MidnightBlaze16- Thank God someone got that reference! I was afraid I'd be wasting my time with that; if Pinkie had DETERMINATION then the world would be destroyed no matter what happens! But seriously, I love Undertale so much… it's kinda my new obsession, so much that I even started writing another story for that fandom. Before I go off rambling I'm just gonna say thank God you got that and don't forget to brush your teeth before crossing the street. ;)

RosaSilvermist- Thanks for the birthday wishes!

Amellia Rose- Applejack's scene in the next chapter is one of my favourites in the entire story; our apple horse deserves more badass moments.

YoungBlood23- This is why it sucks that I can't get chapters out sooner. I love getting all of these positive messages!

Luna'snight625- Thanks for the encouragement; I'll try and make sure I keep staying positive. And thanks for the birthday wishes too! Maybe once this blasted story is over I'll write a connected one-shot involving a sleepover with those five. It'd be awesome! xD

Ponyloco- Heh. Wow, I appreciate that you took the time to make me feel better like that. I find that talking to someone who has experienced what you're going through and knows how you feel is best because therapists are usually robotic idiots who only half-listen to what you say and then give you meds that don't work. Heck that's part of the reason why I wanna go to psychology classes in the future. I really wanna give you a hug right now because nobody should have to go through what you've gone through and I feel like there's not enough I can say right now to provide comfort. But I really do love how you've gone out of your way to cheer me up, and please be aware that you succeeded. I'll try to be more communicative with my family and try to become happier with who I am. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support. *cyberhugs* Also, it's fine that you reviewed twice- we've all made that mistake in the past when we review outside our accounts ;)

IS- 3- Thanks! And thanks for remembering the whole Bluepony issue. Also, emails don't show on this website, sorry. Try spacing it out in a PM and I can totally send it to you. Uvidimsya! ;)

As a final note so people don't get on my case about it, yes I did change how I write Fleetfoot's lisp. Instead of replacing every 's' with a 'th' I'm just gonna add an extra 's'. This will be applied to all past chapters as well. Also, 'as' will not become 'ass'! I am Sassy and I live to ruin your fun! :P

---

"She's so awesome!" Scootaloo exhaled as she stared up at Rainbow Dash, who was flying in circles around the Academy at impressive speed. The orange filly's eyes were full of stars as the blur of colourful pegasi soared around the cloudy building, the streaks of blue, gold, and whatever other colours the ponies consisted of kinda looked like a rainbow spinning round and round like a tornado. Scootaloo thought it looked kinda pretty… though mostly it was just epic.

She wished she could be up there with Rainbow Dash- she'd give anything to be able to fly by her side, race with her; maybe someday she'd even fly fast enough to be able to pull off a Sonic Rainboom. Scootaloo looked over her shoulder at her tiny pair of wings and fluttered them a little bit, her smile faltering as she saw the familiar hummingbird like motions they made, and she sighed.

Useless. That's what the bullies at school called her wings; according to them she was more of a chicken than a pony, and even chickens could fly better than her. It was horrible to say the least, having these wings. Sometimes she felt all alone, like she was the only pony in the whole of Equestria who had this problem, and more often than not she found herself asking 'why?'

Why did she, out of all the other pegasi in the world, have to be born with these stupid wings? Every other pegasus in her class had developed or developing wings, so why didn't she? What did she do to deserve this? On occasion when she, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle went to Sugarcube Corner they saw Mr or Mrs Cake fussing over the twins when they tried to be 'helpful'. Pumpkin Cake had gotten into the habit of levitating donuts off the counter and into her mouth when nopony was looking- it got on her parents' nerves, but at least she was just putting food in her mouth this time around. And on random occasions Pound Cake would flutter up to a shelf and grab a bag of flour. It always made him crash back down to the floor due to the weight, but ponies got the idea that he just wanted someone to pour flour all over themselves. It's a good thing they had Pinkie to do that. But Scootaloo was a little peeved that Pound Cake could fly and she, an eleven year old pony, could not. At least Sweetie Belle was getting the hang of her magic, but she couldn't even get four feet off the ground.

On her most recent visit to the doctor, he had examined her wings for what felt like the quadrillionth time in her life and she had voiced her concerns to him. But as usual, it had been the same stupid response. He had just told her that she was a very late bloomer and that her wings would grow eventually. But he had told her to exercise in case that sped things along. Every day for three weeks she had crouched down and then made her legs go quickly straight, and she sat on her haunches and made windmill motions with her arms. But after a while she got sick of it and when nothing happened she gave up entirely, figuring that the exercise thing was just bogus.

