The evening after Lero and his mares spent together aboard the Cirrus... Lero had head downstairs to work on breakfast, while Rarity had headed over to the Weather HQ to give some last-minute instructions she’d forgotten, and Rainbow had left to prepare for the Wonderbolts Academy. Twilight and Lyra, on the other hand, found themselves awoken from sleeping in by a certain purple Drake, having apparently gotten the news from Lero. “So. We’re gonna get married. You girls are becoming ‘wives’ and Lero’s becoming a ‘husband.’ What about me? What do I get to become, once we’re all married?”

“Our little scaly son.” Lyra answered, as they headed to his room to talk, to ensure a bit more privacy.

Spike half-grinned. “So basically, things pretty much stay the same for me, personally.”

“Pretty much,” agreed Twilight. “ If Lyra, Dash, Rarity, or Lero were of noble families, and you were female, inheritance issues might crop up…” Twilight suddenly blanched. “I, uh, on that note, I should probably file the proper forms to officially make you my son.”

“Wait... I’m not officially adopted by you!?” Spike exclaimed.

“You were born a ward of the state." Twilight explained. "Your egg was the property of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, remember? And when I was made your caretaker, I was too young to adopt you...and, I, uh, never corrected that oversight since It didn’t occur to me until just now. Realistically, it’s not much of a problem, since technically, Celestia is your legal guardian, I’d just rather not have it up in the air in case the worst happens. But as it is, you’ll still be part of our family, though you won’t be affected by our marriage. It’s kind of an ‘adults only’ thing.”

“It’s just as well,” said Spike, “I’m saving myself for Applejack, anyway.”

Lyra’s laughter at that sounded weak.

“Maybe... I ought to research more about weddings,” Spike yawned, stretching himself out. “The only marriage I’ve ever really seen was Shining Armor and Princess Cadence’s. Twilight, do you think you could recommend some books?”

“I’ll look into it,” she told him. “Though I’m not entirely certain Applejack would go for marriage… as she’s not part of a noble family where it’d be needed.”

“She might go for it for the romantic charm, like Rarity did.” Lero pointed out.

“True. Though I’m from a noble family, so my parents would insist we go through with it eventually, anyhow. As for our fashionista friend, I guess it depends on which half of her wins out on the issue. Rarity would definitely want to, but AJ would probably see it as a silly waste of time, money, and effort to reaffirm something that should be self-evident.” Twilight shrugged. Lyra looked discomfited, scuffing the sides of her hooves together.

“You know, Twilight, part of me’s still in shock that we went ahead and did this,” Lyra said quietly. “Went ahead and let Rarity sweet-talk us into getting engaged. Especially after everything Princess Celestia had said.”

“What else could we have done?” Twilight asked, her smile having vanished.

“We could’ve delayed,” Lyra contended. “Found some excuse…”

“No.” It wasn’t a yell. They all knew better than to be yelling about something like this. But it was firm and insistent. “We’ve been over this already, Lyra. You have to consider how Rarity thinks of us, as a herd with herself in it. Both the made-up history that the Swapped have in their heads of us, pre-Swap… and the real-life one we entered into, after the Swap happened and Rarity began living with us. We’ve always loved each other. Immensely. Backing off now would be unbelievable to her. And we’d be stuck with the same problems we had before going along with her being in the herd.”

“We had one small awkward period where some of us were ‘standoffish’ around Rarity in the beginning,” Spike reminded them.

‘“Exactly, and we all saw how distressed that made her. Since then, we’ve held nothing back in terms of love. So answer me this: why wouldn’t we all be just as eager as Rarity to bring our relationship to the next step? There’s just no logical or emotional justification! Anything we might try to say would just upset Rarity and Rainbow Dash! And it could even raise too many questions we just don’t need them asking! So for the sake of everyone’s sanity, it’s really better this way.”

Not one of them could look either of the other two in the eye.

“Well, at least she’s terrific to live with,” Lyra said. “And we’ll be guaranteed to have a stylish marriage.”

Lumps rose in Twilight’s throat. “Yes and no,” she said.

Lyra and Spike both looked up at her. “What that’s supposed to mean, ‘yes and no?’ Either we’re having a wedding or we aren’t!”

“Well, a lot goes into weddings. Especially the first-class sort of perfect fairytale wedding which Rarity’s gonna want. So I… made a little bargain with myself.” Twilight began to explain. “If I discover the cure before the wedding, I will use it on Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and the other three. If I discover the cure after we’re married… then I keep all five of them Swapped, and use the Soul Synthesis to make it permanent and stable. Because once we’ve wed, then I’ll have made a sacred vow. ‘For as long as we all shall live.’”

“Til death do us part.’” Spike spoke up. “Pretty sure Lero said that’s how humans put it, anyway.”

After a long breath, Lyra said, “Well, that’s… a plan for going forward. I can get behind that.” Spike was also nodding. “Though I have to ask, haven’t we already made a vow? I mean, this engagement we’ve all entered into… haven’t we already promised ourselves to each other?”

“Lyra,” snapped Twilight sharply, “An engagement is a non-binding agreement to enter into the legally binding contract of marriage. There’s a time and a place for semantics, and this isn’t it!”

“‘Semantics’?” Lyra Heartstrings repeated in an incredulously.

But that conversation could continue, they all heard hoof-steps on the floor outside, and put on quiet smiles as Rarity opened the door.

“So!” the white unicorn said, facing Spike as she stepped in. “Did they tell you the big news?”

“They sure did!” Spike answered.

“Well? What do you think?”

Hopping off his bed, Spike came over and gave Rarity a big hug. “I’m super-excited, Rarity! Not every herd takes this step.”

“Well, we’re certainly not ‘every herd!’”

“No! We sure aren’t! Bet it was a real hard sell, getting Lero to say ‘yes’ to you!” Spike teased, with a little poke to her front.

Rarity laughed. “Oh, yes, it was quite the debate! We spent hours weighing the pros and cons of marriage… waffling back and forth, overcoming skepticism…”

“So what happens now?” Spike asked.

“I’m glad you asked!” Then Rarity floated in what looked to be a newly-bought notebook. “There’s a lot we’ll need to do over the coming months, but I thought we could make a good first step by starting off on our guest list.”

Twilight made a hesitating noise. “I dunno… is this really the best time for this? I need to get some research done for the princess, maybe later tonight…”

“But… we’re all here together, and I have to work a late shift,” said Rarity. “Please? Can’t it wait just a little while, Sparkle-kitten?”

Rarity’s loving eyes were so pleading. This all meant so much to her, bless her heart…

“I guess it can, Rare Bear,” answered Twilight.

Smiling, Rarity hunkered down on the floor of Spike’s bedroom and opened her notebook to its first blank page. Twilight felt absurdly younger, somehow, as she also knelt down with Lyra and Spike. Almost as though she were at a sleepover with her friends, making a list of the cutest colts in school.

“Here! I’ll do the note-taking,” Spike offered, taking the notebook.

“Very first ones on the list should definitely be our other Element Bearing friends,” said Twilight.

“Applejack… Fluttershy… Pinkie Pie,” murmured Spike, as he wrote them all in.

“Oh! And I’ll definitely want to have all of my parents attending,” Twilight added.

“Definitely Bon-Bon and her mom!” added Lyra. “Her whole family, really.”

“I suppose that I’ll need to invite my father for this,” Rarity said, somewhat reluctantly. “Let’s hope he can behave himself and not say anything too offensive…”

“Don’t forget Shining Armor and Cadence!” said Spike, struggling to keep up with everypony’s ideas.

* * *

The cadet uniform felt a little bizarre and strange on Rainbow Dash’s body. Part of her wanted to call it ‘constrictive,’ which was what all clothing ultimately felt to her, by default. Except that when Rainbow had a chance to actually fly around in this, she couldn’t deny that it did precisely what everypony insisted: it made her more aerodynamic. She’d cut through the air like a hot knife through butter. To think that flattening your fur against the sides of your body could actually make you fly faster!

Even so, it had taken a while for Rainbow Dash to stop looking at herself when she had this thing on and seeing a silly filly in a Nightmare Night costume. The other Academy cadets certainly weren’t just playing dress-up at a fan convention. They could all really fly!

