Rainbow Dash chewed on the end of her pencil. It was an old habit that went all the way back to kindergarten and one that wasn't likely to go away- even if she could write using her magic now. Especially since she could write using magic now. Having to be tutored in using her unicorn powers starting at, effectively, grade zero had her feeling like she was back in school again.

Magic wasn't the problem in front of her at the moment, though. She was in her stateroom, going over the itinerary for the next Wonderbolts show with Spitfire. "And you're really sure you wanna move these ponies off the first string roster?" she said to Spitfire.

"I gotta say yes, Highness," Spitfire sighed. "Their performance marks just aren't high enough. They were moved up to first string on a provisionary basis anyway..."

"But their stats are well above average," Rainbow pointed out, tapping the cards in front of her. To Spitfire's initial amusement, rather than using a clipboard or spreadsheet for these meetings Dash had opted to use the latest deck of Wonderbolts bubblegum cards. Her amusement had diminished after the first meeting when she realized the facility of it; the individual cards had all the player's relevant info, latest performance stats, even a bit of their history right on the back, made for easy visual reference and made sorting them into flight groups, even plotting out formations and flight patterns on the enormous table or nearby bulletin board, quick and easy.

"Key word being average," Spitfire pointed out. She flipped over the four cards in question and pointed at the bar graph. "See? Mid range, right across. Nothin' against these ponies, they push themselves hard... but they don't excel at anything, and that drags the whole team down."

"But ishn't 'average' whash you want?" Scootaloo said. Rainbow Dash's number one assistant was sitting at her own table, going through her own (brand new) collection of cards and trying to chew an enormous mouthful of gum. She'd been the one to go on the store run for the cards, and one set for herself- and all of the gum from both- was her share of the loot. She was currently up to six sticks of gum at once and was clearly contemplating a seventh.

"Whaddya mean, squirt? And cut back to a wad smaller than your head, there."

"I mean-" Scootaloo paused to pull the gum out, stick half of it on the corner of her desk, and re-insert the remainder. "I mean, you're all team fliers. Right? Everypony has to fly together, in the same formation, at the same speed. If those guys are the middle, shouldn't everypony at either end be trying to match them?"

The two mares looked at each other. "It's an interesting perspective, anyway," Spitfire admitted, to which Rainbow Dash shrugged.

Rainbow Dash looked at Scootaloo. "Well that's the thing. If we have everypony just try to match the average guys, then the, like, whole average would go down... lower than the average guys." She held her hooves up side by side, like she was balancing a scale. "And then the new average would be lower.. .because... math... things..." she gave up.

"What she's trying to say is that we're trying to raise the bar for the whole group, not lower it," Spitfire chipped in.

"What she said."

"MMeh, whatever." Scootaloo shrugged and went back to sorting her cards. She couldn't resist a final jab, though. "What's the point of being the best of the best, if you can't DO your best- because you're holding back?"

Rainbow Dash brooded a bit. "She's kind of got a point though," she said. "I sometimes feel like the routine is... holding everypony back. Every pony here-" she waved her hooves over the table of cards- "is the best of the best in at least one or two areas. But nopony really gets to shine... except for me, flying all alone out there. And that's starting to feel a little awkward. All the Wonderbolts ought to have a chance to excel."

"Yeah," Scootaloo said. "I mean, look at Starblaze here." She held up a card with a white-maned mare on it. "Her bio says she used to be an aerial gymnast before the Wonderbolts." She picked a couple of others. "Then there's Velvet Slipper... she was sky ballerina. It'd be cool to see that stuff in a Wonderbolts show..." She rested her chin in her hooves and stared off dreamily. "I've seen pictures of the ribbon routine the gymnasts do, and the Dance of the Breezie Princess is really awesome..." she looked up suddenly. "Or- so- I've heard," she said, faking casual badly.

Rainbow Dash cocked an eyebrow and grinned. "Gee, I didn't know you were into that frou-frou stuff, squirt," she teased.

Scootaloo huffed. "It's not all frou-frou!" she protested. "Not... all of it anyway. -And it takes a lot of skill and athletics to do that stuff!" she added matter-of-factly.

"I won't disagree with that," Spitfire said. "I've seen what those skydancers put themselves through." She looked intrigued, though. "So you're saying we should break up the act a little? Throw in some more solo routines?"

Rainbow Dash tapped the table with a hooftip, thinking. "Yeah, I guess I am," she said. "Now that one of us has said it out loud... I like the idea."

"Give the show more variety-" Spitfire said.

"And let ponies see we're more than just a bunch of lock-step parade ponies," Rainbow Dash added. She looked through the cards. "Lessee, Starblaze and Velvet Slipper... we'll pull 'em aside, see if they can pull their old acts out of mothballs... and wasn't Soarin part of a barnstormer group back before he signed up?"

Spitfire nodded. "Will this help any with the primary mission, though?" she said almost as an aside.

Rainbow Dash ran a hoof through her mane and shrugged. "Whatever pulls in bigger crowds, I guess," she said. It was a fact that Dash secretly lamented, when she was honest with herself- she was not a clever pony, at least not outside her personal limited talents. The best idea she had come up with yet for finding hidden alicorns or latents was the brute force approach, to hold big gatherings- airshows, parades, ribbon cuttings- and scan the crowds with Twilight's alicorn-o-meter spell.

