbow Dash flew up to the sky next to a white cloud. “Listen up, Mystery. Another thing I do around here, besides racing, is helping out with the weather. I just give the clouds a good ol kick.” She demonstrated by kicking the nearby cloud with one of her rear hooves, causing the cloud to break up and vanish before her very eyes. “Think you can do it?”

“Oh sure,” Mystery looked away from Rainbow Dash. “Just let me wait here for the clouds to get so low that I can kick them from here.”

“Magic,” Twilight said as she looked up at the sky over to another white cloud. “You can use magic to get rid of the clouds, too.”

“Fine I’ll try it.” Mystery’s horn started to glow a light gray and control the nearby floating cloud. The cloud began to glow in response and slowly started to move, bit by bit. It moved above Rainbow Dash before the cloud suddenly turned pitch black and a flash of lightning as a bolt struck her.

It felt like the entire world was a flash of yellow and black colors to Rainbow Dash as the lightning hit her. She could only make large twitches as the bolt struck until it finally stopped. She was covered in black spots and scratch marks after, her mane sticking up like a rainbow afro. “You dunderhead!” Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but shout to Mystery. “You get rid of the cloud! Not make it cause lightning!” she flew beside the cloud Mystery controlled and kicked it to try to send it away, only to get struck by lightning again in response.

Twilight sighed and used her own magic to return the cloud to its soft white puffy self to let Rainbow Dash kick it away easier. Twilight then turned to Mystery. “Try it again,” she said and used her magic again; suddenly an umbrella appeared above Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash kicked the cloud and took the umbrella. She lowered herself down to the hill and kept the umbrella over her head. “Thanks Twilight,” she said with her eyes on the purple umbrella. “No lightning is going to get me this time.” She used one hoof to hold the umbrella, and the other to fix her hair up.

Mystery ignored the two ponies as his horn began to glow once again. Another cloud slowly made its way over Rainbow Dash, a good distance from her, and started to turn pitch black, much like the first cloud. Another bolt of lightning made its way down to Rainbow Dash, turning ever so slightly to avoid the umbrella she held and strike her from the side.

Rainbow Dash’s body was starting to emit small black smoke at this point. Her mane was much darker, and sprang to its afro shape once again. The umbrella she had becoming nothing more than charred remains in her hoof. “What are you TRYING to do?!” Rainbow Dash shouted again. She was losing her patience but fast on Mystery. “Get rid of the clouds. Get rid of the clouds! Not strike me with lightning!”

“Rainbow Dash, calm down.” Twilight suddenly said. “Let’s try this one more time, but first, come with me down the hill for a moment.”

Rainbow Dash gave a frustrated sigh but nodded. Twilight used her magic to teleport herself down the hill and Rainbow Dash followed after easily.

“In there.” She said, tilting her head to what looked to be a small cave at the bottom of the hill. “There’s no way the lightning can strike you in there.”

“Good idea.” Rainbow Dash spoke as she worked on fixing her mane once again. “But if it does, then I give up.” She added as she made her way to the cave. Its entrance was small so she had to crawl to get in, but at least she would be safe!

Twilight teleported back up the hill shortly after taking care of Rainbow Dash. A thought hit her as to why she didn’t just teleport up the first time she climbed up with Mystery, but she got rid of the thought as she used her magic again to get rid of the cloud Mystery had tried to deal with. “One more,” she told him. “And there’s no WAY you can hit Rainbow Dash now.”

“Good to know,” Mystery replied. His tone made it hard to tell if he actually cared, or if he was even being sarcastic in the first place!

Mystery’s horn started to glow one more time as he used his own magic to grab another cloud. He didn’t even bother moving the cloud as he closed his eyes and started to strain. Sweat coming from his head as the cloud split in two.

“You’re doing it,” Twilight said, she was amazed, this was the first sign of progression he showed all day!

Suddenly the cloud combined back into one and turned black once more. A bolt of lightning made its way down for Twilight to watch. The bolt then suddenly made a large turn into a familiar cave. Twilight didn’t have to think twice about what the lightning was hitting in that cave. Her ears lowered and her eyes turned to a leer. “Let’s go, before Rainbow Dash comes out of here and wants to pummel YOU with lightning bolts.”