Apple Bloom stared at the third question on her math worksheet: 3) .97 = ____

“Okay,” she spoke, “So if Ah wanted ta convert this inta a fraction, how’d Ah do it again?”

“Well,” said Pinkie Pie, who was laying next to her atop Apple Bloom’s bed, “First, ya gotta count how many spaces to the right of the decimal. Remember: tens, hundreds, thousands, ten-thousands, hundred-thousands, and millions. So count from the decimal!”

“Tens...” said Apple Bloom uncertainly, pointing at the 9 with the pencil in her mouth. “Hundreds...” she pointed at the 7. Her eyes widened. “So it’s hundreds!”

“Good!” said Pinkie. “So draw a line and write that number down underneath it: one hundred!”

Apple Bloom did.

“And since it’s 97...” the pink mare prompted.

“That goes as the top part of the fraction! 97 out of 100!”

She scribbled that into the blank line for the third question.

“Very good!” Pinkie cheered, and Apple Bloom smiled proudly at the older pony.

The filly looked down at the worksheet’s next question: 4) .55 = ______

“So then the answer ta this next question’s 55 out of 100, right?” And she wrote 55/100 on the blank line.

“Nuh, uh, uh!” the older mare stopped her. “Yer fergettin’ all about the least common denominator!”

“Oh yeah!” Apple Bloom frowned down at the .55. “Hmmm... so 55 and 100 are both divisible by five, so that’d mean...” She wrote out a division equation. “11 outta 20?”

“Correct-a-mundo!” cheered Pinkie Pie, arms in the air.

Grinning, Apple Bloom flipped the pencil around in her mouth, did some erasing, flipped it back, and wrote ‘11/20’ as her answer for her worksheet’s fourth question.

SQUEEZE.

Pinkie gave a small start.

Since the day that she’d needed to burn the pigpen down to save Macky’s life... Pinkie Pie remembered experiencing frequent and unpleasant spasming sensations on the part of her body where her cutie mark lay. These spasms were always accompanied by powerful compulsions in her brain:

BUCK THE TREES.

PLOW THE FIELD.

HARVEST THE APPLES.

Stuff like that.

Ignoring these compulsions? That would be like being a sailor on the ocean and ignoring a tattered mainsail, a busted rudder, a hole in the hull. Ignore these compulsions, and she was SUNK.

Thankfully, since Macky and Lero and Bloomy had talked some sense into here, these spasms had been reduced to mere feather-brushes under her fur. Stuff she could handle at her own pace.

But this SQUEEZE? This was a completely different thing altogether. It wasn’t any sort of spasm at all, it felt as though Lero had clamped his fingers around her thigh and given it a squeeze.

And what accompanied this squeeze wasn’t any type of compulsion. No, what entered her head was an image.

The image of a slinking, slurping mass of white waxen goop.

Unbalanced by the odd sensation, Pinkie got off the bed. “Uh... go ahead and keep doing yer homework on yer own for a bit... Ah gotta go get me a drink of water...”

She stepped out of the kitchen, and when she did so... there came something else. A prickle on her croup.

And with this prickle came a new image in her head: Rainbow Dash, in her cottage, with all her animals.

Pinkie poured herself a glass of water and drank it, deeply troubled.

Then her thigh squeezed again.

And her croup prickled.

Thigh squeeze.

Croup prickle.

Thigh squeeze.

Croup prickle.

...Was she developing epilepsy?! Maybe she ought to lay down on the floor, so she didn’t take a nasty fall!

And the twitches continued, and the images with them.

Thigh squeeze: blob monster.

Croup prickle: Rainbow Dash in her cottage.

Thigh squeeze: blob monster.

Croup prickle: Rainbow Dash in her cottage.

...Wait a minute...

Blob monster.

Rainbow Dash in her cottage.

Blob monster.

Rainbow Dash in her cottage.

...Put them together...

THE BLOB MONSTER WAS GOING TO ATTACK RAINBOW DASH IN HER COTTAGE!

Why, this wasn’t epilepsy at all! It was a SIGN! A sign from above! Just like the rainbow had been a sign when she’d been with Aunt and Uncle Orange! (So what if Rarity had been the one who made it?! When a rainbow like hers had touched the lives of six fillies at once, so profoundly, THAT was a bone-a-fied SIGN!)

Good thing for Dash she wasn’t unprepared.

Pinkie hurried into her bedroom, opened the bottommost drawer in her dresser, and grabbed the key hidden underneath the loose bits. Then she galloped outside and entered the tool shed. There was a locked tool chest against the far wall; Pinkie unlocked it and took out the weapon, slipping her body inside it.

“And jest where d’ya thank YER goin’ with that weird thingamajig on ya at this time a’ night, li’l sister?”

Like a much younger girl with her muzzle caught in the cookie jar, Pinkie Pie turned around to see Apple Bloom standing in the doorway.

“Ah’m sorry, Apple Bloom, Ah need ta go help Rainbow Dash!”

“Rainbow Dash?” asked Apple Bloom, “What’s wrong with her?”

“Ah thank she might be in real big trouble, Bloomy, and Ah got ta help her out right now!”

“How do ya know Miz Dash is in trouble?”

“Ah jest do!” Pinkie insisted.

“Well, ya ain’t goin’ nowhere, less yew have my permission!” Apple Bloom said with a hard stamp on the floor.

Pinkie Pie would’ve brushed past her, and she might, if she became truly desperate... But she'd made a promise, and it'd not be right for her to break it! She hadn’t quite earned that right to be the Big Sister back yet. “Please, Apple Bloom, Ah need ta do this ta save mah friend!”

Apple Bloom cocked an ear in Pinkie’s direction. “Please... what did you say?”

True to her word, Apple Bloom had not been a tyrant with her new authority over her elder sister. But even she hadn’t been able to resist this little imposition. She was only a filly, after all.

“Please, Big Sister Apple Bloom, could Ah pretty please with cinnamon ‘n’ caramel ‘n’ pecans ‘n’ nutmeg ‘n’ honey ‘n’ brown sugar could Ah go and save mah friend?!”

Apple Bloom scrunched her lip in thought. “On one condition... ya gotta bring me along!”

“But it’ll be DANGEROUS!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

“And that’s what makes it so cool and excitin’!” Apple Bloom said, with an eager little hop. “Sides... big sisters need ta be around ta keep their little sisters safe from harm, don’t they?”

* * *

Rainbow Dash’s emotional stability... No, her very sanity hung by the thinnest thread. All it would take to snap that thread would be for Lero to look her in the eye and refuse to help.

That would never happen. “Anything you need, Dash, I’m here for you!”

Dash let out a soft but frenzied laugh of relief. She turned around, facing the open door.

“Hop on my back!” she begged him. “Please, now, now, now!”

“Wait!” Lyra called out.

But he had alright gotten on top of Dash, practically jumping on board, and before he even had a chance to reply, the world blurred into streaks of color as she rocketed out the door. It was all he could do to throw his arms around the pegasus’ neck and clamp down tightly on her body with the full force of his arms and legs and pray to God that it was enough.

The was nothing like the ride that Rainbow Dash had treated him to before that bird had knocked him off her. This wasn’t a well-controlled roller coaster; it was breakneck speed and nothing else.

“Lero’s here! Lero’s here!” she sang to herself, in a cracked, near-lunatic voice. Her recognized the mantra as something she was using to convince herself, to focus on hanging onto her mind, to keep a grip on her sanity. He hoped she was right. “Lero makes everything better! EVERYTHING! Lero always knows what to do... GAH!” The human’s heart crashed against his ribcage as Dash made a violent swerve.

Her head gave a sharp turn as if someone had swung a tire iron at it. Her body pitched to the side and Lero fell off. He felt the sensation of his stomach lurching away. He was in free fall again, the nightmare of his last flight with Dash returned... except two seconds later, long before he would’ve hit the ground, his body landed on Rainbow Dash’s back. She had performed a super-fast loop-de-loop to catch him.

“I’m sorry!” she cried. “I’m really, really sorry!”

“Don’t drop me again!” he gasped, as if nearly drowned. “Just don’t drop me again!”

“No, no, no! Never you, Lero!”

It was difficult resettling himself on her body at this whirlwind speed. “What was that all about, anyway? What distracted you?”

“I wasn’t distracted! Well... I kinda was.” She admitted reluctantly, sucking in a miserable breath. “It’s killed another of them. Another! And I felt the poor critter’s death in my head! I just can’t stand it!”

Lero set a firm hand on the back of her neck. “Dash... I need you to calm down, fly a little slower and explain the problem. I can’t even begin to help you until I know what’s wrong.”

It took some effort for her to obey this request. It felt like they were going just five miles-an-hour slower, but even this was a relief to Lero.

“Remember that other day when we were cleaning out my bedroom, and you were telling me about that fluzzlegork thing that ate Pinkie’s pigs and put Big Mac in the hospital?” Rainbow asked.

“You mean the...” What had Mac and Rarity called it? The Duggervob? Spurzleslumph? Gopperbreep? “...Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s here!” Her voice had hit a squeaky high note. “At my cottage! Making an all-you-can-eat buffet out of all my animals! I don’t know how to stop it! I can’t even Stare at it! How do you stare down a monster with no eyeballs?!”

Well, probably doesn't help that you probably can't used the Stare at all. Lero thought to himself. However, before the human could ruminate it further, they had reached the cottage. “Slow down, slow down, slow DOWN!”

Rainbow Dash did her best, but still she slammed, stomach-first, against the wall of her cottage. When she fell off the wall, she quickly pivoted herself so that she wouldn’t crush Lero underneath her, again landing on her stomach.

“Sorry, Lero,” Dash winced, needing a second before she could return to a stand. “I always crash when I go fast. You know that.”