There was a rap at the door. Before anypony could respond, it was cursorily pushed open. In strode an orange earth pony mare with a blonde mane, a clipboard, a strict no-nonsense suit and a sour look on her face. "Your Highness," she drawled without preamble. "I have, once again, more than a few things that you have allowed to pile up that I must bring to your attention."

Rainbow Dash gave her a noncommittal grunt and a less than enthused look. "Fine. Lay it on me, Harshwhinny.

The royal secretary consulted her clipboard. "First, you have several meetings scheduled loosely-" her lip curled at the word 'loosely'- "For this afternoon. Naturally, they have all interpreted your invitation for 'about three-ish' to mean three oclock precisely, and have of course all arrived simultaneously... I have done my best to have the staff to dance attendance on them, but they are all getting impatient to see you now." She rolled her eyes. "And of course, each wishes to see you first..."

"Uh, whups." Dash got to her feet. "You can take it from here, Spitfire?"

"Sure, I'll see what sort of program I can whip up," Spitfire said, giving Dash a salute.

"Great. C'mon squirt, duty calls."

"Coming!" Scootaloo finished stuffing her card collection in her panniers, slapped on her winged baseball cap and trotted after her hero.

"Come on, Harshwhinny," Dash said over her shoulder as they passed through the door. "Walk with me, talk with me. Get us a little exercise."

"Power-walking in a business suit. My cup runneth over," Harshwhinny said drily, but she trotted obediently after.

Scootaloo looked over her shoulder at the dour-faced assistant, who was flipping through her clipboard and muttering to herself. "Why'd you hire her to be your secretary?" she stage-whispered to Dash. "She's so- grumpy and serious."

"That's kind of why," Dash whispered back. "Look, I know I'm not hoity toity enough to be a proper princess," she confessed." And I'm really not good with formal... stuff. But I don't wanna let anypony down. So I hired somepony to be my secretary who would, y'know, ride herd on me."

Scootaloo curled the corner of her mouth a little and shrugged. "Okay, I... guess... but isn't her being an earth pony gonna, you know, make it hard to keep up sometimes?"

Dash snickered. "Uhh, I'm kinda counting on that. I'd lose my crackers if I couldn't get away from her when I really wanted." The two pegasi stifled their giggles as the officious earth pony caught up with them. "So, spell it out, who's waiting on us?"

Harshwhinny harrumphed. "Firstly, the Mayor of Windy City," she said. " to do a debriefing with you about your Highness's up and coming Wonderbolts performance."

"Why, is there a problem?" Dash said, frowning. "I thought they had everything squared away ahead of time."

"They did," Harshwhinny said. "Now they do not. It seems there are a few things that have.. cropped up which make the scheduled show problematic." she flipped a few pages on her clipboard. "To start off with the first problem, it seems that the tourist season has just started and Windy City is experiencing a much bigger flock of vacationers than usual. in part due your 'royal command performance.'It seems that a new Princess visiting is a major draw for visitors, imagine that... The hotels, restaurants and business owners are all thrilled; the traffic controllers and law enforcement, not so much."

"And this is our problem how?" Dash said.

Harshwhinny looked annoyed. "Because while the hotels, restaurants and other venues are all booked up or overbooked, so is the Windy City stadium. It seems somepony got ambitious and sold five times as many tickets as the venue has seats."

Dash groaned. "Well, we can just pull... a couple extra days of shows, right?...No?"

Because the secretary pony was shaking her head. "Which brings us to the next person knocking at the door. There's a delegation from the farming communities in Lee Valley. They want to lobby a complaint with you about the local Weather Bureau."

"the Weather Bureau? I'm not in charge of that!" Dash paused. "Uhh, am I?"

"You're the Princess," Scootaloo pointed out in a singsong.

"More exactly, you're the nearest Princess in reach," Harshwhinny said. "And the ponies of Lee Valley are demanding their right to petition the Throne-" she pointed a hoof at Dash's collarbone-"which is YOU, to settle their dispute with the local Weather Bureau."

"So what's their beef?" Dash said. "And what does it have to do with us-"

"The local weather bureau, which happens to be located in Windy City, has apparently undersupplied Lee Valley with rain this year," Harshwhinny droned. She hoofed Rainbow Dash a sheet of paper. "As you can see here, if they do not get their shortage filled soon, their crops will be in serious trouble."

Dash took the weather sheet and looked it over. Her jaw dropped in dismay. "What? How did it get this bad? It'd take a three day rain just to get the water tables back up!"

"Apparently they 'postponed' the rain multiple times these past few months for, quote, 'important state events," Harshwhinny said with a roll of her lip.

Dash groaned and facehooved. "So our little Pony Princess traveling show arrived just in time to either be rained out, or extend their drought for another week. Great." She pulled her hoof down her face. "That's gotta make us popular with the pony on the street..."

"The headlines on the Lee Valley newspapers are quite florid," Harshwhinny agreed. "In addition the Police Commissioner wishes to discuss the need for added security, The Mayor wants to discuss city funding and overhead-"

"In other words, to ask the Crown- which is me- to hoof the bill for all the extra work," Rainbow Dash said sarcastically. "And why do we need extra security all of a sudden?"