There was Bulk Biceps, who had gone above and beyond to develop his body past the peak of physical perfection. Whitewash, who could bring himself to a midair stop smoother than any other cadet here. Sunshower Raindrops was terrific with loop-de-loops. Thunderlane could fly upside-down. Lime Jelly was one of the quickest at learning new moves. Sightseer was great at inventing new stunts.

And Rainbow, herself?

“Hey. everypony!” called out Sightseer. “Look alive! The Superpony’s back among us!”

And several of her classmates called out to her as she flew onto the field.

“How’s it goin’, champ?” asked Thunderlane.

“Awesome work, yesterday!” said Whitewash. “What’s your secret?”

“The Dashsta’s in da HOUSE!” Lime Jelly crowed, like some rapper.

“YEEEEEAAAHH!” bellowed Bulk Biceps.

“Er… thanks, guys.” Outwardly, Rainbow was all big grins and polite little laughter. Inwardly, she was groaning. Again, they were putting her in the spotlight! It was almost like Photo Finish all over again. If there was one thing Rainbow Dash couldn’t stand, it was having loads of attention thrust upon her. Thankfully, the crowds weren’t as large, and none of them were flashing photos in her face. But even that, there was something else that made it almost as uncomfortable. A ‘something else’ named Lightning Dust, glaring at her from afar with those poison-filled eyes of hers.

Thankfully, her classmates’ interest in her dissolved once they all got started with their warm-up exercises. Back bends, shoulder rolls, wing rotations… and frankly, it still amazed Rainbow how nice it felt to be stretching herself. Because she couldn’t remember enjoying gym exercises this much back in her school days.

Soon enough, Spitfire entered with a blow of her whistle... flanked, as always, by her two assistant instructors, Rapid Fire and Fleetfoot, whose wings looked especially well-groomed today. All of them hustled into a straight, smart line, and Spitfire started the morning peering narrow-eyed at every pony she passed.

“I was startin’ to see some slacking off from you sorry lot, the other day,” she began, pacing up and down the line. “Not gonna name names today. But you know who you are, and you’d better believe I know who you are too!”

Rainbow caught sight of quite a few ponies gulping. She, herself, could barely keep her knees from knocking. There was a lot about Spitfire she liked, but why did she have to be loud and bossy and critical everytime she taught? Didn’t she realize how intimidating she appeared to all her students? It almost felt like she was a different person when she was instructing. It was all Rainbow Dash could do to not cringe away.

After Spitfire was done spooking the dickens out of everypony, it was the usual five hundred laps around the track. That sounded like the sort of thing that should’ve been tortuous, but it wasn’t. Honest to goodness, it wasn’t! Rainbow found that flying came to her… more naturally than ever, now. She didn’t know why she used to think she was bad at it.

“Heh…” gasped Lime Jelly. “You breezed through that like it was nothing, Rainbow!”

Rainbow smiled, slightly guiltily. “Heh, yeah… Guess I’m a natural?” She said, bashfully.

As Spitfire blew her whistle again, Lime looked at Rainbow again. “Well… you ready to get down to business, partner?”

“I think so!” said Rainbow.

When Rainbow Dash had first joined this class, Spitfire had determined she’d be one of the wingponies. And boy, was Rainbow grateful for that! Being a lead pony would’ve meant way too much pressure. And on top of it, she’d been partnered up with such a nice, friendly mare like Lime Jelly, who was always happy to show her the ropes!

Together, the two of them moved onto some of the other old Academy favorites. Zigzagging around floating flagpoles. Practicing synchronized flight formations. Sharp downward dives. Sharp upward liftoffs.

“Rainbow Dash, Rainbow Dash,” chanted the taunting school-foals in Rainbow’s memories, “Rainbow Dash can only crash…”

How WONDERFUL it felt showing all those dumb no-nothing elementary school meanies that actually, Rainbow Dash could do a HECK of a lot more than crash! This stuff wasn’t just easy, it was invigorating! The burn of exertion on her lungs and wings! The wind whooshing through her mane as she maintained these incredible speeds!

It was just like discovering true love all over again. Flying here at this academy really was like when she’d first came to love Lero and the others: like uncovering some new, unexplored side of herself. Rainbow would never have thought she could’ve flown so fast and with such precision any more than she once thought she could have ever loved other ponies passionately and cherish being in their herd. Yet here she was; once again happy to have been so wrong about herself.

“Corkscrew for two hundred laps!” Spitfire would bark to them all, and Rainbow Dash would do it. “I wanna see you all volplane left!” She’d shout, and Rainbow would be volplaning, right with the best of them.

Sometimes, her skills were almost scary. Absolutely everypony was aware that she had been welcomed into this class mid-semester, and yet she was always able to keep up with the best of them! Her classmates always had their eyes on her.

“You’ve just GOT to do badly at SOMETHING, at SOME point,” Lime Jelly had put it best to her, one morning, in the locker room.

“Do they want me to fail?” Rainbow had asked Lime, with drooping ears.

“No, no, no!” Lime had laughed. “They’re just amazed, is all. Keep this up, and you’ll really make the history books: Rainbow Dash, the Super-bolt from outta the blue. ”

At times like this, Rainbow Dash had to remind herself that everypony else really meant well at heart when they called her things like ‘Super-bolt’ and ‘uber-filly,’ and ‘wunderkind’ and stuff like that… they weren’t trying to make her uncomfortable. Though she was just as amazed as the rest of them. It was enough to make her wonder whether Lyra might’ve used the zero state connection to insert these abilities into her, along with all those martial arts. But that didn’t make sense, right? She already knew how to fly. Or maybe Lyra could take anypony’s skills and put them in her head? She needed to have a talk with that mare about it at some point. But who would she have gotten super-flying skills to insert from?

Of course, not everypony here was so welcoming. Even when keeping perfectly silent, even when keeping a wide distance from the crowd, Rainbow Dash could still see the anger simmering on Lightning Dust’s face.

Lightning seriously creeped Rainbow out. She wasn’t just a jerk, she wasn’t just a bully. Under Lightning’s eyes, Rainbow felt — weirdly enough — like some delinquent filly being watched by an angry teacher during detention. Like a slimeball being watched by some suspicious cop… a would-be shoplifter always edging a little too close to the stealable valuables. It wouldn’t be entirely honest to say that Lightning Dust was watching her at all times when they were at practice together. The teachers kept them all pretty busy with drills and such, allowing Lightning to indulge in her all-time favorite activities: learning tricks and showing off.

But it was every class. And Lightning was willing to do more than just observe silently. In the past, she’d insulted Rainbow Dash behind her back. She’d also insulted her straight to her face. Once, Lightning Dust had straight-out attempted to drive Rainbow Dash off with a physical assault as she was flying home from the academy. Only once, because after Rainbow had struck Lightning with a few of her hardest-hitting Lightning Strike moves… “twice” had never come.

But the next day, Lightning had begun challenging her to races. Risky, potentially dangerous races. Anytime Dash refused to race, Lightning would harass her, and call her a “chicken” and “unworthy of being a Wonderbolt” and many other things to anyone who would listen. A few times, Dash had tried letting Lightning win… but Lightning would always see through this, and turn even louder and angrier. But the few times when Rainbow lost honestly, Lightning would turn insufferable; crowing like a rooster to her and everyone else, making sure everypony knew how badly she’d lost. Dash’s only recourse was to win her races with Lightning Dust. It was the only way to make Lightning slink away. Sometimes, she’d even not look at Dash for a couple days after a really good win. Looking over at Lightning now, Rainbow wondered where they’d be racing today.

“Rainbow Dash!”

Spitfire had landed right next to her. Bristling. The tight, close-lipped outrage in her eyes was enough to make the pegasus wish she had all her friends to hide behind.

“My office. Now.”

As she followed the Wonderbolt. Rainbow Dash caught sight of Lightning Dust… and how big her grin stretched.

* * *

Awards, medals, magazine covers, posters, even a few advertisements… they all covered the walls of Spitfire’s office. Rainbow Dash felt boxed in and pressed down by all the signs of glory and greatness surrounding her. Considering what kind of training they all went through as cadets, Spitfire must’ve really gone above and beyond to make it to this level.