“I don't know anything of the kind.” Lero growled, annoyed at the Swap sapping confidence in her own abilities, and him having to slam into things over it. “You all... right...?” He began to dust himself off, but stopped suddenly at the realization that something was wrong.

No barking or woofing. No squawking or twittering. No squeaking or squealing, warbles or gibbers, ribbits or chirrups or cock-a-doodle-doos: the cottage was soundless. Even more alarmingly, there’d always been the rustle and calls of creatures near the edge of the Everfree, no matter the time of day. But not now.

Dead silence pervaded everywhere... silence, and an acrid stench in his nostrils. Like a mixture of tabasco, tzatziki sauce, and developer fluid. He realized he could smell it all over the grass... which was brown and crunched like autumn leaves under his feet... and he’d also smelled it on Rainbow Dash, especially the bits where raw skin showed under missing patches of fur.

"Where is it?” He asked aloud. His eyes darted around to where the birdhouses and the chicken coop were, only to find them missing; corroded patches marked where they once stood. The ground around them was littered with small, blackened avian bones. “And where are your animals?!"

"I think they're hiding,” Dash answered, nodding towards the cottage. “I..."

One of the chickadees shot out through a broken windowpane, breaking the silence with shrill, panicked tweets. The bird shot towards Rainbow Dash, as if towards a savior...

FLORK

Only to be snatched out of the air by a pseudopod shooting out of the darkness, long as a hose, fast as a whip, and sticky as a frog’s tongue. The luckless chickadee was snapped right out of the air by a huge gob of white. Dash’s Butterfly mark spasmed fiercely, and she gave out a shriek, clutching her temple as though it had been struck by a dart.

It slid around from the side of the cottage; the size of a tow truck. To Lero, the flork resembled a massive accumulation of semi-translucent white-colored candle wax. It was possible to see the chickadee dissolving within its shapeless waxen blubber.

Glufferflork. Now Lero remembered the name very clearly. The first time he’d heard that name, he’d took it to be a nonsense word. But standing before it now... it made more sense how they’d earned those names.

Its amoebic movements over the ground made distinct susurrations that, he had to admit, could easily be onomatopoeitized to a "glffr"s sound. while the noise it made to reach out and engulf prey made the distinct flatus noises he remembered from the ‘slime’ toys of his youth... which did honestly sound like ‘Flork.’

“It’s coming right for us!” Dash shouted.

Except that it wasn’t. The glufferflork slid past the pony and human, ignoring them completely. Instead, it proceeded to smush itself against the cottage wall, then suffused itself upward and outward, and then just lay still, pressing itself up against the side of Dash’s home. It looked, for all the world, like a great white polar bear intent on melting an igloo away with nothing more than overpowering body heat.

...And as corrosive vapors trailed into the air, Lero couldn’t deny it was working! The glufferflork was every bit as acidic as Mac had said. Its pseudopodia spread across the cottage like an octopus grappling its unfortunate prey. It seemed to be rapidly sinking INTO the cottage like a red-hot poker laid upon a paraffin table.

“Do something! Please!” Rainbow Dash cried. From inside the cottage, all the countless animals shrieked and screeched and yowled in wild hysteria as they smelled the acid burn, heard the wood and thatch dissolve, and saw the white smeared across the window.

Lero looked about for something to help, and in desperation, he wrenched a stone out from the ground and hurled it at the flork! It impacted on the beast's side, and was immersed with a glorping noise, as if he'd tossed it into thick pudding, only slight ripples resulting. He might as well have pitched a baseball into a lake. Rainbow Dash collapsed onto the ground, letting out a frantic wail, Lero wracked his brains for something, anything! Think, Lero, think!

He had no weapons. No tools. No preparation. Just the clothes on his back, and they were far from acid-proof.

Think, goddammit, THINK!

And then in a flash of insight, a detail from Big Macintosh’s story came back to mind.

“Fire!” Lero exclaimed loud enough to disrupt Rainbow's sobbing cries. She managed to look up at him with a mixture of confusion and hope. “Pinkie Pie drove the monster off with fire!”

“Fire?” the pegasus repeated, blinking, desperatelly trying to shift her mental gears back from all hope being lost to being a slim hope of a solution.

“Yes!” He looked to the cottage door, seeing that the glufferflork hadn’t spread any part of itself across it. “Dash! I know you have a fireplace inside, do you remember where you keep the matches?!”

“Yeah." She repeated, before it clicked. "Yeah! They’re in the...”

“Good, good!” said Lero. “And do you have alcohol?”

“Uh, well, I almost never drink.” The pegasus replied, still not quite up to speed. Any other day, Lero would’ve laughed. The original unswapped Rainbow Dash had been an avid recreational drinker, (though never on the lush-like levels of Berry Punch.) Hard cider had been her favorite... and more often than not, she’d always shared with Lero. Yet another trait of Fluttershy’s the Swap had inserted into her.

“Right, right, but what about rubbing alcohol, lantern oil... anything flammable! We’re gonna need to grab as much of it, as quickly as we can! Also, things like blankets and cloth, anything sticklike we can use for a torch! Some of the broken furniture legs! We need to make a...!”

A bolt of lightning stopped his thought, striking the great white blob from a diagonal angle, and shocking it off the side of the cottage.

“I’d forgotten what an INCREDIBLY fast flyer you used to be, Rainbow!” Rarity called out. “Even going my fastest, I couldn’t keep up with you!” Lero let out a wild laugh of relief. They’d all followed him from home; Lyra, Twilight and Rarity, all riding the same cloud.

Dash was just as happy to see them hopping off the cloud platform to help, but she still said, “Sorry about that, Rarity.”

“What are you apologizing for, Dash?!” Lero laughed. “That was a compliment!”

Rainbow Dash squinted at him. “For what? Being fast?”

“Absolutely! When everything’s hanging by a thread, it’s not the SLOWPOKE people turn to for help, it’s the SPEEDSTER!” There was astonishment in the pegasus’ eyes. It seemed like she hadn’t considered that angle.

"Guys? I don't think this thing is staying down." Lyra commented, her voice strangely calm despite the situation. Black marks were left on its white surface where the lightning struck, but within seconds, they were sucked inside the beast, leaving nary a mark, digesting its own injured mass back into nutrients. Lyra fired her own lightning bolt at the flork, however, rather than Rarity's gigantic bolt of divine wrath, her was smaller and more precise, reminding Lero of a taser. However, it did its job, driving it further back with its spastic jiggling. “What is this thing?” Lyra asked loudly to be heard over it's unpleasant crackling florks.

“It’s a glufferflork!” Lero yelled, so they all could hear him. “It’s an acid monster! It hates fire! Scare it off with fire!”

“Well, girls, you heard him!” Twilight called, taking the reins of leadership. Both Lyra and Rarity fell in line beside her. “Uh... Rarity? Nothing too artsy, if you please. Just simple flame magic; nothing too showy!”

“I’ll restrain myself. A little.” Rarity answered. “But if our aim is to frighten the enemy off the battlefield...” She grinned devilishly at the flork. “Then you NEED to be a bit showy.”

All of their horns flashed, and out poured the fireballs. What Twilight cast at the flork were more straightforward ‘traditional’ fireballs: blazing spheres launched at the enemy that exploded into bursts of flame. Lyra's were small, rapid, precise bursts of flame, more in line with her weaker, more controlled magic. However, what came out of Rarity’s horn was more suited for the Fourth of July: rapidly-spinning miniature Catherine wheels that changed color as they whirled through the air, letting out shrill shrieks before exploding against the glufferflork in bursts of glittering gold and silver sparks. (Lyra actually slowed her rate of fire a bit to stare in utter disbelief; perhaps half-expecting Rarity to transform into the Great and Powerful Trixie.)

Lero and Rainbow Dash watched from a safe distance. The animals of the cottage peered fearfully through their windows and the wide holes which the flork had dissolved into the cottage walls. For all the flame which the unicorns were shooting at the glufferflork, at no point did it actually catch fire. Bits of it were merely singed and curled, which it then absorbed back into itself.

"Lero, I thought you said that Pinkie set this thing on fire, and it ran away!" Twilight called to him.

"She did! But Pinkie mentioned having alcohol with her and pouring it onto the flork and that pigpen!”

“You’re NOT burning down my house!” Rainbow Dash shouted.

Yet the giant gloop monster recoiled at every singeing blast of heat, burbling in what they all hoped was fear. A few times it tried to swipe at the unicorns with a pseudopod or two, but all it got for its trouble was more fire after they dodged, being driven back yard by yard into the Everfree forest.

“Go back!” Twilight Sparkle commanded the blob. “Go back to the Everfree Forest, and never return here again!”

Lero and Rainbow Dash smiled at each other. The pegasus’ whole body relaxed as the gluffleflork’s liquid body sunk into the dirt like water from a bucket, with a sloshy gurgling.

“We won! We won!” Rainbow Dash cheered. She lifted her wing up in what Lero recognized to be the pegasus equivalent of a high five. He gave it a friendly slam with his own palm.

Rarity came forward, peering at the patch of dirt which the glufferflork had seeped into. “Do you think it’s dead?” she asked.

“Perhaps,” Lyra responded with a warning tone, pulling the weathermare back by the tail. “But perhaps it's merely playing possum.”

“Or maybe it’s burrowing its way back to the Everfree,” said Twilight. "But we can't really wait and see." She turned to the cyan-coated pegasus. “Dash! We’re going to save your animals!” She announced, which baffled Rainbow.

"But... it's gone, right?" She replied.

“We really don’t know. It’s too dangerous for you or them to stay here. The moment we leave, it could be back, and you'd be in the same situation. For now, we need to bring them to a place of safety! Is that okay with your c... you?”