"Probably," Harshwhinny said drily, "because the Crown Prince of Griffonstone is coming to Windy City as well. He wishes to attend the air show- and, I would suspect, take the measure of one of Equestria's new Princesses."

"Wait wait what, crown prince?"

"Yes, Griffonstone recently crowned its first king in almost a century..."

"Wait, they had no king? For that long? What was going on?"

Harshwhinny glowered at her. "You never read those files I sent you on Equestria's diplomatic neighbors, did you." It was a statement, not a question.

"...No. So spill."

Harshwhinny let out a sigh of disgust and continued. "Approximately a century ago, Griffonstone was a small but thriving griffon nation on the border of Equestria. they've been in decline for almost a century, after the loss of the Statue of Arboreas, the symbol of the king's right to rule.

"About two years ago, however, A griffon named Alexandrius led an expedition and retrieved the statue from the bottom of the Abysmal Abyss. Upon his return he was crowned king of the Griffons, and has spent the last two or three years working on, quote, 'rebuilding the Griffon nation to its former glory.'" she smirked humorlessly. "Which in practice has basically consisted of knocking the skulls of the more stubborn clan leaders together. His son, Ajax, has been acting as his emissary and diplomat to Griffonstone's former allies, which includes Equestria, shoring up relationships and making new ties."
"And strutting his stuff with his troops, to show everypony his Daddy is nogriffon to mess with," Dash threw in.

"Quite. And, apparently, the Crown Prince got word of the ascension and wants to, as they put it, take your measure." She waved a hoof in the air. "So rather than heading for Canterlot to meet with Celestia, he and his entourage have taken a detour to Windy City with the intention of meeting with you." She took a long pause. "Which, in royal terms, means a public photo op, a private meeting, then a public social event of some sort, then a semi-formal black tie event..."

"Great," Dash grumbled. She looked at Scootaloo. "Hey, Squirt. You might wanna take your chance and bail for a while."

"Really?" Scootaloo said, stopping in the middle of the hallway.

"Yeah, it looks like the whole day is gonna be long boring meetings with windy, boring people," Dash chuckled. "You were sayin' you wanted to check out Windy City, see what kind of skating you could do? Now's your chance. Just be back by sunset."

"Are you sure?" Scootaloo said skeptically. She already had her scooter out. "What if you needed me to fetch something for you, or-"

Dash snorted. "Then I'll slap some roller skates on Harshwhinny and send her," she said sarcastically. "Go on, scat!" Harshwhinny pulled a face like she'd sucked on a lemon.

Scootaloo squealed with laughter. With a hummingbird buzz, the filly zoomed off down the hall and disappeared around a corner. Dash turned to Harshwhinny. "So, I'm guessing we'll meet with the mayor first...?"

Windy City, like Ponyville, was a mixed-tribe community... But there the resemblance ended. Rather than the gently rolling hills of rural farmland, it was situated on Windy Peak, the one of the tallest and definitively the steepest mountain in Equestria. Buildings and towers and high stone walls climbed up the slopes in tiers like fancy decorations on a wedding cake. Zeppelin docks poked out into the open air, and windmills of every shape and size adorned the rooftops and towers, catching every wisp of the endless winds that circled the rocky crags. The pegasi neighborhoods clustered around, circling slowly with the winds. And above it all stood the Alicorn Academy.

Scootaloo could see it from the deck of the Thunderstreak. The last few hundred feet of the mountain poked up through the cloudline, right in the center of the Pegasus neighborhood like the spindle on a record player. There were actually two peaks: on the shorter, broader one stood city hall, surrounded by the mansions of the city leaders and nobility. They clustered together, reaching as high as they could with peaked roofs and towers, like they were struggling to reach up above the cloudline. On the taller, narrower peak, accessible only by a narrow arched bridge, stood the school, Alicorn Academy, one of the premiere unicorn schools in Equestria. Its domes and pillars of gleaming ivory shone white under the sun. Even the highest and fanciest mansion had to look UP to see it. That probably flies right up the hoity toity ponies' noses, Scootaloo thought, snickering to herself. She lugged her scooter up to the glider rack on the port bow.

"Ahoy, Scootaloo," one of the airship crew shouted. "And what are you up to on this fine day?"

"Just goin' out to check out this burg," she called back, strapping on her helmet and goggles. "I hear they got some radical skating turf out there."

The crewpony laughed. "Well, be sure and stay safe out there, lass."

"Why? That'd take all the fun out of it!" She gave him a cheesy grin; if you'd asked her she would have said she thought it was 'rakish.' He laughed again and waved her off. She gave him a salute, hopped her scooter up onto the rail, double checked the bolts, and dove off.

Scootaloo still couldn't fly.

Not for lack of heartfelt effort on everypony's part, either. A lot of the Wonderbolt's resentment with Rainbow Dash's little tagalong for tattling on them had dissolved when they had learned of her 'little problem...' and her adamantine refusal to give up had won her a place in their hearts. Nearly every Wonderbolt had taken at least a shot in helping the pint sized filly; folding her into their exercises, dropping little hints and tips, even a thorough going-over by the team doctors. But nothing had worked. She still had insane levels of wingpower: at one point she'd towed three of the Wonderbolts across the training-room floor on a trolley by wingpower alone. But for some inexplicable reason she just could not turn that thrust into lift.