The mare, herself, went behind her desk. “Have a seat.” Rainbow could very clearly tell from the tone that it was an order, not a request.

Rainbow sat in a hurry. Gravity suddenly felt heavier on her body. Especially around the shoulders.

Spitfire pushed her shades down a little, so that she was staring at Rainbow over the top of the rims. “Let’s talk.”

“Uh… sure thing!” said Rainbow Dash, feeling more and more like a dangerous pathogen under a microscope. “What sort of things would you like to talk about?”

Spitfire stared at her for several seconds, letting out a sigh, taking off her glasses, carefully folding them, putting them in her instructor uniform’s pocket. “There’s two ways to play this, cadet. You can volunteer information, point out the other ponies involved, and if you’re very lucky, you might get out of this with just a serious demerit.” She said that last part in such a way that it was clear she didn't want to be unlucky. Which was making Dash increasingly nervous as she had no idea what Spitfire was talking about. “I don’t think this sort of thing is something you’d do yourself. This feels more like something you were forced into. So I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt.” She lets that hang in the air for several moments.

“Now.” She said slowly. “Is there anything you want to tell me about?”

Rainbow trembled, trying her hardest to control her voice. “W-wh-what’s th-th-this a-about, M-Ma’am?” she managed to stammer, her voice cracking and squeaking at several points.

“Your locker.”

“W-what about it?” she blinked. “Is… Is it okay!? D-did something happen to it?”

“What sort of stuff do you keep in your locker?” Spitfire questioned.

Rainbow was completely lost. “Uh, um… my wallet! Er, The keys to my house? Toiletries for cleaning myself up after practice…?” It was a slim hope, but maybe that was what she was looking for?

Spitfire slammed a hoof down on her desk, ending Rainbow’s guesses. She saw a flash of disappointment before anger replaced it. “How about speed potions!?” she growled, pointedly.

What. “Speed potions?”

“Yes. Speed potions.” Spitfire almost hissed.

What. “What.”

It took a moment, but the Wonderbolt regained her composure. The Wonderbolt opened a desk drawer, brought out a folded piece of paper.

“We recently received a note, an anonymous tip-off, saying that you were bringing speed potions into your locker and drinking them before coming to practice. “

“What? What?!” Rainbow was incredulous and aghast. “That’s crazy!”

Although Spitfire pushed the note forward across her desk ”Read it yourself.” Rainbow shook her head. She couldn’t bring herself to so much as touch such libel.

Spitfire shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She gave Rainbow an evaluating look. “You’ve got Twilight Sparkle for a herdsister, don’t you?” asked the Wonderbolt. “Heard she’s no slouch when it comes to the magical sciences.”

Spitfire was accusing Twilight of making speed potions?! “Twilight didn’t!” Rainbow insisted, all stammering and hesitation vanishing the moment it came to defending someone she loved “She wouldn’t! Twilight would never...”

“Then save yourself some grease and name someone!” Spitfire snapped back

Rainbow boggled. “I can’t, because there isn’t anyone!”

Spitfire rubbed her forehead. “Dash…. You’re not making this easy on yourself. I’m not doing this for fun. You understand why I have to look into this, right? It’s a very serious charge. The integrity of the Wonderbolts is on the line. Us Wonderbolts take pride in having built ourselves up to the highest heights of stunt flying entirely on one hundred percent A-plus-grade pegasus talent and pegasus training. And that means we’re zero percent the result of magical enhancements! No potions, no spells, no mystic trinkets, nothing! I know we invited you into our ranks, and whatever you did on your own time is your own business, but once you agreed to join, you swore an oath to uphold our standards, and illegal magical enhancements are definitely not in line with that!”

Spitfire realized she’d leaned forward over her desk as she spoke. She paused, straightened herself, and leaned backward, sitting straight. “So, Rainbow, I want you to be honest with me now. If you’re honest, I can promise things will go much easier for you. Are you or are you not taking speed potions? “

“No.” Rainbow said flatly.

After letting that hang in the air a moment, Spite intoned “No?” Disbelievingly.

“No!” Part of Rainbow was getting angry at this. She knew that Spitfire was giving her chances to admit her wrongdoing, so she could go easier on her, but she didn’t have any wrongdoing to admit! She rose a hoof. “I swear on Celestial and my herd that I am not taking magical enhancers.”

Spitfire paused, looking closely at Dash, before reaching into the same drawer, bringing out a photograph, sliding it in front of Dash. “We also got this with the tip.”

The photograph showed two flasks sitting at the bottom of an otherwise-empty locker, in the girl cadets’ locker room. One was filled completely with bright indigo liquid. The other was only about one-eleventh full of bright indigo liquid… mixed with what looked to be extremely frothy backwash.

“Is that your locker, Rainbow Dash?” Spitfire asked sternly.

“I don’t know,” Dash shrugged.

“You don’t know?” Spitfire asked, incredulous.

“No. I’m sorry, but how could I even tell?” asked Dash, agitated. “I can’t see the locker’s number in this picture, and outside of that, all the lockers look the same, and the shot doesn’t show enough of the locker room to figure out where it is to get an idea that way. That could be anypony’s locker!”

Spitfire blinked, looking back at the image, caught short. “I suppose so.” She said after a minute of examining the photo closely. At least Spitfire sounded honest when she said this; that she really was giving her the benefit of the doubt on this locker in the picture not being hers!

But Rainbow was still Somewhere in the middle of furious and panicking, feeling as if different parts of herself were fighting to express themselves. Part of her actually wanted to hit Spitfire in the face for accusing her — worse, accusing Twilight! — and another part of her wanted to run away, hide under her bed and never come out again. In a few more seconds, she would be sweating worse than she ever had at any practice drill. How could this have happened?! What was going on?! Could it even be possible that this really WAS her locker, in the picture? Could she have left it unlocked at some point? When? Who would have put those things inside it and why? What was going to happen to her? What would she do if she was found guilty of drinking speed potions? What would everyone say? That she needed to cheat to fly with the pros? How would she live with herself?! What would her family say? How could she deal with this?!

Her eyes fell upon the the photo, focusing on the flask which had been drunken from. The one with the bubbly backwash in it. She never left backwash in anything she drank. She never had drank any speed potions to begin with! None of this made any sense!

Wait…

“Um… I had a thought…” she said to Spitfire. “Well, if I’m supposedly the type of pony who needs to drink speed potions, then shouldn’t it still be in my body?”

Spitfire nodded and stood up. “Seems we’ve got the same idea. Now, privacy laws mean we can’t force you to take a test, but if you volunteer...”

Dash nodded fervently. “Yes, absolutely!”

Spitfire nodded, then she called out, past Rainbow Dash, in the direction of her office door. “Hey! You can come in now! We’re ready for you!”

The door opened. It gave Rainbow a small shock of surprise, seeing a unicorn up here in such a pegasus-y place as the Wonderbolts Academy.

“Hello, Rainbow Dash. My name is Dr. Test,” Now Rainbow dimly recalled seeing Dr. Test a couple times before; she was one of the academy’s medics. They’d never really spoken to each other before. “I’m going to need you to open your mouth for me.”

Rainbow Dash held her mouth open, and Dr. Test scrutinized her gums, teeth, and tongue long enough for her to begin wondering if she was about to have dental work done. Then the doctor sniffed at her breath when she exhaled. Finally, Dr. Test’s horn glowed pinkish, bringing it close to her mouth, almost nearly brought it inside Rainbow’s mouth. Her gums tingled as the magical aura extended into her mouth.

“Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm. Alright, you can close your mouth. Now I’ll need you to just hold still.”

Rainbow Dash did her best not to look too nervous or tremble as Dr. Test ran her horn along both sides of her barrel, and even circled close to her tail. Finally, she turned to Spitfire.

“She’s completely clean.”

“Are you sure?” Spitefire frowned. “Is there any way she had some kind of anti-scanning spell cast on her or something else that could have blocked your scans?”

Dr. Test snorted in derision. “What kind of amatuer do you take me for? I checked for all known bio-scan blocking spells. Anything stronger, she’d either look hollow or we’d have trouble seeing her. As I said she’s clean, and she’s clean! Nothing inside her but digesting food! Or would you rather go fetch that magenta-maned moron for a second opinion?”