Rainbow Dash blinked, thinking for a moment, Twilight and Lero looked to her mark for a few seconds. It didn’t even twitch. “Yes! I can't take that happening again!” She decided with conviction.

“Right! This way, everyone!” She leads the group inside, only to be met with pandemonium, panicked, terrified animals scrambling randomly about the cottage.

“So how are we going to do this?” Rarity asked, dodging a nightingale that almost flew in her hair. The animals were still anxious and uppity, not having calmed despite the Flork's departure.

“Hey, Rarity!” Lyra shouted; the animals were making so much noise, it was almost impossible to think, “You can make a cloud platform, right? How about a cloud CAGE?”

Rarity blinked, then smiled. “Shouldn’t be hard to do at all... excellent thinking, my love!” Then she looked around. “So we’ll need to cast cloudwalking spells on all these creatures here?”

Twilight levitated a struggling newt over in front of her face. “Not JUST cloudwalking spells!”

As Lero watched her horn glow silver, he found himself feeling drowsy, until he realized what was happening, slapped himself back awake, and looked away from the horn as the newt’s eyes fluttered shut, and his body went limp. “...A sleep spell too! They are rowdy little guys, after all. We don't want them clawing each other!”

They all nodded: things were looking good! Twilight passed the sleeping newt over to Rarity, who accepted it in her own levitational field.

“Rarity, you go outside and make us a cloud cage! Make it a big one!” Twilight instructed. “The rest of us: focus on catching all the animals, and Lyra and I will cast cloudwalking and sleep spells on them!”

“Got it!” Rarity said, and left the cottage with the newt.

“Uh, Twilght?” said Lyra. “I know you know the cloudwalking spell... would you mind casting it a few times, so I can figure it out?”

Twilight starred at her in confusion for a second, "You don't kno... Oh, of course you don't, sorry." She did as Lyra asked; aiming her horn carefully at several cats, one by one, first zonking them out with the sleep spell, then casting the cloudwalking spell on them for Lyra to see, before passing them along to Dash or Lero, who ran them outside and dropped them at a pile by Rarity’s feet, as she was still crafting the cage.

After the sixth cat, Lyra said, “Let me try,” and successfully cast the spell at a woodchuck, mastering the spell after a few tries.

“Alright!” said Twilight. “Let’s divide and conquer! Lyra, you, Lero, and Rainbow Dash go upstairs and grab whatever you can find up there!”

“Got it!” said Lero.

“You guys are LIFESAVERS!” Rainbow Dash gushed, as the three of them hurried upstairs. Here, a lot of the birds had flown, trying to put as much height between them and the ground which the horror had come from. Gummy had gotten back in the toilet, not a care in the world, while the old Pomeranian was sleeping it its favorite spot.

The panicked animals bit and pecked and clawed at Lero and Dash when they grabbed them, but at this point, it was nothing new to either of them. Lero had earned so many callouses in his time as Dash’s assistant caretaker, that he was now essentially immune. They brought them to Lyra, who cast her spells on the critters, and then Dash flew them out the window to Rarity... who, by now had finished with the cloud cage.

Lero snuck a look at it for himself; it was even more spacious than a moving van, and the sleeping animals already within it floated higher than the glufferflork could ever hope to stretch.

“So, this is a typical day for the two of you?” Lyra asked.

“Pretty much, except normally, we’re the only ones here who’re even in any danger,” Rainbow Dash said, shutting her eyes as Lyra put the duckling in her arms to sleep. “Ain’t that right, Lero?”

Before Lero had a chance to respond, there came a sudden, loud wooden crunch of floorboards being smashed through, the entire building shuddering, as they all heard a surging gush, and the shrieks of animals. Screaming, Rainbow dashed downstairs, Lero and Lyra followed in right after her.

Pseudopodia kept punching hole after hole through the floor from underground, like a strange combination of tentacle and geyser... feeling around, snatching whatever unlucky critter it could grab. Twilight blasted every one she could, but the sheer volume was overwhelming, the creature must have somehow gained mass underground! Eventually, she was driven back after several close calls.

Unprotected, none of the animals were thinking with their heads. They were all running and skittering and flying around the house in circles of blind panic. Although there were wide open holes burned into the walls, the powerful stench the glufferflork had spread all across the yard seemed to be anathema to the animals. Instead of escaping through these holes, they backed away from them as though the outdoors were filled with toxic gas.

One critter after another was snatched up, and Rainbow Dash, upon seeing this, collapsed, curling up upon the floor, belly-up, eyes rolling in wild circles, teeth chattering. The Butterfly Mark was spasming so powerfully, Lero almost thought he had gone nearsighted, just looking at it.

“What’s WRONG with her?!” Lyra cried.

Lero brought himself close to her ear to whisper an explanation. “Fluttershy’s cutie mark has given Dash some sort of weird mental link with all the animals here. Whenever one of them gets killed, the Butterfly Mark hurts her. You almost have to see every critter here as a portion of Rainbow Dash’s sanity.”

Lyra Heartstrings stared around the bedlam around her with new, horrified eyes. At every bird and beast being snatched and devoured. At her poor herd-sister... lost to the Swap, like a fish on dry land during its last moments.

“Doomed... all doomed... no hope... pet cemetery...”

"Twilight, Rarity!" Lyra called. "Focus fire on my marks!"

“Got it!”

“Light them up, my Songbird!”

She let out a barrage of small flames against the pseudopodia that left arcane markers, allowing the more powerful unicorns to unleash blast of fire and lighting at full force without needing to aim, the spells homing into the markers, tearing through the tendrils. With an angry glurgle, the glufferflork’s pseudopodia vanished from this main room, though they could hear it at work down below in the cellar, and all tried to ignore it.

“Dash!” Twilight and Lyra went to her aid, attempting to get a response from her. "Lero, get over here and help us!" Twilight looked over when the human failed to answer. He was staring very hard at an overturned litter box.

“Lero, this is no time for woolgathering!” the unicorn cried.

But the human went over to the litter box. Twilight peered closer, and could finally seen what had drawn his attention: a cottony white tail peeking out from underneath the litter box. Quickly, he lifted up the little tray, and snatched the rabbit underneath.

It was, indeed, Angel Bunny. Quivering in fear and misery. Befouled in smears of both fresh and stale cat droppings. Pungent urine soaked his fur, and special odorized crystals fell off him like excessive dandruff. Perhaps it was just the result of hiding, or perhaps Angel had hoped that by dirtying himself in this way, the glufferflork would find him too unappetizing to eat; even if it had uncovered his hiding place.

Either way, it didn't matter to Lero Michaelides. He held the malodorous rabbit by the ears with a glare of anger and revulsion; the latter not just because of the smell.

“You’re a VERY BRAVE RABBIT, aren’t you, Angel Bunny?” The human hissed, and Angel trembled harder than ever at that show of teeth. Dash shivered, opening her eyes, and staring over at Lero at the mention of her 'pet'.

“Such a courageous cottontail you are! Leading all your fellow critters on a nonstop blood vendetta against the mare who cares for you, feeds you, and keep you out of the cold! Abusing her, biting her, scratching her, ruining her home, robbing her of sleep... arranging to have cabinets fall upon her head! And how heroic a leader you are: the moment all the other animals under your command are in life-and-death peril, you scamper into hiding and let them fend for themselves! Truly, you are a credit to your race!”

The rabbit tried to wriggle away, but Lero’s grip on his ears tightened to a chokehold, digging his fingernails in.

“Do you know what I think, Angel Bunny? I think... I should love to have as brave a bunny as you for myself! Yes! As soon as the glufferflork’s eaten its fill and slurped its way back to the Everfree Forest... I shall go to Rainbow Dash, and buy you from her! And when I take you to your new home, my little pet, you and I are going to have SUCH FUN! For all the rest of your life!” He leaned in even closer, whispering savagely. “Which might not be all that long. Does the word ‘hasenpfeffer’ mean anything to you?"

Lero Michaelides had no idea whether rabbits had tear ducts back on Planet Earth. But Angel was certainly proving they did here in Equestria.

“OR...!” the human went on. “Perhaps there is an alternative! Perhaps you could actually try to help SAVE the lives of yourself AND your foot soldiers, by getting them to all gather outside by where Rarity is, in a nice and orderly fashion!”

Lero set the rabbit down on the floor to let him make up his mind. Angel sat there for a moment, hyperventilating. Lero glared at him, and he cowered. For a second, Lero was sure he was about to bolt, before he took a deep breath, stuck his paw in his mouth, and let out a loud, shrill whistle. All the animals in earshot paused, looking to him. The rabbit’s feet drummed the floor in a pattern. Immediately, all the animals fell in line with Angel, and they all followed him outside like some lagomorph Pied Piper.

“Gather outside by where Rarity is!” cawed Jabbers, as he flew over Angel. “Gather outside by where Rarity is!”

Lero and the ponies all left the house to stand outside in the front yard, where all the cottage’s critters had crowded around Rarity.

“Oh my goodness!” Rarity said, with a lovely laugh for them all. “This makes things easy!” Her horn shone silver, and in no time at all, they were all fast asleep upon the ground.

“Such darling little dears,” she cooed, levitating them up about fifty feet into the air with Twilight and Lyra’s help, and inserting them inside the cumulonimbus cage. There, all the animals slumbered as peacefully and adorably as a young girl’s bed loaded with stuffed toys.

“...I could’ve done that.”

The voice was Rainbow Dash’s. Lero saw there was a strange clearness and vitality in his old love’s unblinking eyes, as though she were just emerging from something mind-blowing.