Fortunately for Scootaloo's morale, someone on the staff with a little mechanical aptitude had a brainstorm... and had made a purchase at Cloudsdale at one of the few shops that catered to ground-bound ponies.

The junior-size glider was a marvel of engineering, really; it was woven of star spider silk and stretched over a spring-loaded mithril frame, and had some very finely tweaked size-changing enchantments. It could fold down to the size of an umbrella, and snap open with the press of a button. A bit of retrofitting, and the glider had bolted to the handlebars of her scooter like a snap. Now, with a single press of a button, Scootaloo's scooter effectively turned into Equestria's first pony-powered microplane.

Scootaloo fell about a dozen feet. Then the retractable wings snapped open like twin umbrellas and she caught the air. She zoomed off through the skyways of Windy City with a whoop, her wings buzzing.

Scootaloo thrilled as she soared, her mane and tail whipping in the wind. She was far less agile in the air than a regular pegasus, and nowhere near as fast as her idol. But one shaky maiden flight around the Thunderstreak in her new scooter-glider and every grudge she'd had against the Wonderbolts for dissing Dash was forgiven. Heck, they could have shaved Scootaloo bald and painted her pink, and she would have forgiven them for it.

Still...

She looked around at other pegasi flying the airways, in and out of their jobs and stores and homes on their own wings, and still ached... "No," she said out loud. "I'm not gonna think that way. I'll get my wings sooner or later... This right here is awesome enough for now." She pulled a defiant loop-the-loop.

"So what's cool to see...?" She looked around. The Cloud Quarter (why did they call it a quarter? It was more like a third of the city, really) was cool enough, but she didn't really feel like poking around here. She could cloudwalk of course, but her scooter couldn't exactly roll well on cloud streets... and she didn't feel like folding it up, carrying it around, unfolding it again to fly someplace else over and over again.

She looked down through the layered clouds. Not far below she could see a flock of colorful gliders and chutes launching off the mountainside and riding the thermals. Earth pony and unicorn tourists, probably. Should she drop down and join in? Then again, she was using her wings to propel herself; wouldn't the other gliders and parasailers see that as "cheating?"

"Oh brother, what is this?"

The voice came from overhead. She looked up in surprise. A couple of teenage colts, a yellow one and a dark brown, were flying just a few feet over her head. "Oh wow, this is just sad," one sneered. "A pegasus who needs a glider to fly?"

"Yeah, they'll let anypony up here nowadays," the other one said. "Nice helmet, kid. Mommy pick it out to go with your little flying tricycle?"

"Bet she has a pair of water wings at home for when she takes a bath!"

The two cackled. Scootaloo felt her insides shrink. The safety helmet suddenly felt like it had grown to the size of a watermelon. "Really?" she blustered. "Really, we're gonna do this?"

The two bullies swooped in, crowding her. "G'wan, get outta here, spaz, you're blockin' traffic!" The brown one kicked down at her left wing, making her wobble and veer.

"Hey!" Where were the Guard, doggone it? Why wasn't anypony else interfering?

"You heard him, get outta here!" The other one aimed a lazy kick at her head, knocking her helmet askew. She wobbled dangerously through the air as she struggled to straighten her headgear. She managed to push the helmet straight and pushed her smeared goggles up. The wind whipped at her teared-up eyes. For the first time she noticed that the other few ponies she was flying past were staring- not at the bullies, but at her. More than one had their faces screwed up like they'd smelled something bad.

A couple of the rougher looking ones were jeering along with the bullies.

"G'wan! Get outta here! This neighborhood's for REAL pegasi- not earth ponies with toy wings!"

Scootaloo did the only thing she could do. She started bawling. "Luh-lea-leave me a-l-lone!" she sobbed, howling as if her heart would break. Incredibly, the two teenage hecklers only laughed louder.

"I ju-just want-ed to fuh-fly..." she sobbed, wiping at her eyes with her foreleg. Her wings stopped buzzing and clamped to her sides. She reached forward, grabbed the pull-cord, and yanked. The wings on her glider snapped shut. Silently, she tumbled from the sky like a stone, disappearing into the clouds below.

A gasp went up from the onlookers. Ponies ran to the edge of clouds and looked down. The two hoodlums hovered in midair, stunned. "holy crow..." the blonde one breathed.

"She- omigosh, she offed herself!" The brown colt said. "Pigeon into the Pavement!"

The two dropped down onto a drift of cloud and looked over the edge. They peered down as far as they could see, trying to see some sign of their victim.

They never even saw it coming. Scootaloo's glider came rocketing up through the cloud behind them, the outstretched wingtips catching both of them across their rear ends with a resounding crack. They leapt into the air so violently their rumps nearly overshot their shoulders.

"WHAOAOW!"

"WHAAAAH!"

"LATER, SUCKERS!" Scootaloo jeered. She pulled an immelmann and rocketed away. The onlookers broke up laughing as the two hoodlums, their rumps smarting and their egos stinging, righted themselves and glared after the fleeing filly.

"Let's get her!" The brown one snarled. The two launched themselves off the cloud and raced after her.