"Hi there!"

"Ah!" Scootaloo whipped round until she was eye-to-eye with the light blue Wonderbolt who was commanding the cadets that afternoon, Fleetfoot.

"You okay, kid?" she asked. Scootaloo flushed pink; a little embarrassed that Fleetfoot had caught her starting so forlornly at her wings like that. The orange filly shrugged and tried to shake it off.

"Yeah it's nothing," she replied hastily, trying to pinpoint Rainbow Dash in the whirling mass of cadets in the sky. Rarity, Fluttershy and Twilight sat a little way off with Spike sitting on Fluttershy's back, and Scootaloo had initially stepped back to have a wider view of the flying. Despite Scootaloo declining being bothered by something, Fleetfoot seemed determined to figure out what with up with the little filly, and she scooted to the side until she was sitting right next to her.

"C'mon kiddo, I can alwayss tell when a pony has problems," she lisped. Scootaloo thought her lisp was pretty cute rather than silly like Rainbow Dash did. She'd heard Rainbow talk about Fleetfoot before and she had done a funny over-the-top impression of her. But hearing Fleetfoot now, Scootaloo could see that she was nothing like that; nothing like Twist from school's lisp, and barely noticeable at all.

"Am I that transparent?" Scootaloo was honestly a little jittery from speaking to a Wonderbolt. She had seen Fleetfoot at the Spring Celebration, but she had spent most of it trailing after Big Macintosh so she hadn't had a chance to even say hello, really.

"Incredibly," Fleetfoot chuckled, "now tell me what'ss going on with you sso I can help." she was very insistent on lending a hoof.

"Er…" Scootaloo knew that there was no escape from this, "it's my wings." she admitted, standing and spreading them out as best she could to show them to the older mare. Fleetfoot clicked her tongue and circled around Scootaloo, peering at every inch of her wings from every single angle she could find before sitting down in front of the filly and humming in thought.

"It doeth look like they're a little on the titchy thide," she mused, making Scootaloo blush a little. It was super embarrassing that a Wonderbolt was talking to her about her flawed wings.

"I know," she muttered, trying not to sound too grumpy. Fleetfoot was trying to help her out anyway, and hopefully there would be some constructive criticism incoming. Words of wisdom from one of the best flyers in the world was just what Scootaloo needed… sure she got them all the time from Rainbow Dash, but maybe what she needed was to see things from another pony's perspective.

"Sso I'm guesssing that your problem is that you wanna fly but can't?" Fleetfoot raised an eyebrow. Scootaloo looked up at her with big purple eyes and sighed.

"Yes…" she replied quietly. Fleetfoot ran a hoof through her fluffy white mane and briefly looked up at the cadets and then down at her stopwatch to make sure that they were still flying around the Academy like they were supposed to. There were still a few minutes left until they had to fly back down so Fleetfoot figured that she could use that time to help a filly out with her problem.

"It'ss a sstory as old as time," she began, secretly enjoying the look Scootaloo gave her as she attempted to be mysterious. "When we're babies most pegassi have ssporadic burssts of flight that dissappear after a while. After that it'ss all a big confusing as crap journey to ssomehow regain our flight. In my opinion it'ss a sstupid rule to have us fly as kids, and then lose the ability for a few years before getting it again. Do you think that makes any ssensse?" Fleetfoot grilled the filly in front of her.

"It doesn't!" Scootaloo jumped high into the air, her frustration with her wings pouring into this conversation. It was good to be talking about this with somepony who wasn't Rainbow Dash, Apple Bloom or Sweetie Belle at long last. A new talking buddy was just what the doctor ordered… she wished.

"Glad ya agree, kiddo," Fleetfoot gave Scootaloo a friendly wink. "Anyway, mosst pegassi at ssome point along the line going from baby to adolescent gets pretty pisssed off with how long it takes to learn to fly again, and everyone's always ssaying sstuff like 'you'll learn eventually' or 'just have a little patience' and it gets on your Luna damned nerves, am I right?"

"Yes!" this mare understood her!

"But deep down you're convinced that you'll never learn to fly and the only reasons ponies are telling you that you'll eventually ssoar is because they either don't care or they're too caught up in their own ability to fly to give damn about you."