“No. No, we’re good,” Spitfire sighed. “Thanks for coming, Litmus.”

“Just doing my job, Spitfire,” said Dr. Test, shutting the door behind her.

Already, Rainbow Dash could feel the atmosphere in this office turning friendlier.

“I’m sorry about putting you through that, Dash. We have to take these accusations seriously, and… well, I hate to say it, magical enhancement would be a logical explaination of how an incredible flyer came out of nowhere after they previously washed out of Flight Camp. But…. I didn’t want to believe it. And I’m glad it wasn’t true. You always struck me as a good filly, Rainbow Dash.”

“I… try to be, I guess,” Rainbow breathed. “Being here, learning and being with the other cadets, is just lots of fun. Fills up a special little niche in my heart,” she said, smiling straight from that niche of hers, deep within.

“Mine too. But now… it seems you’ve got somepony who really has it out for you, Rainbow. Any ideas who it might be?”

In her mind, Rainbow Dash again saw that grin on that light turquoise face. She was about to open her mouth when Spitfire held up a hoof.

“Wait, no. Don’t even answer. Call it telekinesis, but I think I have an idea whose name you’re going to say,” and she gave a surprisingly awkward-sounding laugh. “We teachers aren’t as blind as we sometimes seem, you know.”

“Telepathy.” Rainbow reflexively corrected, having been around a brainy herd sister enough to know the words for minds-reading and moving objects with your mind.

“What?” Spitefire asked, blankly.

“Ah... never mind, not important! Good luck finding out who set this up!” Rainbow said, quickly excusing herself.

* * *

===
Secret Interview Transcript:
Subject: Exit Wound
Unicorn
Female
Age: 34

DS: Alright. Let’s revive her.

UM: Here we go.

* Here, the slumber spell is lifted, and Exit Wound comes back awake.

EW: Monkey. Monkey. Monkey. Monkeys.

*She looks around.

EW: That filthy bonobo, where is he? And where the hell am I?

VJ: You’re in a place of safety, Miss Wound.

EW: That tells me nothing! This whole asylum is a “place of safety!”

DS: I can assure you; we’re very, very far away from the Merry Meadows Asylum.

EW: Pull the other one, you slimy sifaka!

DS: Slimy what?

EW: You’re one of the doctors here. The first I spoke to! Gibbon. Gibbon. I remember you were the mare who interviewed me the day I was brought here, Dr. Syllogism! With that tape recorder of yours on the table again, recording everything I say.

QQ: We’re friends. We’re the ones who arranged to get you broken out of that place.

EW: Quit staring at my cutie mark, you diseased pervs!

QQ: It really isn’t your original cutie mark at all! It doesn’t match the one in the old newspaper photos from the Emerald Isles! It’s a melon, not a bloodstain!

EW: I’m not from the Emerald Isles! Never even visited the place, ever! I’m no crime boss! Colobus. How many times and how many ways am I gonna have to tell ponies this?

DS: Exit--

EW: It was Honeydew! Honeydew! She’s the real gangster!

DS: Alright, Exit. Alright. No need to scream.

EW: Tell me you believe me. Tell me you believe that I’m just a melon seller who got mixed up with the wrong ponies. Grivet. Grivet. That’s who I am.

DS: We’re here to listen to what you have to say. All of us are gathered here, all of us went out of our way to bring you here, because we really want to know more about you that much.

VJ: That’s right.

QQ: Definitely.

UM: The only reason I was staring at your cutie mark for so long was because I’ve never seen one vibrate like yours. Looks painful. How long has it been like that for? I’d get a doctor to look at that.

VJ: Ssssh!

EW: I’m really not in the nuthouse no more?

QQ: Nope. You aren’t.

EW: Then where is this?

QQ: We’re close to the town of Brindleburg.

EW: Brindleburg. That’s about thirty miles south from Ponyville. Monkeylides is still living in Ponyville, isn’t he?

VJ: Monkey — you mean Michealides? Lero Michealides, the human?

EW: Yes. Him. Him. Him.

QQ: I’m pretty sure he is.

EW: I see him in my dreams. And I see him when I’m awake. That monster. Every day, throughout the day. Every night, throughout the night. While I’ve been wrongfully locked up with the schizos and psychos, he hunts down ponies under the cover of darkness. Torturing them. Making them scream and bleed. With his awful gorilla fingers. With his ugly chimp teeth. And with his disgusting bonobo maleness. Sometimes those mares of his take part in his evil. Sometimes he does it alone. He and that little dragon monster love to eat up the corpses together as a grand finale. Eat them up like pigs. His actions grow more depraved by the hour.

UM: Holy. Wow.

EW: How long have I been cooped up in the crazy house for? How long has it been?

DS: You were committed to Merry Meadows about three months ago.

EW: Has he opened a portal to the human world?

DS: No, Exit. I can’t say that’s ever happened.

EW: Then the outside world hasn’t been completely overrun?

UM: Overrun by what?

EW: Primates, of course. Primates of every sort, just like I’ve read in my books, only they’re all the size of Diamond Dogs. I’m talking bushbabies, orangutans, macaques, baboons, slow lorises, slender lorises, uakaris, guerezas, lutungs, aye-ayes, muriquis, kipunjis, angwantibos…

VJ: I’m sorry, but what language have you switched to?

EW: The same one I’ve been speaking!

DS: Well, Exit, you’ll be pleased to know that no such portal has come into existence.

EW: Oh thank goodness. Thank goodness. I saw it so clearly so many times. He is a sorcerer, you know. All that stuff about him being unmagical is a lie. He’s broken into my room in the asylum more than once. Monkeylides is able to walk through walls and floors and even float down through ceilings. He can make himself invisible to the doctors and the orderlies. The things he’s said to me, the things he’s done to me! I hurt all the time because of him!

*Exit Wound begins weeping. Also, at this point, I realize that I need to take my pills, but I had left it outside in a different room.

DS: I’m very sorry, everypony, but I need to take some prescription medication for myself. Please excuse me, I will return shortly.

*I leave the room. Because of this, I was not physically present to see what happened next. But my tape recorder continues to record the audio.

VJ: Miss Wound? Can we cut to the chase?

*Exit’s sobbing starts to die down a bit here.

VJ: The reason that we brought you here is because we want to learn more about the spell that was cast on you and Honeydew in the quarry mill, by Twilight Sparkle.

EW: Why is everypony so obsessed with that spell? It ruined my eyesight a bit, that’s all! But I don’t need glasses, I swear. I’ve never needed them before. I’d look nerdy in them. My eyes just need more time to get back to the way they’ve always been.

UM: This is painful to listen to.

VJ: Miss Wound, we believe that the spell cast on you in the quarry mill is the original version of a spell which switches cutie marks--

*Here, Exit Wound begins talking over what she doesn’t want to hear.

EW: My cutie mark—

VJ: And for the good of the world—

EW: Has always been—

VJ: And for the sake of making many ponies who are miserable with themselves happy—

EW: A slice of melon—

VJ: Not the least of which are myself and my associates, here—

EW: It has never, ever—

VJ: So we need you to remember the exact wording—

EW: Been a damn bloodstain—

VJ: Of whatever incantation Twilight Sparkle chanted—

EW: There was never any incantation!

VJ: Yes, there was! You’re just remembering things wrong!

QQ: We’ve gotten a hold of several different failure versions of that Swap spell! But no matter which we try or how we attempt to fine-tune them, it always end in disaster whenever we try a Cutie Mark swap! But we’re confident once we know the true original, we’ll have better luck!

EW: You’re daft! You’re all bonkers!

VJ: Just tell us what the incantation was.

EW: I already told you; there never was any incantation!

QQ: Don’t worry, Exit. You’re not the first Swapped to remember things wrong. But I have something that can help out with that.

EW: What is that? What’s that weird blue stick you’re floating at me supposed to be?

QQ: Something of a heirloom in my family. The Rod of Remembrance. Does exactly what the name says: helps you remember stuff.