Scootaloo dove down, pulling a lazy barrel roll towards the city below. Towers, buttresses and windmill vanes reached up to meet her. Whoa, that mountainside was coming up faster than she expected- She juked left, threading the needle between two freestanding towers, and began racing downhill. The prevailing winds around Windy Peak revolved counter-clockwise, and the buildings and streets more or less followed, circling down the mountain in a corkscrew. Scootaloo took advantage of that, dropping down till she was whizzing between the rooftops at heartstopping speeds.

Her hecklers were far behind her, but buck, they were closing fast; she could feel the turbulence they were stirring in the roots of her wings, even at this distance. Scootaloo guessed by their attitudes they usually flew circles around out-of-town ponies. Probably thought of themselves as real skyjockeys- the losers.

But there was no denying they had the home court advantage. They probably knew every rooftop and skyway in Windy City like their own cutie marks, while she- she skimmed under a walkway so close her glider's wingtip scraped on the underside- while she was flying almost totally blind. She couldn't outrun them, she couldn't outmaneuver them... so she'd have to outsmart them.

She reached out, trying to get a feel of the wind- not just the prevailing currents overhead, but all the little whorls and eddys that gusted between the buildings whipping by...

Bingo. Just what she needed, right ahead. She slowed down, letting her pursuers close the gap. Just as they were close enough to yank hairs out of her tail she gunned it. She dove down between two rooftops into an alleyway bare inches wider than her glider's wingtips.

"Hah! You're not gonna lose us like THAT," one of her pursuers jeered. They were right.

Of course she wasn't trying to lose them...

She could see the end coming up. The alleyway ended at a flat wall with an open dumpster, branching off to the left and right into passageways too narrow for her glider to pass. She pulled back till she was almost standing on her tail, stalling out maybe three hoofsteps from the wall- she caught a brief glimpse of a colt standing next to the open dumpster with a bag of trash, eyes and mouth wide and frozen in shock as she stalled out inches from his nose-

Then the winds she'd sensed had kicked in. The alley behind her and the two narrower ones to the left and right were situated so that they caught the wind in regular cycles, funneling them down to this intersection and forming into a huge updraft.

The one nice thing about big wide glider wings? They caught updrafts way better than pegasus wings did. The swirling winds swept under them and she shot straight up like she was in an elevator. Her bullies weren't so lucky; they whizzed by just below her feet and slammed face-first into the open dumpster.

It was a minute or two of darkness, filth, and groans of pain before they uncroggled themselves enough to push the dumpster lid back open and figure out what happened. Scootaloo was perched on her scooter on the ledge above them, holding her helmet in one hoof and regarding it idly. "Ya know, you're right," she said. "This helmet is pretty retarded. I mean, we're pegasi. We're BUILT for crashing. Do you see any grownups wearing these things while they fly around? And what good would it do to wear one anyway if you smacked into the ground from a thousand feet up? Maybe give 'em something to scoop your brains up in? Meh. I'm ditchin' it."

She slam-dunked the helmet into the dumpster. There was a loud klonk and a howl. "Think I'll keep the goggles, though. They're cool." She bike-hopped down off the ledge, landing on the dumpster lid and slamming it shut on their heads. She found a stick, shoved it through the latch and hopped her scooter off, leaving them to bang on the inside of the lid and holler.

She bent over and started strapping down her scooter's glider wings, then realized she had an audience. The colt with the trash bag was still standing there, laughing so hard he couldn't make a sound. She looked him over: he was a unicorn, about her age, with a white coat and a dark blue stripe through his mane and tail, and a cutie mark of a flute playing a single note. He wore scruffy looking saddlebags and was leaning helplessly against the trashbag he'd been dragging.

"Uhh, hey." She gave him an awkward wave. She looked at the bag. "Oh. whups. Guess you can't put that in there with them in there. Or you could, but it might go badly for you..." She looked back. "Don't worry about them, by the way. If they just keep their heads and jiggle the lid the stick will work its way out." There was a moment's silence from the dumpster; then the lid began jiggling with obvious intent.

The colt did something that puzzled her. He pulled a can of spray paint out of his pannier, trotted over to the dumpster and sprayed something on the side. It looked sort of like... Scootaloo tilted her head and squinted- like a crown, or maybe a jester's hat, circled and with a slash drawn across it. What was that all about?

He tossed the can back in his pannier and trotted back to her, motioning urgently. There was shouting at the mouth of the alley, along with the clatter of hooves and what sounded like the jingle of armor. "They went this way," somepony said.

To her surprise the colt tugged at her shoulder. He looked alarmed for some reason."What is it?" She asked. Instead of answering he looked her in the eye and nodded his head in the direction of the side-alley. Puzzled, she followed. He ducked around a corner and into a recessed doorway and pulled her in after, making shushing motions. A moment later a pair of disgruntled-looking city watchponies flew overhead, idly glancing over the alleyway. There was clanging from the dumpster; the watchponies obviously heard and flew off round the corner to investigate. The moment they were out of sight, the colt made motions indicating they should flee. Thinking quickly, Scootaloo pulled him up onto her scooter behind her and pushed off with her hoof, sending them rolling silently down the gentle slope of the alley.