"Well maybe that's a stretch…" Scootaloo admitted. She knew that Fleetfoot was only trying to be helpful, and providing one's own views and opinions on things were what kept conversations and arguments flowing… and on occasion caused humiliation, embarrassment, fire, explosions, collisions, tears, war and death.

"Eh, maybe?" Fleetfoot shrugged. "Anyway, how old are you right now, kiddo? Eight? Nine?"

"Eleven," Scootaloo replied.

"Oh…" Fleetfoot's ears pointed straight up and her mouth formed a straight line. Clearly this hadn't been the answer she'd expected.

"Lemme guess, you've never heard of an eleven year old filly who couldn't fly," Scootaloo rolled her eyes, preparing to face the facts that she was an abnormal filly with wings that wouldn't look out of place on a housefly.

"Lissten, you're not the only filly like that," Fleetfoot assured her. Scootaloo had a feeling that she knew what Fleetfoot was getting at.

"You didn't fly until you were eleven?" she guessed. Fleetfoot scoffed and flicked a hoof.

"Nah, I flew first when I was nine," she revealed. Scootaloo's shoulders sagged and she sank down into the clouds.

"Darn…" she mumbled. Fleetfoot crouched down and put a hoof under the filly's chin, lifting her head up until they were eye to eye.

"But I know ssomeone who didn't fly until they were eleven; at least that'ss what Ssurprise tells me."

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow and sat up straight again. "Well, who is it?" she asked, desperately wanting to know. Fleetfoot tilted her head in the direction of the Academy.

"Captain Groucho," she replied. Scootaloo could officially be coloured surprised.

"The captain had underdeveloped wings like me when she was my age?" she asked. Fleetfoot let out a second scoff and shook her head.

"Nope, her wings were developed, sshe just plain couldn't fly," she began telling the story, "according to Ssurprise, when the captain was eleven sshe was a blank flank that couldn't fly," she explained, and Scootaloo's eyes lit up with interest.

"How did she learn?" She breathed, waiting for inspiration to slam into her like a train. Fleetfoot straightened out her mane as she continued her tale.

"Ssurprise offered to teach her, and after a while sshe taught Sspitz the ropess." She stated. "That'ss all there is to it, apparently."

Scootaloo was still unsatisfied. This didn't help her in any way. "Well how do I learn to fly with these stumpy wings? What if they never develop? That is possible!" she began to sweat as her fears started scampering about in her head like a crazed herd of cattle. Fleetfoot raised a hoof.

"Hey, I know ssomepony who could help you," she put a hoof around Scootaloo's shoulder. "The janitor, Feather Duster, has underdeveloped wings like you- possibly," she said to her. "Talk to her. Sshe's figured out wayss to fly that sshe could probably teach to you. No ssweat."

Scootaloo's eyes widened. "That sounds like a great idea!" she gasped. "I'll go see her and learn how to fly! It's genius!" she jumped up and wrapped her hooves around Fleetfoot's neck.

"THANK YOU!" she yelled, making the light blue Wonderbolt's ears rattle. She lowered herself down to put the filly down on the ground.

"It's no problem, but don't get your hopess up. Feather Duster can be pretty grumpy, and sshe's… basically a lesss threatening Ssaddlef Hitler." she looked to the side with annoyance. Scootaloo did feel a little disheartened at that, but she was confident that if she said the right stuff she could convince this Feather Duster to tell her all of her secrets. Fleetfoot looked down at her stopwatch and for a moment her eyes bugged out of her head.

"Oh sshoot, I sshould have called the cadetss down two minutess ago! Bye, kid!" she flapped high into the air and blew her whistle as loud as she could. "Everypony get back down here! It'ss over!"

Scootaloo trotted over to sit next to Fluttershy, who was waving up at Rainbow Dash as she descended from the sky wither her fellow cadets. Spike looked down from Fluttershy's back at the orange filly.

"Hey Scootaloo, you look happy," Spike noted, "what were you talking about back there?" he nodded behind him to where Scootaloo had recently been speaking with Fleetfoot. Scootaloo decided it wouldn't hurt to tell Spike about what had happened.

"I just told her about my wing problems, and then she told me about a pegasus named Feather Duster who could help me out," she explained. "She has underdeveloped wings like me, so she can teach me how to fly like this," she then stupidly tried to demonstrate by trying to fly, and ended up falling onto her face. "It… looks like I need it," she admitted, her cheeks turning pink.