“I could’ve done what you just did!” She insisted. “That thing you did... the way you spoke to Angel Bunny, I totally could’ve done that too! I could’ve! I really could’ve!”

He patted her on the side, hoping to calm her. “Hey, don’t worry about it, Dash! We’ve got this in the bag, just let us finish handling it for you!”

“Handle it... for me?” He flinched at the surprisingly hard note in Dash’s voice.

Before anyone had a chance to respond, suddenly the ground exploded all around them, the glufferflork attempting to consume them and the animals all in one fell swoop!

“HIT THE DECK!” A familiar voice rang out. Instinctively, Lero dove to the ground, bringing Twilight and Dash with him, Lyra pulling down Rarity.

BLAM!

With an unholy warble, the Flork's engulfing ooze practically exploded away from them, splattering against the house, Twilight managing to put up a shield to protect them from the splatter.

"Well, look at this! Appears we got heah just in tha' nick of time. What does that make us?"

"Big darn heroes, Sis!"

"Ain't we just?"

Lero looked up in disbelief at the voice. "Pinkie Pie!?"

Heads turned and ears flicked backwards at the thunder of fast hooves, the rumble of wooden wheels. And it wasn’t long at all before Pinkie Pie had pulled up by their side. What a sight she made!

Lero recognized the rubbery-looking nearly-full-body outfit she was wearing as an outfit from Applejack’s boutique. It had been her attempt at a tricolored cocktail dress, but more effectively resembled a hazmat suit in every way. Thick, protective goggles covered Pinkie’s eyes. She came pulling a cart which contained Apple Bloom, likewise attired with goggles, astride several bags marked ‘PAPPA POTASH'S LYE PELLETS.‘

Weirdest of all, there was some kind of contraption... something not quite a sousaphone... mounted upon her body and secured with several metal braces. Its business end pointed forward.

"Gunner's mate, load!" Pinkie called out.

"Aye aye, Sis!" Apple Bloom picked up a bag of Lye, and poured the pellets into a canister strapped to the side, then locking it shut when full. "Locked and Loaded, Sis!"

Just then, the glufferflork violently reformed itself, pulling the parts underground straight out from under the floor of the cottage’s foyer, smashing through the doorframe with the the force of a tidal wave. This produced a domino effect; all sorts of boards cracked and gave way, until the whole of the cottage toppled over to one side, like it was made of poorly-baked gingerbread.

“MY HOUSE!” screamed Rainbow Dash.

The whole mass of the glufferflork was literally boiling in fury: acidic steam rising from its bubbling body. It didn't even need any facial features, for everyone to know it was furious, and that fury was focused upon one pink pony.

“Howdy, Mr. Flork,” Pinkie greeted pleasantly, stepping towards the maddened heap of goo, with all the casualness of a day at the market. “Knew Ah’d see ya back in Ponyville someday. Yew done grown fatter since last time.”

With surprising speed, the flork darted towards the pink pony.

“Pinkie Pie, no!” Twilight yelled.

On top of everything else, Pinkie had what looked to be a riding bit lodged in her mouth, which she brought her teeth down upon.

BLAM!

A shovelful of what Lero first took to be buckshot fired from the mouth of the sousaphone-thing... splashing into the flork’s body. However, as the pellets hung suspended in its gooey form, his amazed mind recognized it as the lye pellets Apple Bloom had loaded.

Seconds later, there was several loud popping noises, as the side of the beast which had been shot practically exploded! With a bizarre flatulent bawling noise, the living acid shrank away from the apple farmer, much farther and faster than it had for the unicorns’ flames and lightning.

“Ya came over mah farm. Ate mah pigs. Nearly killed mah brother. Nearly drove me crazier than espresso-drinking squirrels! But we’re both getting better, thanks fer asking!”

BLAM!

A small portion of the flork was simply blasted off, and just fizzled into a dried-up puddle when it hit the ground.

“And NOW yew wanna go do all that again to mah good friend, Rainbow Dash! Take away the one thang that matters most ta that poor, helpless darlin’: her animal buddies!”

“Poor?!” Rainbow Dash repeated the word in something very close to outrage. “Helpless?!”

BLAM!

“Shame on yew, Florky.”

The glufferflork's oddly flatulent wails continued (and in almost any other situation, Lero would have almost found them hilarious) as it retreated backwards, straight into the ruins of the cottage, hiding behind walls of thicker debris.

“That was AWESOME, Big Sister!” Apple Bloom called from inside the cart. She, too, was wearing a set of protective goggles.

“Pinkie!” cried Twilight in amazement, as she and all her other friends gathered around the pink pony. “What’s going on? What are you wearing?! What’s that... weapon you got? How...?”

“Easy, easy!” the pink pony laughed. “One question at a time! Ta cut a long story short, Twilight... d’ya remember that book Ah borrowed from ya yesterday? All About Slimes, Goos and Oozes? Well, that taught me what a glufferflork’s TRUE weakness is! T’ain’t really fire at all! BASES are what really gets ‘em!”

“Bases?” Lero asked dimly, confused what baseball had to do with anything that had just happened.

“Bases!” said Pinkie. “A glufferflork’s made of living acid, so it hates bases! Thangs like soap, toothpaste, ammonia... and LYE,” she finished with devilish smile. “Went and bought all these bags a’ lye at the market yesterday after reading that book, and then Ah worked all through the night makin’ THIS little beauty to blast them out from! Ah call it the lye shooter! Patent pendin’!”

Vaguely, Lero recalled the unswapped Rainbow Dash telling him a story about Pinkie Pie building her own gyrocopter when a mean-natured griffin friend of hers had tried to keep Pinkie away from her.

But he could still scarcely believe it. Pinkie Pie had constructed a SHOTGUN. He couldn't tell if it was based on compressed air or an actual chemical explosion, especially since it fired lye pellets instead of lead bullets. But it was a GUN, nonetheless. A gun usable by Earth ponies, whose firing mechanism sat in the gunslinger’s mouth. Man, every day, something more unreal!

“But... how did you know I was in trouble?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Did Spike send you a letter or something?”

Pinkie shook her head and shrugged. “Ah jest knew. Sensed yew’d need me.”

While Dash and Rarity gave each other baffled looks, Lero, Lyra, and Twilight exchanged looks of complete understanding.

Pinkie Sense! Twilight mouthed to them.

“Aw, shoot! It’s goin’ underground!” Pinkie shouted. She bit down on her trigger again... and nothing shot out. “Dang it! Gunner's mate, reload!”

“I’ll do it!” Lero offered. "It'll be faster with hands!" He emptied a bag of lye pellets into the canister on Pinkie’s back. It was in fact, faster, but Apple Bloom still gave him a pout.

“We’d better spread out!” Lyra told her the others. “There’s no telling where the flork even is!”

The muscles in Pinkie’s thigh began to clench strangely, as though someone were squeezing it. “Lyra! Dodge left... NOW!” Lyra hopped to her left, just as a pseudopod spouted up from underneath, swiping hatefully at the now out-of-reach Lyra, until she zapped it with an electrical attack, forcing it back underground.

“Lero!” Pinkie shouted. With her thigh clenching up wildly, she was scowling at the ground as though she could see the glufferflork through the dirt with her X-ray vision. “Jest hold still... hold PERFECTLY still...”

The gluffleflork rose up, half-in and half-out of the dirt like the fin of a shark, cutting across the ocean waters. Pinkie gave it another blast of lye.

“Woo-hoo!” Apple Bloom cheered, as the flork roared in agony and submerged back in the soil. “Yew guys’re all jest the perfect team... all a’ yew doin’ yer part!” And she grinned at the pegasus. “Don’t yew fret, Miz Rainbow Dash! Jest fly on up ‘n’ hide upon the highest cloud in the sky, right up there, and we’ll take care a’ this for ya! Soon as we’re all done with this ugly sack of glue, yew’ll be so rescued, yew won’t know what ta do with yerself!”

* * *

Thoughts swarmed Rainbow Dash’s head. The sort of thoughts she wasn’t used to having. The first and most profound of these new thoughts?

Being the damsel in distress sucked.

The way Lero had shown Angel who was boss... that was awesome.

Lyra and Twilight and Rarity bringing her animals up to safety and fighting this blob off? Equally awesome.

And Pinkie Pie! Whoa! She’d shown untold levels of awesomeness tonight, with her freaky (but radically cool!) sixth sense pinpointing, and the lye shooter she’d made...

What was stopping her from being just as awesome as they were?!

Lero was right! She’d done stuff too! There was awesomeness in her too! A lot of it!

Rarity had used her best weather magic on that giant red dragon, and she’d reduced it to tears with a look! Discord had tried to warp her mind, but had been unable to talk her into giving up who she was at heart! He’d had to brute-force her into being changed into an awful pony! Then, after Twilight had used her memory spell, she’d used her speed to catch up with Rarity while pulling that hot air balloon behind her! And then helped her friends hog-tie the discorded weathermare so Twilight could use her memory spell! And then she’d helped reseal Discord back into stone!

Then later, thanks entirely to her, she’d befriended and reformed Discord, turning him to the side of good! She’d done her part to help save Sweet Apple Acres from the Flim Flam Brothers! When Rarity had needed help forming a tornado to bring water to Cloudsdale, she was a record breaker!

Yes, she was naturally shy. Yes, she could be a hoofmat to others!

But she had never been a completely hapless dingbat!

As close as she had grown to Lero, she resented the fact that all of a sudden, she NEEDED his help, needed her hoof held around her own animals... by a stallion who’d had NO EXPERIENCE TAKING CARE OF ANIMALS, HIMSELF. And he still was a better caretaker than her!