Once they were a block or two away, the colt let out his breath in a puff of relief and dismounted. He signaled her that all was clear. She followed him as he trotted off down the crooked little alleyway, lazily pushing her scooter along. "What was all that about?" she asked him, after they'd gotten a block or two away.

Instead of answering, he pointed at her scooter, tapped the folded up wings, then pointed at the sky and made circling motions while shaking his head. "What? I don't... wings, flying, circles in the air- look, just TELL me, okay?" Scootaloo finally said.

The colt puffed out his cheeks in annoyance. Rolling his eyes, he lifted his chin and tapped his throat.

"You... can't talk?" Scootaloo said. The colt nodded. "...Oh." The single word held a world of empathy; her wings twitched unconsciously.

"I guess we can hold off on explanations till we find somepony who understands hoof-signs, or whatever. Anyway, Thanks.I can tell that I was about to get in trouble for some reason..." She shrugged and rolled her eyes. "S'not like me and my friends haven't gotten into trouble before. Though usually there's more crashes and explosions first." He gave her a peculiar look.

She thought it over. "Why is your cutie mark a flute?"

He grinned at her and lit his horn up. A single glowing mote rose from his horn tip and played a trio of notes, for all the world like a pan pipe. "Oh, wow, neat!" Scootaloo said, applauding. He blushed a bit. "Heh. I've heard of ponies who could play horns, but not like that." He stuck his tongue out at her, but grinned anyway. "My name's Scootaloo."

He nodded, then thought for a moment. Carefully, he scratched out five letters on the ground with his hooftip.

E

"Oh. Flute?" He nodded. "Pleased ta meetcha." She held out a hoof and he shook it. He grinned and Scootaloo giggled. "Soo... I sorta came down here hoping to find some radical scootering terrain. You wouldn't know any- what, you too?" Even as she'd spoken, Flute had pulled out a folding two-wheeler and snapped it open. He hopped on board it and rode in a quick circle around her. "Hah! Cool! You mind if I hang out with you?"

He smiled, whistled between his teeth and made a 'come along' motion with his hoof. His horn lit up and he rolled off down the street.

"Awesome!" Scootaloo revved up her wings and took off after him. "I guess we're gonna meet your crew? You do have a crew you hang with, right?- awesome. I wanna see what kind of riders you got around here..."

As it turned out, Rainbow Dash's "meeting" with the Mayor and the Commissioner had turned into more of a "Walk and talk" with the two city officials. Time had pressed, and Dash had been needed over at the stadium. Mayor Fussbudget, a short, pudgy pegasus with a thinning mane, toothbrush mustache and a tendency to sweat (eww) had kept up an unending litany of frets, worries, and lamentations the entire way there. Even now he was trotting alongside her, fussing over the apparently unsolvable snafu the airshow was causing poor little him. Dash was sure that she was going to kick him in the face soon if he didn't shut up.

"-and the Windy City Business Association is throwing conniption over cart and chariot parking space," he was saying. "Parking space! Is the city supposed to spin extra parking out of thin air-"

"...that's exactly what you DO," Rainbow Dash finally snapped, annoyed. "You can make sky-chariot lots out of any unsuspecting patch of cloud. That's what the Crystal Empire did for the Equestria games, for crying out loud."

"Not every chariot is a-"

"And let the residents rent out their homes as parking space," Dash said over top of him. A trifle loudly. "It's what ponies do anyway. Your city is tiered up a mountainside- most of the residents could rent out their rooftops as parking space for the street above them."

"B-but city ordinances-"

"Just issue temporary permits for it if there's some sort of ordinance against it!" Dash rolled her eyes. "Jeez! How did you get elected- by telling everypony everything you COULDN'T do?"

"Ahem."

At Harshwhinny's cleared throat, Dash bit down her temper and started over. "Look, you got my promise the Crown will do what it can to smooth this mess out," she said. "But you gotta meet us halfway, here. C'mon, I mean, parking? Let's stick to the big problems first."

The mayor harrumphed. "You're right, parking is the least of it." They had reached the royal box of the Cloudiseum. Pegasi were flying back and forth, setting up cloud obstacles for the Wonderbolt's training session. He waved a wing over the rail. "Our cloudiseum is first rate, but if those ticket oversales are anything to go by, it isn't going to be nearly large enough..."

"Second verse, same as the first," Dash said. "Just grab some spare cloud and make some extra seating."

The mayor shook his head. "We're already near the size limit," he said. "Any larger and the stadium will start spontaneously precipitating."

"Spontaneously...?" Harshwhinny interjected in puzzlement.

"It'll start raining," Dash translated. She gave the stadium a one-over. "And he's right," she said disgruntled. "Too much more cloud structure on top this one, and the mountainside ponies are gonna get an unscheduled bath." The fleeting thought crossed her mind to wonder how it was going to be possible for all those earth ponies and unicorns to make use of a coliseum made of clouds, but she dismissed it for later.

The Commissioner chose that moment to speak up. He was a lanky orange pegasus stallion with a brown mane and a sour, world-weary expression permanently stamped on his face, and his voice was deep and lined with gravel. "We've got more pressing concerns than stadium seating," he said. "We seriously need to up security measures for the City during your visit, Highness. The current state of affairs is just asking for trouble."