"I… wasn't gonna say anything," Spike looked awkwardly to the side. Scootaloo shrugged and stood up, shaking her feathers and fur until all the clouds that had latched onto her when she fell got flicked off.

"It's not like I'm not used to it Spike," she told the little purple dragon, "besides, it'll sound a lot less, um, horrible coming from you."

Spike shook his head. "Nah, I'm not gonna make fun of your wings. Friends don't do that," he said, "well unless it's playfully," he was reminded of some of Rainbow Dash's teasing. Scootaloo reached up onto Fluttershy's back and gave Spike a friendly nudge.

"Thanks Spike," she giggled, and Spike absentmindedly started twirling his autographed tail around one claw.

"Meh, glad I can be around to not be a jerk," he couldn't think of any other way that was better to put it. Scootaloo let out a laugh and waved as Rainbow Dash and the other cadets finished getting pep-talked by Fleetfoot and started heading towards them.

"Welp, we're gonna do one more exercise but after that it's fun time!" Rainbow informed her friends. Rarity sighed in relief.

"That's great," she told the cyan pegasus, "I don't want to sound unsupportive but watching you fly around in circles like that did make me feel a little queasy," the unicorn was a little dismayed that since she was a magical pony in a land full of bright colours her face turned green instead of white when she was sick. If this was realistic then she would have turned white and nopony would notice; but no, she had to be stuck with turning green. And green was not her colour at all.

"Meh, Fleetfoot's just letting us do some stretching for the rest of the day so we can cool off, so I'm not really gonna be moving from one spot for the next hour or so," she explained. Rarity let out a breath and fanned herself with one hoof, still begging that there wasn't even the faintest shade of green on her cheeks. Twilight raised a hoof.

"Rainbow Dash, I would just like to say that this is much better than you and your friends' performances this morning. Fleetfoot certainly knows what she's doing," she gave a nod of approval in the direction of the light blue mare. Rainbow gave a lopsided smile.

"Yep, she's cool. I still wish Spitfire would reappear, but I can live with this."

---

"I keep telling you! There is no way you'll live after this!" Feather Duster was yelling at an annoying orange pony who had asked her for directions a while ago. The mare was very insistent to 'knock some sense into yer captain'. Basically, this crazy pony was dead-set on going on a suicide mission, and frankly Feathers would rather not clean up a puddle of blood from Spitfire's rug. And like heck she was dragging a smelly dead body out of there.

"Excuse me!" the orange mare waved a hoof in front of her face, "Did ya hear what Ah just said? Ya just zoned out!"

"I had things on my mind, okay?" the dusty brown mare rolled her eyes. Applejack raised an eyebrow.

"Like what?" she sighed. Feather Duster casually examined one forehoof.

"Do you want an honest answer?" she questioned the taller pony, who she really wanted to get away from in all honesty- ironic.

"Yep, Ah do. Ah'm the Element o' Honesty, after all," she answered. Feather Duster didn't change her position but angled her eyes upwards to meet the green ones of the other pony.

"I was imagining dragging your corpse off the captain's desk," she said as if it were nothing. Applejack's pupils dilated and she took a step back. "What, you wanted an honest answer so I gave you it."

"Is this normal behaviour fer you?" Applejack asked warily, a little terrified of this small pegasus.

"You'd better believe it," Feather rubbed her hoof against her chest to shine it, and Applejack suddenly heard approaching hoofsteps. She looked over her shoulder to see Pinkie Pie approaching chipperly with Surprise and Misty Fly following suit.

"Hiya Applejack!" Pinkie stopped to the side of her fellow earth pony. "Wanna check out this wacky thing with us?"

Feather Duster gestured widely towards Applejack. "This is the wacky thing, tailhole!" she half-yelled. Misty sneered down at the smaller pegasus.

"There's no need to snap; she didn't know!" the custard mare defended Pinkie Pie. Feathers scoffed and blew some of her mane out of her face, blatantly ignoring the young Wonderbolt.

"Um… Applejack isn't exactly wacky…" Pinkie cocked her head to the side, "unless she's more related to me than I thought. Should I start calling you Applewack?"

"No, Pinkie! Ah just wanna talk t' the captain, an' li'l miss… that's it, just li'l miss- here won't help me out!" she didn't care about sparing Feathers' feelings now. Surprise raised a hoof.

"Feathers, can you help her out so I can go use the restroom?" the white Wonderbolt asked, trying not to visibly show that she needed to pee. Misty gave her an annoyed side-glanced and shook her head disapprovingly. This was certainly not a topic of conversation to be had in the middle of a hallway if you asked her.