“I’m done being helpless,” Rainbow Dash growled lowly to herself, eyes shining with new light. “I’m done being worthless. I’m more than this... I’ve ALWAYS been more than this! I’m through needing to have others save me every single day of my life! I need to be part of the team again, standing by the side and letting them do all the work isn’t kind or loyal of me! If I can be incompetent, then I can also be awesome! And from now on, I wanna be as awesome as I can possibly be!”

Lero Michealides would’ve been ecstatic to see how, for just a few seconds, the butterflies on her flank flickered like a dying light bulb.

* * *

“Okay, Lero, ya listenin’ up?” Pinkie shouted.

“Sure am!” Lero answered, even thought they weren’t seeing eye-to-eye. Rather, Pinkie was crouched like a cat about to pounce, eyes following some invisible laser pointer dot. Staring at... no, through the dirt, as though she had some kind of X-ray vision. Thigh clenching all the while.

“It’s comin’ after yew again, Lero,” she said, pivoting to the side as if a fast snake had slithered past her. “It’s goin’ in all sorts a’ crazy spirals ‘n’ zigzags ta try ‘n’ throw me off, but mah gut says it wants yew.”

Lero grinned. “Just say when to move, and let’s nail this puke!”

Feeling a presence looming behind him, Lero turned to see Rainbow Dash flying right over his head with a bag of lye pellets in her arms and a fierce look in her eyes.

“Dash? What are you doing?” Lero asked.

“Nailing the puke as soon as it comes up for air,” the pegasus answered.

“It’s coming!” Pinkie warned. “Girls, git ready! Lero, hold yer position!”

Lero stood still, trying to think brave thoughts as the unicorns charged up their horns. “Steady...” said Pinkie. “Steady, steady... LERO, DODGE NOW!”

Tucking and rolling, like an action hero, Lero ended up several feet to the right of where he’d been standing. Lyra seemed awestruck, watching his human body perform this movement. Rainbow Dash threw down her bag of lye pellets, which burst open like an egg.

Except that the glufferflork failed to appear.

“Huh?” Lyra asked. “Did it run out of steam, Pinkie?”

“Ah dunno.” Pinkie said. “"It jest... stopped. Weird.”

“Say, girls... do you think tonight’s sky could do with a touch of vermillion? Or perhaps a good shade of ochre?”

Rarity’s eyes were directed upwards... semi-glazed and nearly unfocused. They all gave her odd looks, except for Twilight and Lero, whose eyes were drawn to her cutie mark, noticeably twitching.

"Oh, not now..." Lero started.

"BLOOMY, MOVE!" Only to be interrupted as Pinkie yanked her sister out of the cart, hitting some sort of emergency release for herself and tumbling away as the Flork grabbed the cart from underneath, flinging it away into the Everfree with astonishing strength. Apparently that's what it was waiting for: a moment's distraction.

Snarling, Rainbow Dash scooped up a hoof-full of of lye pellets with a surprising lack of awkwardness, and flung them at the beast. “Come on!” she bellowed with unexpected agression. It was like watching a hornet buzz around the surface of a pool which its target had dived into. “Let's do this! Let’s finish this! It ain’t over until I say so!”

Many of the other ponies backed away from Rainbow Dash uncertainly. She was livid! And for his part, it was all Lero could do to wonder which side of the pegasus’ swapped personality was dominating this time: Rainbow Dash or Fluttershy? On one hand, the way she was raging was classic Rainbow Dash. But on the other, it wasn’t as though Fluttershy were completely incapable of anger. He’d never seen the yellow pegasus mad himself... but they STILL talked about Fluttershy at the Grand Galloping Gala! (Or at least it’d been Fluttershy before the swap.) Who could say HOW the original Fluttershy would’ve reacted to a catastrophe like this?!

Or maybe... maybe neither persona was dominating over the other this time? That both ‘Fluttershy’ and ‘Rainbow Dash’ were on equal footing in their fury for the flork? He thought of Twilight: because she’d been equally good friends with all five of the other Element Bearers, it didn’t even matter who’d become whom... all ten pieces of their fragmented souls were unanimous in their friendship for Twilight Sparkle. Well, except for the whole ‘herdmate’ thing Rainbow had given Rarity...

Like an enemy submarine surfacing from beneath the tide, up came the glufferflork, thirty yards away from where they all stood. He didn’t know whether it was adrenaline or some other chemical equivalent unique to glufferflorks... but the slime monster accelerated to the speed of a runaway bullet train, fleeing Rainbow's assault, smashing headlong into a thick tree... it PASSED THROUGH its trunk while partially DISSOLVING it in its corrosive juices, and grew BIGGER, leaving only blackened trunks.

And it did the same with the next tree that’d been unfortunate enough to haven taken root in its path... and the next, and the next...

Tossing one final pellet at the fleeing beast, Rainbow huffed, "And stay out!"

There was a lengthy pause, all gathered staring off after the beast's path.

"And that... Is how you do it." Rainbow panted, looking to Lero with what, to him, was a heartbreakingly familiar cocky grin. He still smiled to see it, though.

Apple Bloom broke the silence. “Y’know, if Ah didn’t know any better, Ah’d say the snuffleglump there’s headin‘ straight fer Ponyville.”

Cold horror filled all their hearts as the acid sludge diminished from sight.

“...Perhaps a quatrefoil pattern, yes, they’d like..." Rarity continued, oblivious until what Apple Bloom said penetrated her artistic haze. "WHAT?!” she cried, lowering her eyes back to ground level. “It’s heading straight for Ponyville?!”

“Twilight! What can we do?!” Lyra shouted.

“I... I don’t know!” she said, though her legs were already moving fast; already hurrying after the flork, and the others hurried after her... Lyra stopping to run back after Lero and let him ride on her back. “If I had Spike with me, I could send a message to the Mayor or something! Warn the town!”

“Leave that to me!” Rainbow Dash thundered, and off she flew, just like that, leaving the others to shout ‘Wait!’ at a rainbow contrail.

“Ugh! Rainbow Dash... you stupid, hotheaded... UGH!” Twilight grumbled, just like old times.

“What‘s gotten inta her?!” Apple Bloom asked worriedly from Pinkie’s back.

“Glufferflork,” replied Pinkie. “Believe me, Bloomy, Ah sympathize with Dashie. Ya saw what it did ta mah mood.” She turned towards the forest. "Ah'm gonna get tha' lye! If'n the Flork attacks Ponyville, we're gunna need it! C'mon, Bloomy!"

And with that, the two farm girls broke off from the others, galloping out to where their cart had going sailing out towards.

“I... I... I must do something too!” With a glare just as determined as Dash’s, Rarity began conjuring a cloud platform directly in front of her, right in mid-gallop.

“Wait, Rarity!” Twilight called out. “What’re you planning on doing?!”

For a moment, Rarity’s eyes widened in alarm as she stared off into the distance. before that intent look set back in. “LOOK at that monster! Even from THIS distance, you can see how much it’s grown, eating all those trees!”

Rarity was right. Ahead of them, the glufferflork was still a far cry from Godzilla-sized... but for how long?!

“This creature must be stopped at all costs!” Rarity proclaimed, hopping onto the cloud and lifting into the air. “We've used fire, we've used lightning, to no effect. That leaves one thing!”

“What are you talking about?!” Lyra cried.

“Ice!” Rarity called. "You'll know it when you see it, Twilight!" she finished, with a wink at the lavender mare before she too surged forward towards the monster out for pony blood.

Twilight and Lero looked at each other in disbelief. "She couldn't mean...!" Twilight started.

"Care clueing me in?" Lyra asked.

"The Diamond Hailstorm?!" Lero finished.

"The Diamond Whatstorm!?" Lyra interjected.

“It’s a fantasy!” the human whispered. “A fable! An alibi the Swap cooked up in Rarity’s head!”

“Huh?!”

“Remember the story Dash told us about the very first time she pulled off the Sonic Rainboom? How it caused all six of the Element Bearers to gain their cutie marks within minutes of each other?! Well, the Diamond Hailstorm is the Swap’s answer to that! It’s literally a substitute Sonic Rainboom, tailored for Rarity so she could fill in the gap for that part of Dash’s life!”

“What’s it do?” Lyra asked. “Make diamonds?”

“No, it’s some kind of ice storm spell. According to Rarity, sunlight refracts off the perfectly shaped ice and sends rainbows everywhere... but that’s not even important! The key thing is: IT DOESN’T REALLY EXIST! Not in REAL life! It’s nothing but a story! And now, Rarity’s going to go try and CAST it, this nonexistent spell! Not only is Rarity not going to be able to stop the flork from eating Ponyville, she’s moments away from finding out the truth about herself, and going stark raving mad! Just like Discord warned!”

* * *

The speed, the adrenaline, the wind in her mane, the clouds under her hooves... on a calmer day, these sensations would’ve been blissful, the sort of thing she’d want to bring Lero along for! But the glufferflork was slurping ahead of her, huge and slug-like for all its fluidness, and all Rarity could think of was...

TWITCH

...flowers in the sky, gorgeous bouquets, a vast garden of nimbus and cirrus formed in the shape of giant camellias, marigolds, and columbines, that stretched across the heavens, that she’d paint in colors that glowed against the black of night... what a lovely garden to plant in the sky! Already, Rarity was slowing herself down to focus on what was important...

“Please, darling, I... I have to know... can you find it in your heart to forgive me for the awful, awful thing I’ve done?”

And her poor, near-dead prince blinked once to signify that she was forgiven.

Rarity shook herself. What had come over her? She set her sights ahead at the flork. Had she been too hasty, choosing the Diamond Hailstorm? She’d only cast it one time in her life, over a decade ago, without even meaning to. Why, she could think of all sorts of other suitable spells, such as...