SPECIAL NOTE: The Rod of Remembrance is rumored to be one of Meadowbrook’s Eight Enchanted items, its whereabouts having been unknown for several hundred moons. Some research after the fact revealed Quiet Question to be a distant descendant of Meadowbrook's, herself, giving credence to his claim of it being an heirloom. The rod’s reported properties were the ability to restore lost memories regardless of physical, psychological, magical, or any other limitations. Quiet Question neither disclosed his possession of this device, or consulted me on his plan to use it on the subject.

*At this point, a chime of magic can be heard. Assumed to be the sound made by the Rod of Remembrance.

EW: “From one to another, another to one, a mark of one’s destiny, singled out alone, fulfilled... Joining hearts together, Together sharing fate, by hoof and horn and feather that we all better relate.”

QQ: Success!

VJ: This is great!

UM: You wrote that all down, didn’t you?

VJ: Of course!

EW: It’s wrong.

UM: What? Excuse me?

QQ: Are you saying the incantation’s wrong?

EW: It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s swrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong,g it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong,g it’s wrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrong--

*There is the noise loud report of a magical blasting discharge, presumably from the subject’s horn.

QQ: I’ve been shot! I’ve been shot!

VJ: What are you doing?! No! No, Miss Wound! Don’t!

*At this point recording cuts off, as the Rod of Remembrance was driven through my tape recorder with some force, having first been driven through one of my other companion’s body, as part of her bloody rampage that left them all deceased, as I found them upon my return, The recorder is unrecoverable, but thankfully, the recording managed to survive intact. The same cannot be said at all about my three comrades, alas.

*Nonetheless, our noble endeavor continues on, in spite of all setbacks. Our world and our future depends on us mastering this spell.

* * *

Thankfully, Lightning Dust hadn’t actually drunk any of the speed potions she’d snuck into the locker room. There wasn’t even a moment’s temptation to do so. She was a self-made mare, damn it, the very picture of everything a Wonderbolt should be! The potions had only been a prop for her picture shoot. Most she’d done was to swish some water and food coloring around in her mouth, spitting it into a half-emptied potion bottle (the other half down the sink,) to reinforce the idea that the speed potions had been drunk by Rainbow Dork. She’d scrubbed her hooves with the harshest soaps, and washed her mouth out with both soap and mouthwash, in the hopes of obliterating any trace of magic that might have transferred while handling and opening the bottles.

Turned out she’d been right to take all these precautions.

It had been a huge shock seeing Rainbow Dash not just returning to the training field, but not showing so much as a single downcast look. And then Spitfire had called her into her office. Once she got there, Spitfire brought in Dr. Litmus Test to poke her ugly spike of a horn all along Lightning’s body and nearly jamming it between her teeth. Thank Celestia and Luna and Whatshername… the third one… that her precautions had paid off!

Once Spitfire had dismissed Dr. Test, she had questioned Lightning extensively on the speed potion pictures and Lightning had denied, denied, denied. No, she didn’t know anything! No, she hadn’t seen anything! Or heard anything, either!

But even after the questioning had finally stopped, Lightning Dust was still sitting in hot water with Spitfire.

“Even if you aren’t the mare responsible for trying to frame Rainbow Dash… I’ve still seen the way you’ve been treating her… or rather, mistreating her. Been meaning to chat with you about this for quite a while now, Lightning, and I should never have put it off this long. Frankly, it disgusts me how you seem to always be out to bring Rainbow down at every possible turn. Such behavior is beneath the Wonderbolts, we’re here to support each other and bring each other to greater heights! aAnd I… we all expected much better from you!”

Any other time, Lightning Dust would have protested very angrily. But right now, she was just too shook up, and too relieved Spitfire couldn’t pin anything on her. ...Right? She’d left no witnesses. Didn’t she? She’d been too careful about cleaning up the evidence! ...Or was Spitfire just waiting for her to spout something self-incriminating, that’d bury her even deeper?

Lightning Dust had only skimmed through the Wonderbolts Cadet Code of Conduct book once, on the day that she got it, and was now wishing she had it, to check whether bullying, in itself, was enough to get you kicked out of the Wonderbolts. It hadn’t been THAT severe.. Of course not! It might be that she was only getting off this easily with Spitfire because she was her ace pupil. Or at least… had been her ace, up until today.

That being the case, Lightning didn’t nothing to defend how she’d been with Rainbow Dash, and agreed to leave her alone, and agreed that she deserved to have her “lead pony” status revoked, and given over to Meadow Flower. When Spitfire allowed Lightning to rejoin the others, she didn’t so much as look in Rainbow’s direction, let alone taunt her. Rainbow and all her other classmates had the good grace to do the same to her. Lightning felt content and relieved with it all… right up until the time class was over, and she was back in the locker room. That was when all the nagging thoughts of worry whined again inside her brain.

It’s already beginning to happen! Lightning’s inner worrywart moaned. You’re not Spitfire’s favorite anymore. You’re a bad egg in her eyes. Now she loves Rainbow Dash and she hates you. Soon it’ll be just like the visions… oh no… the visions will all come true…

“No, they won’t!” Lightning Dust hissed to herself, twisting her shower nozzle all the way to the right, and thrusting her head under the icy cold water, in hopes that it’d freeze the bad thoughts dead, the way cold showers were supposed to. But the visions played on, straight through the chill.

“Name’s Lightning Dust,” Lightning Dust saw herself saying within her mind.

“Rainbow Dash!” she answered back.

This had never happened, of course. She and Rainbow Dash already had a first meeting between themselves, and it had gone nothing like that. Even the way that Rainbow Dash had stated her name in the vision had been wrong, ratting it off like a confident hotshot. Nothing like her real self.

Nonetheless, Lightning’s visions continued, as she left the Academy, heading off to her favorite bar, the Watering Trough...

“Um… Lightning Dust?” Rainbow was saying. “Next time, maybe we don’t cut the other team off like that.”

But Lightning Dust had brushed that namby-pambiness off, telling Rainbow, “...I mean, it’s not our fault we’re so much better than these other guys! Not every pony is destined to become a Wonderbolt. Only the best of the best, right?”

In almost all these weird visions involving Rainbow Dash, Lightning was treating the Wonder Wallflower like she was some kind of pretty-cool kid cousin of hers. And they were partnered up as wingpony and lead pony. The only thing matching how things were in real life was that Rainbow Dash was a wingpony… just not Lightning’s. She was some other pony’s problem, thank Celestia.

“A hoof bump? Seriously?” Rainbow Dash was staring her down with a seriously cold frown, until Lightning eventually lowered her hoof. “You made me clip my wing. You sent half of our class into serious tailspins on the obstacle course. You unleashed a tornado that nearly demolished my friends!”

“Yeah, and?” Lightning retorted, with her usual amazing outstandingness.

“And I get that you want to be the best. So do I! But you're going about it in the wrong way.”

“The Wonderbolts don't seem to think so,” Lightning said, ignoring all her other unworthy classmates, who stared at her with what could only be jealousy. “After all, Spitfire did make me the leader and you the wingpony.”

Rainbow Dash sighed. “You're right. She did.”

Beer after beer after beer went down Lightning’s angry throat… she literally felt the anger on the inside of her throat! Really, the hoof bump… the idea that she’d extend her hoof in a gesture of buddyship with that rainbow-tailed rat, that really got Lightning’s goat more than any holier-than-thou preaching she might’ve given.

Especially since Lightning had made a point of never ever being friendly with Rainbow. The little turd had only made two attempts at “mending fences” with Lightning. Both times, Lightning had made her sorry she’d tried. Rainbow ought to count herself unbelievably lucky that a champ like Lightning would even have unwanted thoughts about hoof-bumping a loser like her!

“The Wonderbolts are looking for the best flyers in Equestria, but you were right.” Rainbow Dash had been about to quit the Academy, and leave with her friends, after she’d went to Spitfire and said things to make Lighting look bad. But Spitfire had come and stopped her before she could fly off. “Being the best should never come at the expense of our fellow ponies. It's not just about pushing ourselves. It's about pushing ourselves in the right direction. You've shown that you're capable of doing just that." And ol’ Orange and Yellow had brought Lightning along so she'd be in earshot while she sang Rainbow’s praises. Right before stripping Lightning Dust of her badge and bucking her out of the Academy entirely.