"She wants to talk to the captain about her brother's problem," Feathers rolled her eyes and explained in the laziest fashion she could manage.

"Cousin!" Applejack hissed through clenched teeth, her ears flattening against her skull with frustration. Feather pointed towards her face.

"Does this look like the face of somepony who cares?" she asked rhetorically, and Applejack let out a breath through her snout that made a puff of steam come out. Pinkie stepped between the two mares, not mentioning it out loud but clearly wanting to put some kind of barrier between them before Applejack killed Feather Duster.

"Hey! What's up with Braeburn? He always seems so happy, so why would he have a problem?" the pink pony asked. Applejack loved Pinkie's innocence, but the excitable earth pony liked to pretend that not all ponies could have problems. Applejack wasn't about to tell her otherwise and burst her cheerful little bubble of pinkness.

"It's personal an' he wouldn't like it if Ah told y'all." she said to the surrounding ponies. Feather Duster leaned against the wall and stared at the floor.

"Her cousin has the ho-"

"That's enough outta you, ya l'il varmint!" Applejack forced Pinkie to the side and raised a threatening, clenched hoof at the small brown mare, who for a split second really did look like she was going to poop herself. However, she quickly returned to her pissy attitude.

"Wow, your hoof strikes fear into my heart." she droned sarcastically, "Ya know, if you get a hooficure you can fix that pretty quickly?"

"So how does the new paint look?" Misty suddenly spoke out of nowhere. Her weird outburst got the attention of all the other mares. After an awkward pause, Misty nodded her head to the side. "We, uh… w-we did get some new paint. Is it nice- oh who cares, I just don't want anyone to die," she admitted. Feather Duster groaned and pointed at Applejack.

"Neither do I; that's why I'm telling Country Cassidy over here that she shouldn't talk to Spitfire! Got it?" she explained. Misty cleared her throat.

"Feather Duster, I will happily continue this argument with you, but now that I have retrieved Surprise for you, can you keep up your end of the bargain and fork over my cigarettes?" the custard pegasus held out one hoof. Feather Duster rolled her eyes and reached into her mane (she hadn't un-learned that trick from the slumber party in hell), pulling out Misty's pouch of cigarettes and passing it to her.

"Thank you very much," Misty then trotted over to a window, opened it, lit a cigarette and then started puffing, the stress somehow visibly melting off her. Pinkie sighed and shook her head.

"Maybe if I showed her pictures of damaged lungs and the harm that smoking could do to a pony then she'd stop that nasty habit," the pink pony suggested to the others. Misty let out a breath of smoke and then looked over her shoulder at the puffy maned earth pony.

"Addiction is a powerful thing… and so is my hearing for that matter," she explained before going right back to smoking. Pinkie leaned to the side to whisper in Applejack's ear.

"I'm going to get her an e-cigarette for Hearths Warming," she then leaned to her other side to whisper in Surprise's ear, "don't tell her about it though, 'because I want it to be a surprise… so I guess that won't be a problem for you." The pink earth pony gave a big smile. Surprise changed the topic.

"This isn't about Smokey Joe over there, this is about Spitfire, Braeburn, and now Applejack has gotten herself involved so we don't really have a choice but to help her out." she explained. Feather Duster snorted and folded her hooves.

"Why do we have to help her out? We could easily just shove her out the door, is that not good enough for you?" the small mare plotted. Surprise sighed and placed a hoof on her forehead, not liking how stressed out she was- she was too adorable and fun to be stressed!

"Look, this has all been going on for long enough. Any longer and ponies are gonna start to suspect that something is wrong. Besides, I have this really great feeling that Applejack could really help us out; help her out… help them out."

"I'm not usually one to care about secrets, but should you two be talking about this with Pinkie standing right there and Misty in earshot?" Feather Duster gestured from one mare to the other. Pinkie raised a hoof, lowering her voice so that Misty couldn't hear her.

"I already know about Braeburn being totally head over hooves for Spitfire; I just didn't know that they were in a bad situation." She frowned. Applejack raised a brow.

"How they hay could ya know that. Ah only found out about it not too long ago, so how could you be talkin' about it as if it's nothin' new. Ah'm still gettin' over the shock muhself!" the orange mare said to her pink friend. "Was it your Pinkie Sense?"

