Commission: Mare-Do-Well vs the Rainbow Menace 1

Commission for GrimWolf01
Mare-Do-Well vs the Rainbow Menace Chapter 1
By Kendell2.
Idea and commission by GrimWolf01

Ponyville was normally a peaceful, happy place...when an insane deity or other calamity wasn't happening. But other than those times, it's inhabitants didn't have much to disturb them when Luna's moon was high in the sky. So Rainbow Dash angrily and bitterly flying out of her cloud house after receiving a letter delivered by Derpy attracted a bit more attention than the rainbow maned pony likely desired for it to. The wall-eye pegasus was concerned, but no self respecting mailmare would violate the sacred privacy of somepony's mail without permission. Besides, the working, single mother had a work day to end, muffins to eat, and a tiny filly waiting for her at home. Still, perhaps she'd tell one of Rainbow's friends about the recipient’s reaction for the rainbow maned ponies' sake.

But there were still other ponies disturbed by the rainbow maned pegasus' angry flight out of Ponyville. Including Mayor Mare who watched out her window before she went to bed for the night.

Mayor Mare didn't frequently get the chance to aid Ponyville in it's major problems. It was an unfortunate side effect of being a normal everyday pony trying to protect a town from enemies that only mystical artifacts could defeat. But one thing no one could argue was that she was uncaring of the little town in the shadow of Canterlot or the citizens of it. Quite the opposite, it was the thing she'd devoted her life to and would stick by it as long as she lived despite the limitations of being a normal.

Her quiet solitude before bed was interrupted by a rainbow colored streak flying over, muttering “This can't be right...there's no way Spitfire would let...”

The goodhearted pony tried to call to the obviously distraught mare and find out what was wrong. However, she was still only an Earth Pony and Rainbow Dash was known as the fastest Pegasus in Equestria, so by the time Ponyville's mayor could open her mouth, the Pegasus was already out of ear shot.

Mare sighed. “I do hope everything is alright...” she muttered and chose to turn in for the night. “And hopefully doesn't result in another Equestria threatening conflict...”

---

“Oh come on!” several of the recruits heard coming from Wonderbolts Academy's main office, along with some angry, frantic knocking. Of course being late at night, the campus was mostly abandoned with the exception of the young recruits in the barracks.

“Spitfire?! I need to talk to you!”

Unfortunately for the source of the yelling, Spitfire was currently nowhere nearby. The Wonderbolts leader was the primary drill instructor at the Academy, the fiery pegasus was also a stunt flier after all, and had a life of her own outside of both positions.

Before anypony could reach the source of the disturbance, it was already heading away and long gone.

---

Despite it's far larger size, Cloudsdale had maintained a surprisingly quieter existence than idealistic little, rural Ponyville. The big city, while not exactly quiet, few cities were, had suffered a far fewer calamities than the town on the edge of the Everfree had in recent memory. As a result, it's citizens were just happy to go about their normal lives unmolested and let the little town where the Bearers dwelled deal with most of the world's problems..

This was why late at night, the only ponies stirring were those ponies who chose to keep Princess Luna company, working night shifts at the various businesses throughout the town.

Rainbowshine was one of those ponies, at least until Weather Factory management thought to assign her different once more. The wisteria colored Pegasus was doing as she always did: mixing up rainbows in the depths of the Weather Factory that were destined to be dispersed out all over Equestria. Other than little foals fearing being turned into spectra in the nonexistent Pegasus Device, it was a quiet job. Nothing but the clatter of hoof steps and the flowing of liquid rainbows all night long. In that respect, she preferred the night shift: it was quiet and calm. She wondered sometimes why ponies a thousand years ago disliked Luna's night so often.

CRASH!

Well, normally it was.

The rainbow maker was tempted to leave her post, but couldn't afford looking away from the mixture, even for a second or the whole batch could be ruined, a fact the mare normally took pride in. Besides, she wasn't exactly the only pony in the factory (though naturally there were fewer ponies than during the day) and the guards normally handled any problems.

“Put down that hose!”

But as she continued mixing her precious rainbows, the crashing continued, along with the sound of somepony getting nailed with a blast of high pressure water, and she heard the noise of guards shouting growing louder. It took all the pegasus' willpower to prevent herself from panicking and ruining an entire vat of liquid rainbows, something her personal pride in her talent wouldn't allow her to do. After all, professionalism was a cornerstone of any job, particularly one as vital as Equestria's weather industry.