TWITCH

...fog on the ground, only she’d shape and color portions of the fog so they’d look like living ponies, just walking about town on their daily business. It’d be just like with the Shadowbolt golems she’d conjured for Lyra! They’d all marvel at her creativity....

“To me you’re like... a mother and an older sister, all wrapped up in one. Like another Twilight.”

Huh? Oh, this was no time for distractions, not of any sort! Not when she had to concentrate on...!

TWITCH

...snowflakes that’d be shaped like all the animals of the world, each the size of her sweet prince’s hands...

“And that letter you sent me was just so very heartfelt. I can’t even count the number of times I reread it!”

WHAT WAS WRONG WITH HER?! It felt like her mind had declared civil war on itself! She felt like the rope in a tug-of-war, yanked into the dreamy hazy of artistry, only to be wrenched back to reality by memories of her herd. She’d deal with this later, she needed to beat the glufferflork, lickety-split, and then appease her artistic inspiration afterwards!

TWITCH

No, she’d create her art NOW, and once it was up in the sky, THEN she’d finish off the flork! Priorities first!

Huh?! What?! No...! PONIES WERE GOING TO DIE IF SHE STOPPED NOW! They were the priority!

TWITCH

When an artistic idea came to her head, she had to act on it RIGHT AWAY, or else the idea would die in her brain, and the next idea she had was guaranteed to not be as good as the idea she’d allowed to die! Making her that much less of an artist! Less of a weatherpony! She could not let any idea of hers DIE...

PONY LIVES ARE WORTH MORE THAN ANY ART!

TWITCH

They’re all unimportant ponies who’d mocked you and scorned you. Next to your aesthetic genius, Ponyville could stand to do with a few less of those cretins.

...

...

...

“I don’t believe this,” Rarity breathed. “My art has betrayed me! My art is every bit as treacherous a thing as... as every one of Rainbow Dash’s animals! When did it come to this?!”

At this moment, she could see it all clearly now, and used the power of her anger to speed closer to the flork. Her reputation had suffered, because of her art! Her job had suffered because of her art! Her family life had suffered because she had to be a little artist! Just when had she been reduced to this, this... out-of-control art junkie?

TWITCH

IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY!!!!

Yes, yes... sadly, this was so. As far back as Rarity’s memories went back... it HAD always been this way. She'd always been ambitious, eager to learn and master the weather magic she'd been taught, but her near-unique nature had proven a unique barrier: No one to compete against. While similar, Pegasus weather making functioned very different from hers. So she'd tapped into the artistic side, giving herself the challenge of following her artistic Inspiration whenever it struck, while still making functional, effective weather... But recently, it'd spiraled out of control, giving into her artistic inspiration every time it struck, to the full depths of her ideas, without a concern for the functionality or appropriateness, causing calamity...

TWITCHTWITCHTWITCH

CLOUDS PAINTED TO RESEMBLE THE FUR OF LEOPARDS AND TIGERS! HAILSTONES SHAPED LIKE THE DIAMONDS ON WEDDING RINGS; HEART CUTS, OVAL CUTS, MARQUISE CUTS, TRILLION CUTS! A THUNDERSTORM WHERE THE THUNDER CRASHES LIKE A JAZZ DRUMMER’S DRUMBEAT!

Each one of these ideas came like another foal inside her mind, scraping her brain, wailing to be let out into the world, through her horn... so painful... Almost as if it was attempting to torture her into compliance, her cutie mark spasming so hard she almsot fell from the cloud.

TWITCHTWITCHTWITCH

MIX LIQUID FERTILIZER INTO THE RAINWATER SO EVERYPONY’S PLANTS GROW FASTER! FREEZE THE LAKES SO PONIES CAN ENJOY ICE SKATING IN SUMMER! SHOOT LOTS OF LIGHTNING BOLTS STRAIGHT AT EACH OTHER, JUST AN INCH OVER EVERYPONY’S ROOFTOPS! IT’LL BE A GLORIOUS LIGHT SHOW!

And as insane as each idea sounded, they all felt so damnably tempting to try... just for art’s sake, and containing these ideas in her head hurt SO BADLY...

“What 'any other stallion or mare would do' doesn't matter. This is about what I should do.”

The thought of her herd filled her with strength. “This ISN’T ME!” she screamed at all the parasite ideas in her mind. “You’re not who I am or what I am!”

TWITCH

Of course this is you!

“I wish that Celestia HAD decided to make you a second student of hers. We could’ve both grown up in the palace, learning from her together as classmates and friends!”

TWITCH

What is an artist who doesn’t perform art?

"NONE of us are going to let anything happen to you."

TWITCH

What is a weatherpony who doesn’t manipulate the weather?

“I don’t know how we all would’ve lived with the grief if you had died there, so I’m just so glad to come home and still have four herdmates living in this house with me!”

TWITCH

Weather was how you got your cutie mark! The reflection of your soul!

Rarity turned to look. Her cutie mark.

TWITCH

Are you going to betray everything that you are over one nasty puddle of slime? If you’re not a weather artist... then WHAT ARE YOU?!

What was she? What WAS Rarity at the core?

“I mean, look at you, Rarity! Yeah, your loyalty speaks for itself, of course, but you ARE very generous, too.”

A new sort of brainwave was rippling through Rarity’s mind.

“When Lero was in trouble... you were the one there for him! You saved him!”

It occurred to Rarity that whenever her herdmates... ANY of her herdmates, talked about why it was that they truly loved her... art and weather never entered the discussion, did it? Perhaps there was a reason for that.

“You’re HEROES! ...You’ve saved the world countless times over!”

A hero?

“Miss Dash is perfectly fine. She’s been brought back to Cloudsdale, safe and sound. She says she’s earned her cutie mark thanks to you.”

A hero...

Your rainbow brought out incredible magic in me. I even got my cutie mark from it!

“A hero!” Rarity was now flying directly overhead of the glufferflork. She stomped her hoof, and lightning shot out; sizzling the overgrown amoeba!

“You want to know what I am?! I’ll tell you!”

Stamp! Stamp! Stamp! Bolts shot out from the underside of her cloud.

“Before I’m an artist, before I’m a weatherpony, before I’m a unicorn or an honorary pegasus, before I’m even a MARE... I AM A HERO. That’s what my friends and family love me for: everything heroic inside me! I chose to pursue weather as a career because I thought I could use it to help improve others' lives... the way I helped Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash!”

Her cutie mark twinged, but it was vastly weaker than the twitches of before, almost as if it seemed uncertain of itself.

I... is that the case?!

The artistic side of herself sounded so astonished.

“Yes!” she shouted. “It’s always been that way... even if I was too blind to see it until now!"

She kept stamping out lightning bolts. The glufferflork took them like they were jolts from a joy buzzer, but it was still hurting the sludge beast greatly, slowing its sticky, yet smooth motions. Eyeing its current massive size, perhaps her first impulse was correct; the Diamond Hailstorm might be the only thing that could put it down for good.

“But if that’s no longer the case... if my art has degenerated to an uncaring, self-serving, out-of-control addiction, if ponies have to DIE because I had to paint a picture in the sky, then to hell with it!”

A faint twinge: But... but... all your ideas...!

Rarity waited for her cloud to recharge with more energy, and then stomped an extra-thick bolt out, by bouncing with on all four hooves.

“Let me tell you something else, you arrogant art snob, there are a lot more ponies in that town than all my thoroughly justified critics! There’s Spike! Fluttershy and the Cake family! There’s Applejack and... and her father, Magnum and her mother, Pearl... and little Sweetie Belle, that sweet, precious dear...”

For the oddest reason, Rarity felt heavy with emotion at the thought of Applejack’s family.

“If any of them gets hurt, that’s it for you! I’ll live on the ground like a proper unicorn! I’ll not form another cloud platform again! I’ll live as an artless, humdrum workaday boor for all the rest of my life! I’ll suffer through the withdrawal with a smile! If my art harms others, then it’s not not worth being loyal to! I need to give of myself! Be generous! So you can just LEAVE!”

She felt a funny lightening on her flank, and turned to see her Rainbow Mark fade a little. As though it were paint being washed off. For a moment she was sure that this would be for the best.

All of us love you just as you are, Rarity. We all want you to be happy in your own skin.

“Then again, perhaps it’d be far too drastic to do away with such an important part of who I am. After all, to lose my cutie mark would be just as bad as chopping off my horn!”

The cutie mark solidified back, almost tentatively. Rarity was glad; she'd always liked the look of it! Beneath her, the glufferflork crawled on towards Ponyville. She smiled gently at her Rainbow Mark.

“You want me to do something artistic? Help me recreate a masterpiece that’ll REALLY wow the crowd,” she told her mark. “Help me make the Diamond Hailstorm again. Let’s show everypony what my art is truly worth!”

* * *

CLANG! CLONG! CLANG! CLONG! CLANG! CLONG! CLANG!

It was approaching nine in the evening at this point in time. More than a few members of Ponyville’s population had fallen asleep. Or at least they had been before somepony had decided to ring the bell at Town Hall, up in its high bell tower as OBNOXIOUSLY AS POSSIBLE and NOT STOP, as though that DAMNED BELL was guaranteed to WAKE EVERYPONY’S DEARLY DEPARTED LOVED ONES if somepony RANG IT HARD ENOUGH!!! So it wasn’t long at all before many ponies — infuriated, grouchy, drowsy, alarmed, and even simply curious in turn — gathered around the bell tower to see what all the ruckus was about.

There they found Rainbow Dash. Naturalist. Unlicensed veterinarian. Animal caretaker, animal trainer, and even an animal diplomat who helped negotiate deals and smooth out misunderstandings between ponies and beasts of the wilds. Poor flier. Skittish, unassertive, and typically wrong-footed around her fellow ponies. Frequent apologizer. Avoider of conflicts. Laughably easy to scare. Thoroughly peaceable and good-natured. The Bearer of the Element of Kindness.