Pinkie put a hoof around Surprise. "You do realise that my Twinzie here writes to me about every detail of her life, and I do the same with her. I knew about this like a month ago!"

"And… ya didn't think t' tell me about it?" Applejack asked, wanting to know why Pinkie would keep information about one of her family members a secret. Applejack was expecting a long explanation about how Pinkie was forbidden to by a made up secret society or something, but instead she simply said:

"Nope!"

After a long pause consisting of everyone except Misty staring at Surprise, and Pinkie just smiling innocently at Applejack, everypony just decided to move on from this conversation.

"Look, all Ah wanna do is help mah cousin out; he's a sweet stallion and he really likes this mare. And if the way she acted when she was with him was any indication then she just might like him a little, too. Ah wanna help 'em both out so they can move on from what happened. By the looks o' things it could do the whole Academy a doozy of good." Applejack explained. Feather Duster seemed to soften a little bit at the orange pony's speech, but shook her head and muttered 'mushy shit' under her breath loudly on purpose so that the others knew she was against this maniacal plan of Applejack's.

"Your loyalty to Braeburn is really sweet, Applejack," Surprise said to her, "and I believe that you can fix things if you try. You seem pretty eager to give it a shot, anyway."

"Ah am." Applejack nodded fervently. "Fer the good and happiness of all o' you Ah'm gonna put things right if it kills me!"

"There's a high chance that it will," Feathers stated pointedly, "just sayin'."

"Ignore her," Surprise shot a glare at Feather Duster, "me and Pinkie are behind you on this."

"Hey Misty!" Pinkie called over to the custard pegasus, who had finished smoking and was closing the window. She looked over her shoulder at the pink earth pony.

"Yes Pinkie Pie?" she asked, trotting back over to the group.

"You're supporting Applejack too, right?" she asked hopefully. Misty sighed and slowly nodded.

"If you really think you can talk some sense into Spitfire then I'm willing to have faith in you. Things need to get back to normal." She agreed, giving Applejack a smile, which the Element of Honesty returned.

"Ugh!" Feather Duster spun around on her hooves. "Don't even do it, because I know what happens next. This is the part of the movie where everyone in the room stares expectantly at the one pony who hasn't agreed, and they won't leave them alone until they convert to their side," she scoffed, "well that is not going to work on me, smartasses! I'm gonna convert without your prompting to prove that you don't need to follow the clichés all the time." She strode over to stand in the middle of the group. "See, I have converted. And all of you ponies can suck it!" she raised her middle wingtip and gave Surprise the stink eye.

"Welp, now that yer all on board, can y'all lead me to the captain's office?"

"Right this way," Misty fly started walking down the hallway to the right, followed by Applejack, then Surprise, then a bouncing Pinkie Pie, and then Feather Duster bringing up the rear. Surprise leaned forward to whisper something to Applejack.

"Don't tell Feather Duster this, but I was just gonna leave her there while we took you to the office," she confessed. Applejack sniggered and covered her mouth with a hoof.

"She sure is pretty adorable for a mare that thinks she's an incarnation of Satan," Misty Fly said to the ponies walking behind her. Pinkie giggled and put forth her own opinion.

"I think she's nice; her behaviour probably has something to do with wanting to seem tough despite her height." She said. Applejack raised a brow.

"Why'd you suspect that?" she asked. Pinkie held up her front left hoof, which was twitching.

"Now that was Pinkie Sense."

---

"Where the heck is Soarin?" Rainbow Dash poked her head into the staff room, where she was hoping Soarin was lounging around. Surprisingly though he wasn't there… the only pony present was Lightning Streak, who was fast asleep and spread across the sofa on the right side of the room with a magazine over his face. It was a pretty silly thing to observe, and Rainbow wished that there was some way she could take a picture of him and then taunt him with it… or better, she could sell it to Fire Streak and then he could humiliate his brother.

"Rainbow Dash, why are you staring at him?" Rarity asked, moving to stand next to her cyan friend in the doorway. Rainbow chuckled and told her.

"I was just thinking of taking a picture of him, copying it and then posting it all over Cloudsdale as a prank," she plotted. Rarity rolled her eyes and sighed.

"What do you get out of pranking people?" she asked, beginning to walk away. Rainbow Dash thought back to the start of April.

"Hung from the ceiling," she replied. Rarity looked over her shoulder, baffled at what the heck Rainbow Dash was talking about, but didn't say anything else about it.