“Look out! They have a fire extinguisher!”

Unfortunately, be it fate or bad luck, the crashing grew ever nearer and finally erupted through the doors not far from the pegasus. She jumped, barely able to catch the stirring rod before it could be lost in the pool of colors (no easy feat with hooves). Too proud to let her perfect record be tainted by a ruined batch, the wisteria mare kept stirring even as a rainbow blur darted around the factory chamber chased by two golden clad royal guards.

“Eep!” she yelled, ducking as they flew right over her head, giving her a clear view of the canister the rainbow blur was carrying. She recognized it as a storage unit for completed rainbows. Despite the idea that somepony was snatching some of the precious rainbow she'd spent hours of hard work getting just right making her blood boil (and the nearby sound of glass shattering making her jump a little bit), the determined worker kept mixing her rainbow.

“Ahh!” Rainbowshine flew up to dodge the fast paced chase happening around her while maintaining her grip on the large, metal stirring rod. She then heard somepony crash through a cloud pillar nearby.

“Oh come on!” The mare used the stirring rod as a wing assisted pole-vault over the pool and kept stirring despite the blur bucked the two, now rather battered and bruised, guards into where she was just standing, sending ripples through the clouds in all directions. She made the mistake of letting some of the liquid rainbow on the rod end up in her mouth. The burning, spicy taste made her mouth feel like it'd burst into flames and her eyes water, but determination and pride beat indescribable physical discomfort. Meanwhile, she still heard the sounds of crashing and wings beating all around her.

Finally, Rainbowshine saw the mixture become the perfect rainbow hue, at last complete.

The wisteria mare looked up, seeing the rainbow blur stop at the window, finally visible for a split second to both her and the recovering guards. Her coat was a shade of blue and she currently had a blue and yellow bandana around her mouth, hiding most of her face.

Then in a flash she was gone.

And Rainbowshine finally allowed herself to give a sigh of relief and fall flat on her back, breathing heavily.

“...I better get employee of the month for this...Ahh! Mouth still burning!”

---

Rainbow Dash laid on a lone cloud in the middle of the sky, lost in a deep slumber. And not a peaceful one. She tossed and turned on her soft, fluffy bed as if in the throws of a most unpleasant dream.

She rolled a little too far to one side and gave a cry of fright as she fell from her cloud, but gratefully managed to instinctively catch herself.

“Huh?! What?” the cyan Pegasus asked, eyes batting back and forth across the sky before her mind caught up with the fact that she was awake. Dash gave a groan and slammed her hooves into her face. “Great...now I'm getting spooked by waking up...come on Dash, there's nothing to worry about, it must have just been a big misunderstanding, right? Right.”

Puffing out her chest and acting tough, she prepared to resume her quest...then something hit her.

“Dang it! I need to feed Tank!”she groaned. Still, if there was one thing the Element of Loyalty wouldn't do was put somepony else behind herself...well, at least when her ego hadn't gotten to her head, like that stupid Mare-Do-Well incident.

Rainbow Dash looked back and forth between the direction of her birth home and her adopted home before she gave a growl to herself and flew back towards Ponyville.

“At least this gives me a little more time to think about how to get out of this mess...” she muttered to herself. While the pegasus was more of the 'act first, think later' type, when it came to the Wonderbolts she wasn't taking any chances. Not that she had any doubts about it, she WAS a close friend with Spitfire after all, why wouldn't it?

Soaring across the skies until Ponyville was in her sights. Rainbow Dash always found it oddly refreshing coming back to little old Ponyville from Cloudsdale where she was born and raised. It wasn't that a big city like Cloudsdale intimidated her. Something intimidating Rainbow Dash? Perish the thought! It was more that she liked living in a town where everypony knew her without a doubt for reasons she'd brag about and reasons she wouldn't be caught dead saying out loud. That fact was comforting to almost anypony.

And of course it was also where her friends lived, nuff said.

Which also made the fact that as she flew over the town on this particular day, she found the odd looks ponies in town were shooting her unnerving. Particularly the fact that some seemed somewhat scared.

“Alright...I like having all eyes on me, but this is starting to creep me out a bit...” the rainbow maned pegasus, speeding up towards her house. “No time to worry about that now, I've got more important things to do.”