"More ponies, more problems?" Dash hazarded a guess.

He snorted. "If it was only that," he lamented. "Your little floor show is stirring up a hornet's nest."

"Why? Have you had problems like this with other Wonderbolts shows?" Dash asked. She looked over at Harshwhinny, who raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

Commissioner Gold Star shot her a disbelieving look. "Surely you can't be unaware...?" his eyebrows arched higher at Dash's uncomprehending look. "Princess Rainbow-"

"Dash."

"-Princess Dash, you can't have missed that not every pony is particularly happy at your and your friends' coronation," he said.

Dash shot him a look of her own. "Yyyeah, Spitfire dropped the hint that it flew up some ponies' tailfeathers," she said.

"To put it LIGHTLY," he said witheringly. "There have been agitators, protest groups popping up... everything from two-bit nobles trying to kick up sand with Celestia about it to common folk who are worried or angry about yet another bunch of royalty being put over top of them. There's even a political movement, the crownbreakers, who advocate abolishing the crown entirely."

"What? Really?" Dash exclaimed, wings flaring in shock. "And Celestia let 'em get away with it?"

"Free speech," Gold Star said, with a toss of his head. "It's their right to campaign for whatever political hoo-hah they like, no matter how dippy. So they go around passing out pamphlets and holding rallies attended by hundreds of empty chairs where they talk about how much better Equestria would be without Celestia running it."

Dash snerked. And there's irony for you, she thought. Celestia would agree with them.

Gold Star misunderstood her snort of laughter. "Yeah, precisely. Just a bunch of old armchair anarchists, blowing wind so old it has mummy dust in it... which is probably why most ponies haven't even heard of them. But recent events have revitalized their movement. Luna's return got 'em all stirred up. Then your own coronations... they're getting a lot more sympathetic ears these days." He glowered. "Some of 'em have been talking about doing more than holding rallies and handing out fliers..."

"We've got our own gangs of hoodlums, no-accounts and troublemakers running around" He went on. "There's one particular group, I've been keeping my eye on them for years. They're normally just pranksters..."

"Pranksters? They're violent hoodlums!" Mayor Fussbudget spat. "Vandals and- and- "

Gold Star actually broke out a sour smirk. "You're just still mad about what they did at your reelection party," he said.

"They swapped out all the ice sculptures with ones shaped like pigs!"

"Piggy banks, actually," Gold Star corrected, his smirk spreading into a grin. "Ones with your face on them. Seems they objected to you passing those ordinances against skating on public property. Or maybe they were getting back at your political supporters for their, ah, 'donations' they gave to persuade you to pass them, hmm?" He ignored the mayor's venomous glare. He wrinkled his nose almost nostalgically. "Wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't frozen fart bombs inside 'em that went off as they melted..."

The Princess of Loyalty hooted. "How'd they pull that off?"

"Probably the same way they got into the my watchpony's guardhouse and superglued roller skates to all their hooves that one time," he said in a more rueful tone. "Or the time they filled all the city fountains with bubble bath. Or when they used rainbow juice to dye the walls of the Academy pink... or that one time they got five hundred ponies, out of absolutely nowhere, to come together at high noon at City Hall and do the 'Sunshine Sunshine' dance..."

Rainbow Dash cackled in appreciation as Fussbudget and Harshwhinny's faces puckered up in disapproval. "I think I'd like these guys!" she said.

"Yeah, well, they're a headache to me and my men," Gold Star said. Not the least of which because our prissy mayor throws a fit at me every time they pull a prank, he added silently. "But lately their... public displays have been getting sharper, more political. Some of us are worried that the Crownbreaker movement has started infiltrating them, maybe even taking them over."

Rainbow Dash serioused up a bit at that. A pack of gifted pranksters teamed up with a bunch of ponies with an unsavory political agenda- that could get ugly, fast. "So who are these guys, anyway?"

Before Gold Star could respond, there was an enormous "WHUMP" from out in the middle of the field. Startled, everypony looked up. A large unformed cloud moving across the middle of the stadium had apparently... exploded. Or imploded. Or perhaps even turned itself inside out. Gobbets of cloud were boiling and tumbling over each other. As they watched, they slowly formed into blobby, but perfectly readable letters:

THE MAYOR IS A POOZER

Mayor Fussbudget made a sound like a bludgeoned baby seal. Dash barely choked back a laugh.

"There's somepony up top!" Harshwhinny said. Sure enough, atop the block of billowy letters was a pony. They were wearing a baggy grey sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. What could be seen of them was ink black. The hooded figure slowly flared his right wing. It was obviously a signal: the sound system for the stadium suddenly crackled to life and began thumping out a wild rock song. The stallion- Rainbow Dash was fairly confident it was a stallion; something about the way he moved- began to dance.

"Commissioner, do something!" Fussbudget sputtered.

"Security!" Gold Star didn't shout, but his voice carried. "Arrest that stallion! And get up to the sound booth and try to catch his accomplice!" uniformed ponies scattered around the stadium jumped to obey. A half dozen pegasi flew in to tackle the trespasser off his cloud, three swooping in from each side. It didn't go well for them. The music hit a power chord; he snapped his wing left and a spray of what looked to Dash guessed was powdered rainbow juice shot out, trailing a stream of colour, and caught three of the hapless guards in the face. Another power chord, a snap of his wing to the right and three more guards were eating rainbow dust.