"I wonder where Applejack is," Fluttershy murmured, "she should have caught up with us by now, right Twilight."

"She does seem to be taking her time… but hey, she might just really want to talk to her cousin. She doesn't get to see him all that often after all," the purple alicorn hypothesised, but Fluttershy hummed and shook her head.

"But doesn't she want to hang out with Rainbow Dash? It's been so long since we've been together like this and she's missing out." The butter yellow pegasus sounded worried.

"And Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom are still hanging around with her and Soarin," Scootaloo pouted. "If they were gonna do something fun the least they could do was come and get me!"

"Hey Scoots," Rainbow draped a wing over her little sister's back, "now that they're gone you're the only filly who gets my attention." She winked, trying to find a silver lining to this situation. Scootaloo did perk up at that, and she affectionately butted her head against Rainbow's shoulder to show that she appreciated her trying to cheer her up.

"Maybe something's gone wrong?" Spike suggested, jumping down from Twilight's back after deciding that he could walk by himself. Twilight let her right ear drop with confusion.

"Why would you think that?" she asked. Spike gestured around at the group of ponies.

"Because it's us; no matter what we do something always goes wrong. It seems like we can't go to the market anymore without a monster attacking Ponyville… have you seen how tired everypony in town is of this same charade?" Spike explained. "So why should we rule out Applejack, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom getting carried away by a giant winged eyeball or something?"

"I'm sure they haven't been taken away by a giant eyeball Spike," Rainbow chuckled at the little dragon's theory. He raised one claw.

"Giant flying eyeball, Rainbow Dash," Spike tapped his noggin to tell Rainbow to pay attention to detail, and the blue mare smiled, rolling her magenta eyes. She missed these silly conversations with her friends… sure she had plenty of silly conversations here with Soarin, Braeburn, Lullaby and the others, but it still wasn't the same as hanging with these guys. Nopony could replace them.

"We'll find 'em," Rainbow assured her friends, "oh, and did I mention that this is the first stop on our tour of the Academy: the staff room." She put on a stereotypical tour guide voice and waved a hoof in the direction of the room. "This is where the Wonderbolts do ordinary pony things behind the safety of a wooden door that everypony forgets to lock. Wonderbolt butts have sat on those very seats guy. Real life Wonderbolt butts."

"Butts…" Lightning Streak rolled over in his sleep and fell off the couch, landing on his face with a loud thump. Everypony cringed at the sound of face hitting floor, but Lightning Streak somehow managed to snooze through it, the magazine from before somehow landed on the back of his head. Rainbow decided that this was the right time for them to move on.

"Anyway, let's keep going this way," she took to the head of the group as she escorted her friends to the next location on her imaginary map of the place. She led the others down the hallway until they reached the bathrooms. She stood in the doorway facing her friends and tilted her head to the left.

"This is the stallions room- don't go in there ever… except you, Spike," she explained, having heard stories of how disgusting it was in stallions restrooms. She then tipped her head to the right. "And this is the mare's; if anypony wants to go do it now because I'm not sure how many times we'll walk past this place over the course of this tour," she said, making sure to keep her voice high like a guide. It was making her friends laugh, and that made her happy. Pinkie Pie would be proud… if she would just freaking show up!

"Whoa, Pinkie's gone too!" Rainbow hadn't even noticed until now. Twilight and the others glanced around, but sure enough their pink friend was nowhere to be seen.

"Is it… bad that we didn't see her leave?" Fluttershy asked, some of her long pink hair flopping into her face as she dipped her head. Twilight didn't give Fluttershy a direct answer but just gave a single hum instead, as that response could be taken either way. It was a trick Twilight had learned long ago when it came to yes or no questions, and was actually a good psychological way of both getting out of answering the question and for the person asking to get their way, since they will almost always hear what they want to hear. In this case, Fluttershy heard a yes.

"Maybe we left her behind by mistake?" the yellow pegasus suggested. Rarity moved to stand beside her feathered friend

"Do you really think it's possible to leave Pinkie behind? I'd reckon that even if we did so on purpose she would find us if she wanted to." The white unicorn comforted Fluttershy. She still didn't seem convinced that everything was alright.

"But what if she's mad that we didn't notice?" she asked with big, adorable eyes. Rainbow made a 'pssh' noise.

"She wouldn't be mad; and even if she was she'd probably forget about it in twenty seconds and offer us peppermints," she knew Pinkie Pie pretty well, so that would probably be her exact actions. Pinkie wasn't one to hold a grudge after all.