What she didn't notice was Carrot Top pulling her little sister Noi into the house and send a letter to the Royal Guard.

---

“Come on, come on, where's that turtle chow?” Rainbow Dash asked out loud, looking through her cupboards desperately.

The Pegasus instinctively ducked as her flying turtle...tortoise nearly hit her in the head. Something that experience had taught her bucking hurt. “Watch it Tank! You've almost hit my head like nine times! I thought we'd broke you of that...”

Tank frantically pointed towards a closet nearby. Unfortunately, being a tortoise meant frantically was still very, very slow. Too slow to get his fast paced owner's attention given her mind set at this particular moment.

“Ah! Here it is!”

Rainbow Dash produced a sizable sack of treats Fluttershy had kindly provided. Considering tortoises weren't exactly the most common pet in the world, having Fluttershy for a friend made getting her loyal pet's food far cheaper and far simpler than it would be for her to go buy it for herself. Not to mention that the kind pony had good knowledge of animal health, making the food exceptionally helpful (and tasty) for her little turtle.

The pet owner poured the food into a green bowl and slid it on the floor of her cloud castle...and once more ducked under Tank as he nearly smashed into her head for the 21st consecutive time.

“Geez Tank! You almost gave me a concussion!” Rainbow yelled.

Tank kept motioning to the closet.

“Sorry bud, I can't play right now, I need to go take care of something in Cloudsdale real quick, we can play later,” the rainbow maned Pegasus said, giving the pet a nuzzle before flying out the window now that her pet was fed.

The tortoise gave an annoyed sign and flew over to the closet, peaking inside.

The little animal startled at a knock at the door. Slowly blinking, he flew towards the source of the noise and waited as another knock came. After a third, the sound of the lock being picked attracted his attention.

The door swung open and a yellow coated pegasus with a short, black mane and tail trotted in with a sense of purpose. He tipped the white fedora on his head up, eyes scanning the premises and noting the open closet door. The stallion trotted over to the door and swung it open, finding an empty metal canister lying on the cloud floor. He dipped his hoof in the rainbow colored substance leaking from it and lifted it into his line of sight. The mystery stallion narrowed his eyes.

He then spun around, putting a hoof out in time to stop Tank mid-charge before the turtle could defensively bean the stallion in the head. “Protecting your master’s place? Good boy,” he said with an accent one might see in Manehatten. He let go of the Tortoise and trotted over to the window. “Too bad yer master' ain't somepony I can let you protect.”

The pegasus narrowed his eyes at the rainbow colored streak in the distance.

---

Rainbow Dash knew that most Pegasi didn't have the endurance to fly all the way from Ponyville to Cloudsdale multiple times in one day. The fact she was hardly winded doing that made her quite proud of herself, in part because she knew it meant all that training for the Wonderbolts was paying off. A stunt flyer needed endurance to be able to perform all the high energy maneuvers that the job called for. Her mind wondered back to Wonderbolts' academy and how the training had left nearly every other recruit panting and gasping for breath while she'd barely been wind. She gave a sad look down at the ground as she thought about the letter she'd received.

“Nah, Spitfire woulda said something then if there was a problem.”

However, as she got closer and closer to the city, her confidence began to wain and her heart began to droop bit by bit as she got closer and closer to her goal. The Element of Loyalty was renowned for her ego, but even she could sometimes let her nerves get the better of her. Especially when it came to her future at stake. And that was definitely the case now.

Thankfully (or not) a new sight drew the Pegasus away from her impending hyperventilation.

The city was in an uproar, but that wasn't what drew her from her thoughts, at least not in and of itself. Cloudsdale was a bustling city, so a little uproar was to be expected, even in Equestria. What startled her was there being a few more rainbows than she remembered...

The central area of the city was COVERED in rainbows. It made her think that somepony had handed a foal a firehouse and told them to paint the town with the stuff. At least from a distance. As she got closer, she saw the streaks of rainbow had decidedly more purpose and intent. Particularly, the vandal had seemed to target anything Wonderbolts related. Their posters, their information center, the stadium, the gift shop!

Seeing both her home town and her idols disrespected such made the Pegasus' blood boil. “Who could have done this?!”' she growled under her breath. “Well whoever it was is just asking for a hoof sandwich!”

“There she is!”

“Where?!”

To Rainbow Dash's surprise, she'd found the guards rushing at HER. At first she naturally assumed they wanted her help...but then they pointed spears at her.