Now here Lightning was, at her favorite bar. Seated at her favorite booth, drinking mugs of her second-favorite brand of beer, as the jukebox cranked out a dopey tune about a lover leaving his poor gal heartbroken. Logically, there shouldn’t’ve even been any problem. The visions got so much wrong about how she and Rainbow weren’t friends, weren’t partnered up… on and on. Rainbow didn’t even act quite right in the visions; too! Lightning Dust was almost sure that Rainbow’s body was a little different in her visions, some part of her might’ve been… colored wrong. Though she couldn’t quite put her hoof on what.

Except the visions kept coming back. Ever since she’d learned that Rainbow Dash would be entering the Wonderbolts Academy, the visions kept coming back to Lightning Dust, all the time. And the worst of it was, although there was a lot about them that might’ve seemed dreamlike on paper… they didn’t feel the way dreams felt at all, when Lightning experienced them. Not night dreams or daydreams. More like memories. The most important memories of all.

And it was freaking Lightning Dust up out royally. As the jukebox switched over to an even sappier song about lovers prancing in sugar lump wishes, she felt herself going a little bit crazier trying to once again figure out what was happening to her. How could she ‘remember’ something that hadn’t even happened? Could it be that she was experiencing something psycak? Or psychal? Whatever it was called? Normally, Lightning Dust had never held much stock in foreseeing the future. Fortune tellers who pulled that hooey were nothing but mumbo jumbo scam artists, everypony knew that. Magical scientists had said for years that predicting the future accurately was impossible.

But the same set of freaky visions kept reappearing in Lightning’s mind, at least twice an hour. Even without them, every time Lightning Dust looked at Rainbow Dash, she felt, at an instinctual level, like a chicken being forced to allow a fox to live with her in her henhouse.

Rainbow Dash was dangerous. Bad luck, all around. Worse and worse things would continue to happen to Lightning the longer Rainbow stayed at the Wonderbolts Academy. Lightning had worked her whole life to reach this stage of greatness — lots of effort, lots of sweat — the Wonderbolts were everything to her, not becoming a Wonderbolt would make her an utter failure at life, she couldn’t go back to working her old housekeeping job at the motel, she’d rather die… what right did Rainbow Dash have to intrude and try to snatch that away from her? Lightning hoped that her and all her stupid friends really DID get demolished by a tornado, or whatever, something had to be done, something HAD to be done…

By the time Lightning Dust was sick of being in the bar and was ready to return home, she felt like, instead of drinking alcohol, she’d had about five energy drinks while watching an horror movie marathon. Full of truly terrifying horror movies.

It was dark. Past midnight, maybe. Normally, she’d not stay out this late, but she’d gotten caught up in drowning her troubles. Lightning Dust lived in the Wonderbolt training barracks currently, but she didn't want to return there. Didn't want to risk Spitfire or any of her classmates seeing her like this. No choice, then, but to crash at her old place.

Lightning's old apartment was located in a seedy, urban area like something out of a film noir flick, and thus her favorite bar and old stomping grounds required her to pass through the area. Where every other business catered to some kind of vice, and 70% of the neon lights were either In the throes of flickering death or burnt-out dead. She shrugged off a bum begging her for change, and then another bum offering to show her a good time for 50 bits. Then a scream cut the air. A scream from down an alley. It had been a seriously scary scream, and it was a seriously scary-looking alley that Lightning was staring down.

On a different sort of night, the sensible part of Lightning Dust would probably have told herself; Just keep walking. This ain’t none of your business. If somepony’s really in trouble, let the cops deal with it.

Not tonight. Because she’d had a lot of alcohol, yes. But also… she’d already spent nearly this whole day working on her fear of Rainbow Dash. Was she gonna be afraid of every other little thing as well? To hell with that; Lightning wasn’t letting Rainbow get the best of her! She was gonna be a Wonderbolt! Wonderbolts weren’t scared of nothing! Not flying through thunderstorms! Not mile-high dives! Wonderbolts were heroes! It was time for Lightning Dust to be a hero!

Down Lightning galloped, through the alleyway, snorting against the stink of garbage.

“Hey!” she called out. “Somebody there?!”

It was a mare’s body, fallen onto a set of trash bags. An earth pony, with big circular hole bored straight through her head. Lightning tasted her own stomach acids in her mouth. It all flew out… and some of her teeth nearly flew out with it, when a metal garbage can slammed into the back of her head, and she went down.

Then Lightning, herself, screamed out as she felt a hoof slam down upon the back of her left wing. Just as she was beginning to scramble, she heard the telltale tinkly sound of a unicorn’s horn charging up. An oddly familiar sensation washed over Lightning Dust. She had to struggle to remember what it was from: the time where she’d broken her right hind leg attempting a Maelstrom Maneuver back in middle school, and the doctors had needed to operate on her.

It was a sleep spell.

* * *

“From one ta another, from one ta another, from one ta another, from one ta a Monkey.”

When Lightning Dust’s eyes started working again, she saw she was in a dark bedroom of some kind, flat on the floor. A lot of ruined dolls were strewn all around the place; only a few were still untouched. The hoofprints on some showed they’d been trampled. Many others were full of holes from a unicorn shooter’s magic blasts. From her position, she could only really see the bottom of the bed’s legs and and the end of some disheveled, bloodstained blankets.

“Monkey, Monkey Monkeyloides…”

Lightning, herself, would’ve loved nothing more than to get up and get out of this horrible place, but she was bound, wing and legs shifted to get up, only to find unexpected resistance. Her hooves were bound together, and her wings in binders.

She hear noises. Her senses flooded back, the nonsense of blearily heard sounds slowly regaining coherent sharpness so her brain, slowly losing the magic-induced sleep fog, could make sense of what she was hearing.

Immediately, she wished it hadn’t.

Somepony was being tortured,. It was the only explanation of what she was hearing. Not very far away, somepony... female and young. Lightning could hear the victim screaming plainly, mingled with darkly tinkling sounds of magic — like malicious little bells — and the strange cries of her tormentor. The screams sounded animalistic; Lightning could easily imagine such howls coming from the back rooms of a griffon’s butcher shop. Where were they? How long would it take for the police to get here?!

Then, suddenly, there was silence. Relief washed through Lightning Dust until she heard the sound of hooves moving in the direction of this room; and the athlete realized what the silence really meant.

A key turned into a lock from outside this bedroom. When the madmare step inside, Lightning was able to get a better look at her.

She was a large unicorn. Her skewbald-patterned coat was stained with an awful amount of blood. Her victim in the other room might well have exploded upon her.

“Who are you?!” Lightning asked, hating the sound of terror edged in her voice.

“Ah, yer awake, good. Me name’s Exit Wound.” the mare told her, in a thick accent. “Oi’m an Earthicorn mare from teh Emerapony Villes.”

“You’re a… what from where?”

“Oi’m wanted by tetha coppers fer multiple counts o’ melon selling in teh first degree.” Normally, Lightning would’ve taken this to be a criminal’s sinister sarcasm. But there was too much seriousness in the lunatic’s voice.

“Wanna hear teh story ‘bout how Oi got me cutie mark, then?” Even though she turned her hindquarters so Lightning could have a look at it, this place was too dark to make out what kind of cutie mark she had, except that it seemed to be some kind of crescent-shaped thing.

“Is… that what you want?” Lightning asked Exit carefully. There was too much scary brightness in the mare’s eyes, and too much scary brightness building up on her horn, as well. “To talk about your cutie mark?”

“NO!” Exit Wound screamed, with freaky joy. The magic that had building up on her horn shot off into the ceiling, and chunks of plaster fell onto the floor. “IT AIN’T WHAT OI WANT!”

Then the skewbald unicorn bent down closer. “What’s yer name, pegasus?”

“Lightning Dust,” she admitted.

“Well, Dusty, lemme just come roight out and say how much et royally pisses me off, that nopony wants ta talk about anything else ‘round me, ‘cept me fecking-ficking mark! All them quacks at Merry Meadows! Teh nutters wantin’ ta swap cutie marks around too… oh, teh world’s WELL rid o’ THEM feckers! Even me family…”

The skewbald unicorn went stone cold quiet for a few moments. “D’ya… d’ya wanna hear about me family, Dusty?”

