Pink Thunder

"Yep! Twilight and Celestia are together! Only Ponyville knows though, it's pretty hush-hush."

Pinkie had explained to me why Celestia was in Twilight's house. To be honest, I'm happy for them. It's just... Well... I never expected the princess to be a filly fooler. I hate that term so much. Ah well. I looked up from my hooves to see...

"Woa!" Pinkie stood right in my face. I fell right on my flank. "Pinkie, what the hell!" She ginned ear to ear. I swear that can't be good for her.

"You were daydreaming, silly!" I chuckled for what felt like the millionth time that day. This mare is amazing.

"Anyway, this is Sweet Apple Acres! I figured that since the first meeting was so fan-like, you should meet a more down-to-earth pony. And who better than an earth pony!" I chuckled at Pinkie's seemingly planned randomness. We walked up to the barn where we found a group of ponies. 4 Pegasi, 3 Earth Ponies, 2 Unicorns and a small dragon. Putting two and two together, I decided the dragon must be Spike, Twilight's assistant.

"Hey everypony!" Pinkie yelled, causing the groups attention to fall upon us.

"Well howdy there, Pinkie!" an orange earth pony responded, smiling widely. "What brings y'all round these parts?"

"And who's this bub?" A cyan Pegasus asked, pushing the fringe of her rainbow mane from her eyes.

"I was just showing my new friend around Ponyville and thought we would drop by to see you." Pinkie explained. A white unicorn walked over and smiled graciously at me.

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, mister..."

"The name's Thunder Rift, and the pleasure's all mine miss Rarity." I replied. Everypony else looked at me sceptically, and I shrugged. "What? How can I not know the name of the designer even Fancypants adores. That, and she made my favourite jacket."

"Well it's always nice to meet a fan." Rarity said, blushing lightly. My gaze drifted past her and landed on the disgruntled emerald eyes of a certain dragon.

"Don't worry Spike. I ain't afta yo girl." I said in my funniest gangster voice.

"How do you know my name?" He asked, startled.

"Pinkie took me to see Twilight first. Anyway, I know most of your names."

I listed off the names of each pony and why I knew their names. Even Spitfire, ex-captain of the Wonderbolts, was there with us. I had heard she was fired for her 'sexual preferences', but I had no idea she was living in Ponyville. Eventually I got to three young fillies, each a different type of pony, and a huge red earth pony stallion.

"Sorry" I said, turning to them. "That's all the names I know. Who might you guys be?"

"Big Macintosh, Mac for short." The stallion replied.

"Wow. Ah think that's the most Y'all've ever spoken at any one time, Big Mac." Applejack said, bewildered. I chuckled, then looked to the fillies.

"Name's Scootaloo. I'm Rainbow and Spitfire's adoptive daughter." an orange Pegasus with a lavender mane said. Ah, that explains why Spitfire lives here. I turned to them and smiled.

"Congrats." I said. It was late, but ah well.

"I'm Rarity's sister, Sweetie Belle!" another white unicorn squeaked, her pink and purple mane dipping in front of her eyes for all of a second before curling itself again.

"Ah'm Applebloom." A yellow earth filly said, curling her red mane around her hoof.

"And we're the Cutie Mark Crusaders!" They yelled in unison, though Applebloom seemed distracted. Oh well, it's her business.

We chatted over cider (or just plain old apple juice) for a while and I learned a whole lot about recent goings on. Now, I know I teased Spike earlier, but I had no idea he had actually asked Rarity out on a date! And she said yes! I didn't press any further than that, not wanting to overstep my boundaries, and changed the subject. Fluttershy had recently opened an animal sanctuary and was receiving a constant supply of feed from the Apple's (mainly Mac), Rainbow had actually DECLINED an offer for a place in the Wonderbolts due to it being trying to replace Spitfire, Applejack had recently brought home a bag full of blue ribbons from the last rodeo and Scootaloo was the first of the CMC to get her Cutie Mark. She lifted her cape to show me and I was shocked to see a flaming guitar. I looked to my own flank, eyeing my bass guitar and microphone cutie mark, then asked a question I didn't think many would like.

"Say, Scoot. Would you like to join my band? It's just me and my sister at the moment, but we could use a guitarist." Spitfire and Rainbow looked at me. I looked at Scootaloo. Scootaloo looked at nopony in particular, and her left eye was twitching. I was about to say something when I was knocked to the ground.

"YES YES YES THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!" I chuckled and wrote down my address.

"Just come on over when you wanna jam. We can write songs or just play them."

"Can we come too?" Sweetie Belle asked, her eyes wide and pleading. I smiled and nodded.

Around half an hour later we all parted ways. Rainbow Dash swooped down on her way home and said

"You have no idea what you've just gotten yourself into." then flew off. I asked Pinkie what she meant, but the bubbly pink mare just smiled that huge smile of hers. A warm feeling fluttered in my chest and I couldn't help but smile back.

I... I think I'm in love...