“Come quietly, Miss Rainbow Dash. You're under arrest for mass vandalism, theft, and assaulting an officer.”

“Wait, what?!” the multicolored pegasus asked, jaw dropping in shock. “You think I did this?!”

The guards simply nodded.

“How?!”

“I can answer that,”

Rainbow blinked, turning to see the same yellow stallion that, the canister in his hoof, the angle revealing his Cutie Mark to be a private eye stylized eyeball with a magnifying glass in front of it. “Who the Tartarus are you?”

“Name's Guard Detective Private Eye,” the stallion replied, tipping his fedora politely. “Sorry we meet like this, Dash. I respected your friends for helping arrest Rough Diamonds, tough case to crack.”

“Alright, wise guy, what's your 'proof?!” the rainbow maned Pegasus snapped.

“Hey, ya think I ain't upset about this?” Private Eye asked, looking hurt. “Let's get one thing straight here, I don't like stacking evidence against one of Equestria's heroes anymore than the next stallion, but if the horseshoe fits, you must convict.”

Rainbow Dash blinked, taken aback by the...sincerity of how he put it. “Fine...but I'm being bucking honest, I have no idea what's going on!”

The detective sighed. “Fine, then let me explain. At 6 pm last night, you were seen flying out of your house, looking real clopped off, like you'd  gotten bad news. Someponies heard you talking about the Bolts. Is that true?”

“...Yeah...How'd you know?! Were you spying on me?!”

“Nah, I just did my hoofwork like any self respecting detective worth his salt,” the yellow pegasus stated, producing a note pad with an entire list of ponies' names. “Anyway, then you were heard by the recruits at the Wonderbolts Academy ranting and raving, trying to get Spitfire's attention. you still seemed pretty clopped off.”

Rainbow Dash looked somewhere between rage and depression at having those moments dredged back up. “So? I was clopped off at something I got in a letter! Why does that automatically mean that I bucking painted Cloudsdale rainbow colored?!”

Private Eye remained calm, looking at his notes. “I was getting to that. Not long after you were seen at Wonderbolts Academy, somepony, coat color blue, mane and tail rainbow color, broke into the Weather Factory and stole a big canister of liquid rainbows, assaulting two guards, they used it to do all this you see here. Now, can you tell me where you where during that time?”

Rainbow Dash smirked, crossing her hooves over her chest. “Easy, I was sleeping on a cloud so in the morning I could tell Spitfire...what I needed to tell her. Just...kinda forgot I needed to feed Tank in the morning.”

“Ah. And who saw ya?”

Rainbow Dash's face dropped. “Uh...well...no one...I kinda wanted to be alone because...well...I was having a bad day.”

“Uh huh. What I thought. Doesn't matter much,” Private Eye replied, showing the canister. “I found this in your house.”

“You went in my house?!”

The detective produced a paper with 'search warrant' written on it. “I got a warrant. Lot's of ponies saw you at the scene of the crime, I got to list.”

“...Okay look! I don't know how that got there, but I swear I didn't do it!”

“Now look, I ain't the bad guy here, and if you really aren't, your lawyer can have a chance to prove it in court. But all the evidence I have points to you being the guilty party.  So just come quietly, okay?”

Many ponies would simply come quietly and get help afterward. Rainbow Dash, in her current mental state was not most ponies. “Uh...Look! Cloud Gremlins!”

When the guard looked, Rainbow ran for it. Unfortunately for her, Private Eye wasn't so easily fooled and began chase.

Rainbow did what Rainbow did best and sped through the city streets, evading buildings at every possible turn, but her pursuer remained in sight. “Oh man! Could this day get any worse?!”

As Rainbow sped around a corner, a rainbow colored streak rushed by her, sending her spinning. Private Eye didn't hesitate even if he didn't see the streak and tackled Rainbow out of the air, pinning her against a building with a hammerlock.

“Come on, you got more dignity than that,” the detective said, taking out hoofcuffs and putting them on the mare.

A shadowy figure smirked from the shadows before vanishing.

'This can't be happening...I can't go to jail...I wish something would come out of nowhere and save me...'

Without warning, a stink bomb manifested and went off, followed by a bright flash of light.

Private Eye coughed, putting a handkerchief over his nose. He flapped his wings and dispersed the foul smoke...only to find his pray gone. “Dang it, why can't this ever just be easy?”