“Is that what you want?” She tried not to flex to obviously with the lunatic watching, but the ropes weren’t actually as strong as Lightning had first thought. And she wasn’t a weak mare. Maybe if she tried to will the adrenaline to her body… except that just as the pegasus thought that, Exit Wound’s horn flared while her face tightened with anger, and with it, the coils of rope around Lightning’s body tightened just as furiously… digging deep, deep, DEEP into her skin until it gave way and began to bled. Only for the ropes to dig in ever deeper still.

“Tryin’ ta be me therapist, now, are ya?!” the skewbald lunatic shrieked. “‘Oi’ve had et up ta me SNOUT with ponies treatin’ me loike that! Me mums and dad raised me ta be a good killer, top-notch, jest like all the rest o’ me sisters, but ever since that bonobo came ta Ponyville, Oi kept makin’ more ‘n’ more enemies, all of ‘em out for me blood, teha more Oi killed, not jest the bounties, not jest the ones who were marked for ... but then me sister fell inta the water and then she AND me other sister took teha monkey’s soide, and et was about after Oi shot that police chief down in Connemara, an’ that one triggermare with teh bad teeth nearly oiced me that Oi realoized…”

On she went, rambling out this utterly cracked story, sounding like bits and pieces of two other stories stitched together, characters and places bleeding into each other, scenes flowing into others that had no connection.Lightning Dust fought just to think… some way to escape Exit Wound. Maybe if she fired a shot, Lightning could twist her body in just the right way, lightning-fast, so that the shot would cut through the ropes binding her. No, that was a stupid idea, she wasn't an action hero in an action film. Maybe instead, she...

“...Sicklefins…”

When Exit Wound spoke this name in the midst of her babbling, something clicked in Lightning Dust’s head.

“You’re THAT Exit Wound! The one who attacked Rainbow Dash and her family! I overheard her talking about you in the locker room with the other cadets! You nearly killed her!”

“Rainbow Dash…” the skewbald unicorn growled. “That miserable poile of rat spooge! That bushbaby’s plaything!!!! What Oi wouldn’t give ta rip ‘er throat open roight in front o’ that bonobo and laugh in ‘is ape-face before Oi started on Twiloight Sparkle! Teh mare what REALLY fecked me over a…!”

“What I wouldn’t give for you to do that too!”

It was a such a surprising thing to hear from somepony she was about to kill horribly that Exit Wound stopped short. Her victim-to-be was looking up at her from the floor as though she were a giant bag of gold. A bag of gold she intended to use to buy a very dark and satisfying revenge.

“Roiley, nah?” She asked.

“I’m serious,” said Lightning Dust, deepening her smile. “You want to get to Rainbow Dash and her family? I’m your golden ticket in, sister. I got an in with that rainbow-colored rat and her sick little brood. I want you to have fun with her.”

“Well, then, mebbe we can do bizness…” Lightning Dust found her smile mirrored back at her. Part of her was horrified, but the rest of her didn’t care.

* * *

Applejack opened her sketchbook and passed it over to Lero. He smiled at the little Lero she had drawn. His hands and his face were cutely cartoonish. But the tuxedo he wore, and even the shoes… they were just shy of photorealistic. Never would he have guessed AJ to have such artistry in her. He almost felt like he could pluck the outfit off the page.

The tuxedo was as white as snow. White as Rarity. The notched lapels were especially silky, and almost seemed to shimmered beneath the light.

“D’ya like the vest?” AJ asked, right next to him. “Ah’m plannin’ on makin’ it from imported satin. The pockets’ll be real, and the cummerbund’s gonna be…”

He let Applejack ramble on a bit longer without really paying attention to her words. In her picture, Spike stood next to him, wearing a smaller dragon-shaped version of his outfit. It was the most dapper he’d ever seen the little guy.

“It’s all very good,” he told Applejack, when her spiel was winding down. “I especially love the lapels; I think Spike would like this design too! Of course, I don’t want to make any final judgment just yet without the rest of my girls here. When it comes to our wedding outfits, we want this to be a matter of unanimous consent.”

“Yer a good stallion,” she said, taking the sketchbook from him. “Wanna sneak peek through some of the ideas Ah’m considerin’ fer yer mares?”

“By all means!”

Applejack pulled more sketchbooks from a drawer, and presented them to Lero. He sat and looked through practically all there was to read through.

Page after page of wedding dress after wedding dress. Dresses with ribbon belts, others with beaded belts, others with tiaras or flower garlands. Dresses adorned with pearls and gold, with vintage lace and floral appliques. Dresses with gauzy veils and hoofmade silk flowers. Dresses whose bodies were covered in exquisite embroidery. On and on.

“Have y’all decided whether ya’ll want all four brides wearin’ matchin’ wedding dresses?” AJ asked, as Lero turned to a strapless design with a form-fitting bustle. “Or d’ya want ‘em each ‘specially customized?”

“Right now, the girls are kind of tied on that. Lyra and Twilight want each of their dresses to be ‘identical,’ while Rarity and Rainbow want them ‘unique.’” Lero gave a little laugh. “When there’s an even number of mares in your herd, there’s never a tiebreaker.”

“There’s you, Lero,” Applejack reminded him,, poking his chest. “You’all can be tha tiebreaker.”

“Me?” Lero asked. “I’m not gonna be wearing these dresses!”

“But it’s still gonna be yer wedding,” Applejack reminded him. Not too far away, there sat a ponyquin, with a half-finished white gown wrapped around her. “Yer opinion matters. What would yew like ta see yer lady-loves wearing on yer special day?”

Lero gave it some thought; not for the first time. He, and all the other girls, had gone through enough of Twilight’s wedding books to know that both schools of thoughts had equal standing: half of the herds who got married liked uniformity in their wedding outfits, while the other half liked distinction.

“Well… when you get down to it… I’m on Rainbow and Rarity’s side on this. I like the idea of variety.” He frowned slightly. “Though maybe a compromise? Same base gowns, with personalized customizations?”

He went back to flipping through the pages of Applejack’s sketchbook. “Did Fluttershy help you with any of these?”

Applejack shook her head, very proudly. “Ah got Shy ta let me tackle this one all on mah own. If this were jest some customer’s weddin’, Ah’d have no problem letting her put her two bits in. But this is mah three best friends gettin’ hitched ta each other, plus yew, Lero. The threads ya’ll wear… Ah want this ta be all me, same way Shy wants the party arrangements ta be all her. With Herd Bellerophon’s input, a’ course!”

His eyes drew back to the sketches. “Gotta say, AJ, these are all very regal.”

This was a little bit of an understatement. The wedding outfits were so elegant, it was as though Applejack were fully channelling the ghost of the Old Rarity. Pure, undiluted, unadulterated Rarity, back among them to plan and craft this one last masterwork. Lero could see nearly nothing of AJ’s usual homespun, countrified sensibilities interwoven in these designs.

Laughing a little, Applejack turned and gave her Diamond Mark a glance. “Ah jest… have a really good hunch what sorta threads mah friend Rarity’s gonna want for her big special day. Plus, need Ah remind ya that Twilight is Princess Celestia’s faithful student?”

“Nope,” said Lero. “I’ll never need to be reminded of that.”

Applejack glanced out the window, in the direction of the sun, climbing up in the sky. “Even if the wedding’s NOT gonna be held in Canterlot… which Ah highly doubt… Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Prince Shining Armor, they’ll all be in attendance. Kinda HAS ta look regal for their sakes, right?”

When Lero left the Carousel Boutique, he looked from neighbor to neighbor as he made his way home. With some, he offered a friendly hello, others he gave just a nod or a smile, but he made offer to give at least a small acknowledgement to everypony, even the ones who weren’t looking his way. But when Lero got within ten yards of his house, he had to stop.

Turn away, turn away, turn away...

It surrounded Golden Oaks Library like the globe of a snow globe; shimmering with golden light. It was gorgeous with the power of its magic. Even now, Lero watched a dragonfly idiotically fly straight into the magical barrier surrounding his home, get turned into stone, then fall onto the grass. The barrier was kinder to sapient beings and larger animals; it whispered words of warning directly in their minds...