Tonight, she’d flown right up to the huge clangorous bell, bucking the thing back and forth with such fast and vehement fury, one would think she meant to pulverize it. Even when she had a sizable crowd gathered, Dash didn’t quit until another pegasus flew up and yanked her away.

“Oh!” Rainbow Dash said, looking down at the other ponies. “Good, you’re here.”

“We certainly are,” agreed Mayor Mare, peevish and still with her nightcap on. “You’d better have a very good reason for disturbing the peace this way.”

The Mayor tried her own version of The Stare on Dash, who was not impressed.

“How about a MONSTER RAMPAGE?! That a good enough reason for you all?”

Dash had expected a much bigger reaction than them looking at each other in confusion, as if silently asking each other: Do YOU have any idea what she’s talking about?

“I’m sorry, Rainbow... ‘monster rampage,’ you say?” The Mayor questioned after a sleepy yawn.

“Yes! A huge acid slime beast is coming from the Everfree Forest... from the direction of my cottage! And it’s out for blood!”

The majority of the crowd traded glances, some skeptical, some nervous.

“Couldn’t we send... whats-her-name... Twilight Sparkle, to check this out, Mayor?” somepony asked.

“Twilight’s already trying to help!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “Rarity and Pinkie Pie and Lyra too! You could all help her out a LOT by... I dunno, taking cover... evacuating, setting up a barricade, SOMETHING!”

“No offense, but couldn’t YOU do something about this?” some Earth pony asked. “I mean, you ARE the big animal expert here...”

“Probably some pet of hers gone out of control!” said the pegasus mare next to her. This comment was followed by some wry looks and even snickers, especially from ponies who’d used to bring their pets to her cottage.

“Rainbow Dash, is this true?” asked the Mayor. “This monster... IS it a pet of yours?”

On a normal day, Rainbow Dash would be doing her best to duck into a nonexistent shell, the way snails did. On a normal day, Rainbow Dash would actually be agreeing: yes, the glufferflork was a pet of her, yes, she was responsible, if only to get all those staring, judging eyes off her! But tonight, she didn’t give a flying feather about any of that. She felt anger begin to build, like it had at the Grand Galloping Gala. Then she gave a second look at the pegasus who’d accused her of keeping the glufferflork as a pet, and realized she knew this mare.

“Hi there, Jellyroll! Good to see you!” She took a broad step forward into the crowd towards the pegasus, speaking in the louder voice of an actress performing for a audience. Every pony went quiet in surprise while she grinned at Jellyroll.

“I see the rest of your family isn’t here!” Dash continued, in a would-be chummy voice. “Let me guess: you left them at home so they could catch up on more z’s, right?”

“Rainbow,” Jellyroll whispered, looking around self-consciously at the other ponies watching her. “I don’t know what your problem is, but leave m...”

“Not even an hour ago, my whole house was completely destroyed! It’s rubble! And I got to watch the acid monster that did it digest about twenty of my animals! Do you know what that’s like, Jellyroll? It’s like watching an antacid drop into water... only inside of an antacid, you’re watching your little loved ones’ skin and muscle dissolve in a flurry of blood, leaving only a charred, pitted skeleton behind!”

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

They all jumped at the sound of thunderclaps.

“We... we didn’t authorize a thunderstorm for tonight!” The Mayor insisted.

“No,” said Rainbow Dash, more calmly. “That’s most likely Rarity, fighting the monster off.” And as the thunderclaps continued, she turned back to Jellyroll. “Anyway, I’m pretty your house lies right in the slime monster’s path, Jellyroll. Shame about that.”

“My FAMILY!” Jellyroll shrieked, shooting off towards her home.

“So, Mayor,” Dash said, casually turning to the older Earth pony. “I’m sure you must have some kind of contingency plan in place for a matter like this. If so, I’d know we’d all love to hear it!”

* * *

Empty!

EMPTY!

All the huge meat-containing hives things were EMPTY! It was like dissolving through giant walnut shells to find no actual walnuts within! (And the glufferflork had eaten through its share of walnut trees.)

Hives weren’t delicious! Wood and brick and paint and nails and screws were all yucky to absorb! The glufferflork hungered for more four-legged runny things! Where were they?! It starved to liquify them! Blood and muscle and eyeballs were unbelievably scrummy! Not to mention the only way to replace the catalyst it'd burned off to flee its attackers. But the most it got were scuttling little beetles and centipedes and spiders and the occasional nest of rats in the corners and the walls of the hives! Not enough, not enough! Not NEARLY enough! Too tiny! Hunger too huge!

Scent and body warmth of hoofed-meat was fresh, but hoofed-meat was gone! Like chicken-hive things with no chickens! Pig-hive things with no pigs!

NOOOOOOO FAAAAAAIIRRRR!!!!

The glufferflork was SO HUGE, and it was already angry and furious enough with all the four-legged running things! Especially the four-leggers with hooves! It thought it'd hit the mother lode, a hive full of animals whose only protector was a flying four-legger that was batted easily aside. Then to its eternal frustration, the flying four-legger returned with more, and they’d flung so much burny-burn and shocky-shock at it!

But then IT had arrived. The glufferflork remembered its scent all to well, the one that had dumped that foul, denaturing fluid on it, then worse, set it ablaze, making its denatured tissue burn! The agony had been unbelievable! The glufferflork wanted nothing more than to strike it down and consume its sweet flesh... but now it had some new horror that made its tissues burn without fire-burn or even explodey-splode! The four-leggers were intolerable! They had hurt the glufferflork! It wanted to eat them ALL! That was why it had grown itself tall eating all the tasting-bad trees on the way here! Where were they?!

Worst of all, the shocky-shock stuff from Up Above kept hitting and hitting it as it schlurfed towards the hoofy-hooves’ hive! Like the hoofy-hooves did, throwing their burny-burn stuff from earlier! Ow! It hurt and made the glufferflork more hungry-mad! It swung out with its pseudopodia, but the shocky-shock maker was too Up Above!

HateHateHateHATEHATEHATE!

But then, somethings new entered its gluffy-florky body. Coldy-sharp things! They didn’t hurt, but his senses quickly informed him that it was ice. That made no sense, it was nowhere near winter, he'd have long ago gone hibernating underground if it were, and he was nowhere near a mountain peak. He couldn't dissolve it, so he moved to disgorge it, only for tens- hundreds, THOUSANDS to replace it! They made it feel so coldy-sick!

Uggggghhhh....! Coldy-sick BAD STUFF! He could feel his tissues start to thicken and grind as they started to solidify. There were so many of them! And it was so hard to thinky-think with them dissolving inside it!

Had winter come early?

* * *

The skies granted an unusual sight, clouds from all around Ponyville zooming towards the city, clumping together into a single mass, taking shape beneath an astonishingly bright full moon, inflating into sharp angles, filling out a very definite four-sided shape.

“That looks like a diamond!” said Lyra, looking up with Lero into the sky.

“I know, but... how's that possible? She can't...” He trailed off. They were all still running towards Ponyville, towards Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and the glufferflork. If Lero had been running as well, instead of riding on Lyra’s back, he would’ve stopped short in shock.

“Is it just me, or has it gotten a bit colder as well, all of a sudden?” Lyra then asked.

“But it’s just a cover story!” Lero said, still staring at the diamond cloud. “Just a cover story, nothing more!”

“Doesn't look like it to me...” Lyra said with a touch of wonder.

From the moment Rarity had flown off, up until this point, he’d been terrified for Rarity’s sanity. Now he was beginning to feel a touch of nervousness for his own. Seeing this diamond-shaped cloud... reality and fantasy were melding together in a way God had never intended. It was like watching live fairies pop out straight from the pages of the Brothers Grimm, and then act perplexed when he told them they were just myths with no proper right to exist.

What was real anymore? What wasn’t? Was he living on the right world?

Calm down! He told himself. So what if Rarity made a diamond-shaped cloud? She twists clouds into any shapes she pleases, like clay! It’s not like she can make them make ice and rainbows! It’s nighttime, after all! Don’t you need sunlight for rainbows?!

The forward tip of the diamond cloud pointed downward like the barrel of an airship’s cannon. And then shortly thereafter, Lero, Lyra, and all the rest of Ponyville discovered how amazing rainbows made of silvery moonlight looked.

* * *

Had the glufferflork been a solid creature of flesh and bone, its cause of death would’ve been the scores of puncture wounds that would’ve rendered it into a raw, bloody pincushion.

Being a liquid creature of acid, punctures in and of themselves were no concern to it. A thousand archers could’ve shot ten thousand arrows into its body, and the glufferflork would’ve happily dissolved each one within itself, and grown all the bigger from it. It could’ve been sliced apart with a titanic axe, and simply reformed as easily as a dollop of vinegar split by the side of a salad fork.

But icicles were a slightly different matter. When icicles entered into a large body of acid, they were not easily absorbed. Even worse, the ice rapidly cooled the acid, rendering it sluggish, and then immobile. Worse, the glufferflork depended on its liquid state to even think clearly. And the Diamond Hailstorm cloud was firing its icicles into the glufferflork like bullets from a chain gun.

In all forthright truth, there were a number of more efficient spells that a weather-focused unicorn like Rarity could have deployed against the glufferflork.. Which was not to say that the Diamond Hailstorm didn’t do its intended job.

Its slimy life ended in what amounted to a death by ten thousand paper cuts: an icicle’s worth of cold at a time. In the end, Rarity almost might as well have flung it in the middle of the South Pole. By the time she was through with it, the glufferflork was nothing more than a solid mass of frozen white acid: a monstercicle. Less corrosive than orange juice, unless some fool decided to melt it.