He wasn't done. Third power chord, he sprayed rainbow dust off his wing in an arc over his head, making a corona that showered down on the cloud under his hooves-

My name is Mach
Thanks a lot
I know you love the thing I've got
You've never seen the likes of me
Why, I'm the biggest thing since Tribe War Three--

And just as a fresh batch of pegasi surrounded him, he leaped.

Dash squawked, wings flared in alarm. "What does he think he's ohMYGOSH HE'S ONLY GOT ONE WING!"

She was right. The hoodie the pony was wearing had sleeves for the forelegs, and slots down the side for wings. One slot, however, flapped empty in the breeze. He was alone, surrounded by dozens of pegasi, and was plummeting through the air with only one wing- and he proceeded to make monkeys out of every pony in the stadium.

Rainbow Dash had never even heard the word "Parkour" before that day, but she was about to get a visual demo in it. She watched, slack jawed, as this vandal pony moved in ways she'd never even heard of. He kong-vaulted over the back of the first guard to come at him, springboarded off the chest of the second, caught the edge of one of the stunt rings floating loose around the stadium and went from an underbar to a heart-freezing, impossibly long catleap to the stadium wall. The next instant he had scuttled up it like a spider and was running along the edge of the rail like he'd been born there.

Nopony could corner him. He dove over, under, and around anypony that got close, ran up vertical walls like they were flat ground only to spin around and leap off them past the heads of ponies pursuing him. He only had one wing but that didn't slow him down in the least; he used it to lengthen his leaps, bring himself up short, change his direction in midair... he was impossible to predict as a bumblebee whacked out on poison joke pollen.

What was even more insane was that he wasn't even trying to escape. Several times he could have been out the door and gone- instead he ran around the inside of the cloudiseum, goading his pursuers on. He even stopped to pull off a few more dance grooves to the music pounding over the loudspeakers whenever they fell too far behind.

Dash was mesmerized. "Whoa..." she whispered.

Someone sounded the hoofball buzzer over the loudspeakers. A second hoodie-wearing pony, this one with banana yellow hooves and wings and wearing a backpack, came diving out of the control booth and bolted hell-for-leather, ponies of his own in pursuit. That must have been the signal because the one-winged stallion suddenly stopped playing around. He began bounding up the tiers of the cloudiseum, straight for the royal box.

Two of the ever-present guardponies- second-string Wonderbolts, armed and armored for the job- stepped forward, halberds at the ready. "Watch out, your Highness! HALT, INTERLOPER!" one shouted. They crossed their halberds in front of Rainbow Dash with a clash, barring the way. The black-winged pony didn't even slow down. He used the crossed blades as a springboard, jumping up and doing a winged backflip over them, and directly over Rainbow Dash's head.

Everything slowed to a crawl. He crossed overhead, the hem of his hood almost brushing her horn. She got a brief glimpse of stunning blue-grey eyes as a single rose struck her in the collarbone.

"Enchante," he said.

Then he was landing on all fours right behind them, and backflipping out the doors before anypony could move. The commissioner barked in outrage and the two guards scrambled in pursuit... too late, he was already gone. Moments later he and his partner in crime could be seen winging away, the yellow one locked arm-in-arm with him, compensating for his missing wing. They disappeared quickly in the afternoon sky-clutter of the Pegasus Quarter. Commissioner Gold Star returned shortly from his thwarted pursuit, disgruntlement all over his face.

"It was them, wasn't it? Wasn't it?" Mayor Fussbudget shrilled.

Gold Star screwed up his mouth. "Yes, it was them," he said with the patience of the weary. "As if there were any doubt." He pointed at the vandalized construction cloud; spray painted on the side- presumably in still more rainbow juice- was a crude symbol; it looked something like a jester's hat, circled and a slash drawn across it. "The Nobody's Fools strike again."

"NoBODY?" Harshwhinny said.

Gold Star grunted. "Instead of no-pony. It's more inclusive, or something." He looked at Dash. "I hope you can see what we're talking about, Highness. They may not be wild-eyed revolutionaries, but these clowns can cause a lot of disruption if not outright havoc if we don't deal with them. Can we trust the Crown to provide what assistance it can in upping our security?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely." Dash said, distracted. She had a good reason to be. Like all the others, she kept the alicorn-sensing spell on a low, passive buzz all the time now... just in case. It wasn't perfect and none of them new for sure how well it would work on nascents, rather than full-blown alicorns. But... just as that crazy-awesome stunt stallion had flipped by over her head, she had felt a most definite TWINGE...

"And Harshwhinny? Pass on the word; tracking down that stallion is top priority. I want him in Royal custody A.S.A.P."

"Your Highness?"

"Just do it. Top. Priority." Harshwhinny squinted and cocked an eyebrow, but she nodded and trotted off. Dash stood there for a minute, staring out at the cloudiseum and all the workers, guards and wonderbolts running about like agitated ants, and brushing the petals of the rose back and forth under her chin. Was she sure-? Yes, definitely. For one reason or another she absolutely wanted to see this one-winged stallion again.

Why did this goofy grin keep wanting to creep its way across her face?