Turn away, turn away, turn away...

Growing more and more dire as ponies got closer, and it was something Lero had quickly grown thoroughly sick of, very shortly.

“Hey, there!” a voice called to Lero from above. An unfamiliar pegasus mare landed by Lero’s side. She had a turquoise coat and golden mane done up in a sharp do, and wore saddlebags. “That your house?” she asked, nodding towards Golden Oaks.

“That it is!” he said, conversationally.

“Interesting bit of magic you’ve got surrounding it,” said the mare, squinting slightly, as though for a mild headache. “And that voice I’m hearing inside my head… the one saying ‘turn away, turn away’... I take it you don’t like strangers?”

“Usually, we’re pretty good with strangers. But now’s not a good time for us.” Lero explained, since she struck him as a kind-enough sort of gal… almost like the old Rainbow Dash, in a way. “You see… believe it or not, there’s this really nutty criminal mare who’s on the loose. She’s… well, she’s after us.”

“How awful!” exclaimed the mare. “Sounds like something right out of a horror movie!”

“I know,” said Lero. “That’s why we’ve set up this special magical barrier to make sure she can’t sneak into our home. We’ll be taking it down as soon as she’s arrested again.”

“How do you even get into your own house?” asked the mare.

If Lero knew the mare like he knew Pinkie Pie or Fluttershy, he might have explained to her about how the barrier was specially enchanted to recognize him and his family, and many of the other finer points Twilight had gotten into. But since they were still strangers, what he said was; “There’s a trick to it. I’m not magical enough to know how to explain it.”

The turquoise mare nodded.

“I don’t believe I’ve introduced myself. I’m Lero Michealides,” said Lero.

The mare looked a little bit hesitant. It was not an expression Lero would’ve really expected to see on her face at all. “I’m… a classmate of Rainbow Dash’s. Up at the Wonderbolts Academy.”

“Oh?” asked Lero. “You’re a friend of Rainbow’s?”

Now she looked downright chagrined. “Actually… Rainbow and I have… had our differences, I guess you could say. But I’m hoping to clear things up between us. Is Rainbow at home? I’d love it if I could apologize to her.”

The human glanced towards his house. “She might be. Or might not be.” Lero honestly wasn’t sure… Rainbow had said something earlier about bats in a cave somewhere with tummyaches, and he wasn’t sure whether she was done with that or had even started.

The turquoise mare then brought an envelope out of her saddlebags; one that hadn’t quite properly been sealed. “Even if I can’t go in and see her, would you please bring this to Rainbow Dash so she can read it and know how sorry I am? It’d really mean a lot to me.”

To Lero, the turquoise mare looked like a pony who wanted to be forgiven. So he was sure whatever this vague issue between her and Rainbow Dash was, Rainbow would be kind enough to forgive her.

“Come with me,” he told the mare, with a friendly smile. “We’ll go and see her together. You can give her that letter in person, or just tell her what’s in your heart.”

“Are you sure?” asked the turquoise mare. “What about the magic barrier?”

“Just press yourself up against me as we walk.” Lero said. “Since I recognize you as a friend, the barrier won’t harm you.”

“That works out nicely,” the turquoise mare smiled.

* * *

If there was one single solitary good thing Exit Wound could say about her stay at the Merry Meadows nuthouse, it was that it’d given her a whole lot of time to reminisce on everything that’d gone wrong for all the Sicklefins at the quarry. There’d been a lot, of course. But one point that’d especially stuck out in Exit’s mind, more than anything else, had been that trick Twilight Sparkle had played to sneak in Lyra, that herd-sister of hers. A clever move, no denying. But again: Exit had wound up with a lot time to reflect upon how Twilight could have pulled such a stunt off: all the specific magical mechanics.

Time well spent, as it turned out, especially when she had needed to brainstorm a good infiltration method with Lightning Dust. Here and now, Exit felt a cold flicker across her body, both from worry and from the barrier she was passing through. Sneaking by earlier and studying this barrier had really paid off. She’d guessed correctly about how it had been enchanted to work, and now she was passing through without being turned to stone!

* * *

Lero spotted Spike upstairs when he and his guest entered the house, and he waved up to him. “Hey, Spike! Is Rainbow in?”

“Yeah! I think she’s in her usual spot,” answered the young dragon, pointing in the direction of the room Rainbow enjoyed hanging out in. Then Spike gave a quizzical look over towards their pegasus guest, asking, “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

The turquoise-coated pegasus gave Spike a proud, haughty sort of look. “I fly with the Wonderbolts, kid, so yeah. You doubtlessly HAVE seen me ‘somewhere before.’”

And she trotted into the sitting room that the little dragon had pointed towards. Lero and Spike both stared after her a bit, before Spike gave him a look that asked: Just who did you bring into our house? All Lero could do was shrug, giving back a glance that said: She seemed nice enough before.

They followed their guest into the reading room, where Rainbow Dash sat surrounded by a good number of her animals. Lero guessed she must’ve been reading through the bridal magazine that was near her, while cuddling with some of her critters. But when Lero and Spike entered the room, they could see the alarm and even dread on Rainbow’s face at the sight of their guest.

“L… Lightning Dust?” She rose to a stand with a downright wary look.

Lero gave a small start; he knew that name. Rainbow Dash often complained about what a horrible pony Lightning Dust was after she came home from the Wonderbolts Academy, though occasionally, she’d sometimes brag about beating Lightning in some race or other. (Well, ‘brag’ wasn’t really the right word, though. Rainbow would announce her wins against Lightning to her family as though declaring that a delicious pie had finished baking.)

This mare was that same Lightning Dust?

“What are you doing here?! What do you want?!”

Lightning turned and spat out the letter of apology she’d had in her mouth so that it landed on the floor next to her, before facing Rainbow Dash.

“Hey, Rainbow,” she said. “Just wanted to tell you there’s a lot that I’m sorry for. I really haven’t treated you as good as I could’ve and I wish that I could turn back the clock and I shouldn’t’ve let my bad feelings get the best of me, and you’re a hatchet-faced, knob-gobbling chimp-loving skiprat and we should let bygones be bygones, and…”

When the apology started, Rainbow looked taken aback and perhaps a bit hopeful, but that vanished due to the line in the middle, replaced by confusion and a bit of anger. “Wait, what did you just call me?” Rainbow Dash asked, not yet seeing the weird glow from within the envelope which Lightning Dust had lain aside.

* * *

Hatchet-faced, knob-gobbling chimp-loving skiprat.

Back at the quarry, Twilight Sparkle had used “Shigaroo Miya…” whatever-the-feck. And she and Lighting had settled on hatchet-faced knob-gobbling chimp-loving skiprat.

This had been a lunatic plan; even she wouldn’t bother pretending there was any sanity to this! But Exit Wound was a lunatic mare, so it fit felt right. Shrinking herself down to teeny-tininess. Having Lightning Dust seal her inside the envelope. She was just as magical, just as skilled, no, MORE magical and skilled than Twilight Sparkle! Two mares could play at the same game!

But so much could’ve gone wrong, though. Monkeylides or anyone in his herd could’ve noticed the tiny hole Exit had poked into the side of the envelope with her horn so she could breathe. The ape could’ve snatched the envelope from Lightning and opened it up right outside the barrier. Or he could’ve stuffed it in the back pocket of his pants and sat in a chair. But the bonobo hadn’t done any of that… and Exit had succeeded in infiltrating the lair of the enemy.

When Lightning Dust spoke the Trigger Word, Exit felt herself grow; ripping straight through the envelope she’d been smuggled in, faster than a balloon inflated by a helium tank. As all the members of Herd Bonobo screamed in shock, Exit Wound smiled a terrible smile.

Author's Note

I am SO INCREDIBLY SORRY, so regretful and ashamed, that it took me THIS LONG to get this chapter out to you all. I really can't claim I have ANY good excuse for delaying the writing of this chapter for this long... just a poor one: I got completely caught up in keeping track of the 2016 Trump/Clinton presidential election, and all the politics, all the worry over America's future, drove me to absolute distraction.

From now on, though, I'm really going to buckle down on myself, and work on this story right. Thank you ALL for continuing to read it.

Merry Christmas to you all.