* * *

Lero saw all the icy projectiles... all the rainbows in the night sky and touched the feather braided in his hair, reaffirming that it WAS a feather, and not a white rose. More than ever before, Lero could empathize with Twilight, back when she’d worried they’d stepped into an alternate universe. (A friendly alternate universe, at least, instead of some comic book Equestria where everypony was their own bizarro-evil twin.) He felt like writing to Celestia just to get a fresh look at some of their stuff she’d hidden away for them in that vault of hers.

“Moonbows,” he heard Twilight whisper, as she looked at the sky. “I remember! That’s what you call rainbows when they happen at night!”

They stepped into the borders of Ponyville, an unseasonable light coat of snow and ice covered most of the city. Gem-like ice crystals perched near perfectly atop houses and other structures, casting moon-rainbows all over the city. It was like Hearth's Warming Eve come early. As they looked about in wonder, Apple Bloom and Pinkie caught up, likewise caught in awe of their surroundings. However, the moment was broken as they found themselves stepping around more partially-dissolved pony homes.

“How many ponies d’ya think it ate?” asked Apple Bloom, tentatively.

“Zero,” said Rarity, who was just around the corner.

At first, it looked like she’d conjured a gigantic statue, about as big as the slime monster had been! Then, when they looked closer, they saw that it was an ice sculpture. However, the ice wasn't clear, rather a familiar semi-translucent white.

“Is that the glufferflork?!” asked Pinkie Pie, staring at the cloudy waxen whiteness of the ice.

“Yes,” said Rarity, finally hopping off her cloud platform. “I froze it like this, just in case it decided to come back to life.”

“Any particular reason why you made it into Princess Celestia?” asked Lero, coming over to her side.

The ice sculpture showed Celestia at her gentlest, looking nothing more like a proud mother smiling down at a truly good daughter.

“Thoughts of the past,” said Rarity. When the others gave her puzzled looks, she explained; “I remember what Princess Celestia told me, long ago, the first time we met, about needing to tame my abilities. Maybe... just maybe, I’ve finally really did it, after all these years.”

She turned around, looking at her cutie mark. But Lero saw that it was not the fearful look of a slave at gunpoint, as he'd seen in so many of the Swapped before. It was a fond look, like that a high school graduate gives her new diploma.

In the distance, they could hear the beat of wings and the nervous clip-clop of pony hooves on the road. The townsfolk were coming back. Anxious about whether the monster had been bested. Curious about the statue. Looking to Rarity for answers.

On another day, Rarity might have been hesitant to face the neighbors whom she had inconvenienced and startled and vexed with her weeks of weird weather. Her guilty conscience might have left her unable to meet any of their eyes, might have urged her quick to move along elsewhere, away from these ponies with whom she could do no right.

Today appears to be a new day, though. Lero thought.

“All’s well, folks!” Pinkie called out to the crowd. “Rarity’s done made a popsicle out of the flork!”

Some of the ponies looked happy and pleased with the white unicorn, delighted she’d gotten rid of it. Others regarded her with dislike, even suspicion, as though Rarity had brought the glufferflork to Ponyville, herself.

And now she’s able to look upon them evenly, as an equal, without resentment or fear. Lero realized.

Fluttershy flew up from the center of the crowd, grinning goofily at the glufferflork statue. “Ice to see you safe and sound, Rarity! Way to treat that monster to a frosty reception! I mean, when it comes to giving evil slime creatures the cold shoulder, you really take the ice cream cake!”

“Fluttershy, darling,” Rarity said, while Lyra winced underneath Lero. “Could you please do me an important favor? I need you to go to Spike and have him write a letter to Celestia: we have a giant monster encased in ice. It may be alive or dead. Please advise. Can you do that for me, Fluttershy?”

“Huh? Oh... oh, yeah!” said the yellow pegasus, who then set off towards the Golden Oaks Library.

“Whooooooaaa!”

A second pegasus came up towards Rarity, stepping out from around the side of a building. She was much younger than Fluttershy. She approached the weathermare with a look of worshipful awe, as though Rarity had just punched a blazing Texas-sized meteor back into outer space.

“Hey, Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom called from Pinkie’s back.

“Hey, uh, Apple Bloom!” said the young Crusader. Smiling a bit guiltily at her friend, Scootaloo quickly turned back towards the white unicorn. “Rarity?”

“Yes, Scootaloo?”

“That was the COOLEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN! EVER!” The little pegasus filly bounced up and down like an excited puppy, her tiny wings flitting like a hummingbird’s. “IT’S BEYOND HARDCORE! Not even Lightning Dust can compete with that level of super-uber-incredibleness! I mean, that monster stood no chance against you! You just flew in, and RAT-TA-TAT-TA-TAT-TAT with the ice crystals!! And all these rainbows! How did you make the rainbows at night?!”

He could see that all the praise pleased Rarity greatly. Lero thought it very possible that the sudden breeze which made her mane and tail flap like a superhero’s cape might have been of her own making.

“Rainbows are my speciality, Scootaloo! Back when I was your age, it was rainbows that first set me on the path to where I am today!”

Somehow, hearing that put an unmistakable damper on the little filly’s mood. “Back when you were my age, huh? That’s... that’s good!”

“Scootaloo?” asked Apple Bloom. “What’s wrong?”

Scootaloo began backing away from their group. “Nothing! Nothing’s wrong! Thanks for saving the town! I... I gotta go, I have overdue library books!”

“I’ll say you do,” muttered Twilight Sparkle under her breath.

But before Scootaloo could scurry off, Rarity grabbed the little filly gently with telekinesis and floated her back in front of her.

“What’s wrong, Scootaloo?” asked Rarity.

“Yeah, Scoots! What’s up?” Apple Bloom chimed in, hopping off Pinkie Pie’s back. “It’s clear something’s eatin’ ya!”

The little pegasus filly almost tried to pull away from the telekinesis, but looked around at all the powerful mares surrounding her, and her body sagged where Rarity held it levitated. “I... I really don’t want to say... okay? Please, it’s REALLY selfish of me...”

“We’re not here ta judge ya, Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom said.

“I can never do what you just did!” The pegasus filly cried out, staring sadly at Rarity, as she lowered her to the ground. “I want to be just like you! As awesome as you! But I can’t do magic! I’ve tried doing so many things, and I can’t do ANYTHING right! I don’t even have a cutie mark!”

For his part, Lero was tempted to tell her not to place so much stock in cutie marks, but he held himself back. Watching Apple Bloom go over and nuzzle her friend consolingly, watching Scootaloo hold back her tears and apologize again for being so selfish, he knew it was the wrong time for that sort of thing.

“You think I’m ‘awesome’ because of what I’m able to do with weather, right?” Rarity asked.

Scootaloo nodded.

“Well, I can tell you this much, Scootaloo: it’s not BECAUSE I’m a unicorn that I’m good with weather. In fact... I’d go so far as to say I made myself a weathermare in SPITE of being a unicorn.” Rarity said, “When all’s said and done, weather will always be the domain of the pegasi, not unicorns. And you’re a pegasus, my dear. If you have love for the craft, if your passion is pure... there’s no reason you can‘t be as good at weather as me.”

“Yeah right!” said Scootaloo, disheartened. “I’m not even that good of a pegasus.”

The unicorn weathermare looked the little filly up and down. “I’ll tell you what, Scootaloo... you know that I live at the library with Twilight Sparkle and Spike, right? Why don’t you stop on by my place tomorrow at four in the afternoon and I’ll show you some weather tricks I know?”

“Really?!” Scootaloo shared an excited look with Apple Bloom. “You mean it? You’d train me?!”

Rarity smiled. “I’ll teach you what I know... and who knows? Maybe between one thing and another... we’ll be able to find your own unique way of being cool!”

And as Scootaloo skipped and flittered around Rarity, going on about how awesome she was... as all the older mares and Lero, himself, smiled at the little pegasus filly and each other, Lero found himself whispering under his breath,

“Two down, three to go.”

Which surprised him. Technically, it was far too early to say any such thing. Logically, Lero knew he ought to not jump to overoptimistic conclusions, to wait a while and watch whether Rarity had kicked her artistic weather habit, or at least gotten it under control. And he had every intention of doing just that over the coming days. Surely, it wasn’t possible for a Swapped pony to reach equilibrium entirely on her own, was it?

Yet as watched the gentle smile, the look of an accomplished girl in control of herself, Lero’s heart insisted all the stronger than everything was going to be okay with Rarity.

“Hey, has anybody seen Rainbow Dash?” Lyra suddenly asked, looking around.

Author's Note

I hope you all enjoyed this one. If you all don't mind, I'd like to ask a special favor, of you, my readers.

On my TV Tropes Page, I'm trying to build up some of my most noteworthy moments for...

My Nightmare Fuel Page...
My Funny Moments Page...
My Heartwarming Moments Page...
My Awesome Moments Page...
And my Tearjerker Page.

I put in a moment for each page, just to bring them into existence. I would've added more, but to quote a very wise man, "there's a name for that sort of behaviour and frankly the hairy palms are unsightly."

So I'd rather ask all of you: what were some of the most outstanding moments throughout Divided Rainbow? If you could, list them in the comments box, (or add them right into the proper page, itself, if you're a troper,) and I'll add it in. I'm hoping by doing this, I can attract even more readers to this story from TV Tropes.

This isn't just restricted to now, either. From here on out, now, until this story reaches its end, if some part of this story really leaves an impression on, just say what it is, say it deserves special mention on the TV Tropes page, and I'll gladly add it in.

And please stay tuned for 19! It's another BIGGIE.