"She'll show up," Twilight assured the others, wanting to keep everypony who was left in the group in high spirits. If they couldn't (for some reason) all be together for this tour then the least she could do was make sure that nopony was worrying about anything. Rainbow Dash still had another month at the Academy, and this was a rare opportunity in the amount of time for them to be together.

"Hey, what's that?" Spike suddenly asked, hearing some clanking noises coming from a little way down the hall. Rainbow bet that the little dragon would love what was coming up. She moved away from the restrooms (at last) and hurried along to the big double doors concealing the source of the noise that Spike has heard.

"This is gonna be awesome, Spike-a-roo," Rainbow bumped her butt against the door and knocked it open, and Spike's jaw dropped.

"Oh my gosh!" he scurried up to stand in the doorway and excitedly hopped from foot to foot.

He was looking at the Wonderbolt's gym!

"Er…" Fire Streak awkwardly stared at the group from within the room. "He was halfway through bench pressing a large set of weights, and the surprising intrusion of the four mares, Scootaloo and Spike caused him to lose focus a little. Luckily he managed to regain his focus before he took a dumbbell to the throat. "Can I help you?" he asked. Rainbow shook her head.

"I was just-"

"WHEE!" Spike cheered all of a sudden. Everypony's eyes were averted to the left side of the room, where Spike was bouncing off one of those giant rubber balls that nopony knew the use for (seriously, what are these things used for?)

Twilight quickly called out to him. "Spike, now is not the time for-"

"Woohoo! Check me out!" There was a whirring noise from the other side of the room. Everypony looked in the opposite direction to see Scootaloo running on a treadmill. "Maybe I could be a racer pony!" she didn't know the exact name of the 'racer ponies'.

"We'll get them out of here, sir," Rarity said to Fire Streak, raising a delicate hoof and giving him a wink to ensure that they wouldn't get in too much trouble. Fire Streak hoisted the dumbbell onto the hooks above him and slid off the bench press.

"That appears to be a good idea," he said to nopony in particular.

"Whoa!" Spike bounced high off one of the balls and landed on his face on a crash mat. "I'm okay!" he enthusiastically pumped a claw in the air. Rainbow cringed a little as Twilight, Rarity and Fluttershy rushed in to stop the chaos, and let out a long sigh. She locked eyes with Fire Streak, who gave her a slightly stern glare.

"I thought Soarin was going to keep all of you in check!" he snapped, more annoyed at Soarin than with anyone else in this room. Rainbow exhaled and shrugged her shoulders.

"He's disappeared," she told the cream stallion. Fire Streak huffed and rolled his eyes.

"Why am I not surprised?" he groaned.

"Gyah!"

Fire Streak flinched as Scootaloo rocketed past him, shooting off the treadmill and crashing into another rubber ball. Rainbow let her ears droop, trying her best to look embarrassed despite how hilarious all of this was. She spoke to herself out of the corner of his mouth.

"Soarin, where the hell are you?"

---

Endnote: Yes, we will see Soarin, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom in the next chapter (first).

Okay so The Secrets We Keep isn't ending here like I planned, so It looks like we're getting another chapter added to the ever-growing list. I swear it will end before we hit 60 chapters (a sixty chapter long story written by me sounds terrifying, by the way).

So for the past two weeks I haven't really had much focus on this (surprise surprise) because of personal crap with my friends, who I'm beginning to lose my trust in. God, people wonder why I spend so much time online; you guys on here are better than my friends over here in my own freaking town.

I'm under a lot of stress at the moment, and likely will be for weeks to come, but that is my excuse for taking so long with this. I want to finish this story at some point in the next few months and that seems like an impossible task unless stuff changes fast, but I will try my hardest to try and get part 3 of this arc out sometime next week, then I'll finish the chapter after that, and after that I'll finish the Mane Six's visit and take a break to get the next chapter of My Little Bloopers out.

The last reason this has taken so long is that I've recently become obsessed with the web-comic-turned-YouTube-series, Homestuck and have been watching it almost nonstop. Is anyone else out there a Homestuck fan? If you are then you are amazing and I love you.

Welp, the next chapter has a bunch of good content and hopefully that'll pump me up enough to write it… I miss when I got one chapter out per week.

Oh! And be sure to check out the poll on my profile. Some people may get it, but if you don't then… just do it anyway. It's for a story of mine. ^^

Ciao! ;)