Windy City sat upon a high, stony mountain that pierced the clouds with its two rocky peaks. Nearly every surface, level or approximately so, had been built upon- except for one area. While the rest of the mountain was a fairly gradual slope, On the Northern side , from the Scholar's peak down to little more than a third of the mountain's height from the base, was a sheer dropoff, a flat plane of stone as if some titan had taken a slice out of the mountain and carried it away. Ring shaped cloudlets speckled the air the entire height; at the bottom of the cliff, below a blanket of low hanging white, stood a handful of chimneys, steadily puffing out tiny clouds that spiraled up to the turning winds far above.

At the very top of this enormous sheer dropoff was a fenced-in area dotted with signage, out of which jutted a wooden platform that hung out over the sheer drop. On this platform stood a small group of ponies. In the very middle of this group was a tiny orange filly who was severely reconsidering her circumstances. "You want me to WHAT?" she yelled at the others.

The group had been joined by yet another member; Fledge, a young gryphonling. He and his family apparently lived on, and basically owned, the North Face. "It's easy, newbie," the gryphonling said, raising his voice to be heard over the wind singing through the support beams under them. "You wait for the Jump Guides here-" he pointed to the two uniformed pegasi standing patiently at the corners of the platform. "To give the signal. When they yell 'ready, set, GO,' then you jump!"

"Jump."

"Yes."

"Off a cliff?" Scootaloo yelped.

"You said you wanted to do this with us-"

"AND I IMMEDIATELY REGRET THIS DECISION!"

"Oh come on," Crackerjack shouted, adjusting his helmet. "We paid for the tickets already- "

"What kinduva loony sets up a ticket ride for jumping off a cliff?" Scootaloo demanded to know.

"Well, ponies used to jump off this place all the time," Wheezer said. He flapped around in his Jump Suit like a foal wearing a fat man suit. "Then some business savvy ponies found out about it..."

"That'd be us," Fledge said proudly.

"-Set up the platform and the safety gear and the concession stands and stuff and made it a regular tourist attraction." he coughed. "Of course they had to change the name to something a little more tourist friendly before the business took off..."

"What'd they call it before?" Scootaloo asked.

"Uhhh, Suicide Leap," Fledge said. He twiddled his talons.

"Oh swell..."

"Beats what they used to call the neighborhood at the BOTTOM of the cliff," Bananas Foster said with an evil grin.

"What?"

"Chunky Salsa Plaza."

Scootaloo made a bolt for it; Mach One barely snagged her by the end of her tail. "FOS-terrr...!" he said, giving the banana yellow colt an exasperated glare. "Quit. Scaring. The Newbie. Okay?" Foster shrugged and cackled unapologetically.

"Can we postpone this till later?" Scootaloo said. "Like, never?"

"For crying out loud, you're a pegasus!" Spritz laughed. "You've got wings!"

"Maybe you missed the fact that they DON'T WORK!" Scootaloo yelled back.

"So what? Never held me back," Mach said. He strutted around her and flared his one good wing... and made sure to flaunt the empty sleeve. He met her gaze eye to eye. "Didn't hold anypony else back in our group." He nodded at the others; all of them were wearing helmets; those who didn't have wings were wearing the baggy jump-suits the North Face Jump Guides had provided. Even Softy and Wheezer were suited up... though Softy looked as nervous as Scootaloo felt and Wheezer was dosing up on air-sickness medicine.

"You've all done this before?" Scootaloo said, suspicious. The group nodded. "All of you?" They nodded again. She looked down again. The ground was waaaaaaay down there, just like it was the last time she looked.

"Twenty seconds to jump time,"

Mach stepped up beside her. "Look, we'll jump together," he said. "all of us at once. We got Spritz and Foster and Fledge... we won't let nothing happen to you."

"You promise?" Scootaloo said, her nerves making her voice waver just the tiniest bit. Her eyes never moved from the abyss below.

"Ten seconds," The Jump Guide said cheerfully.

"Word," Zonk said. Several of the others chimed in.

"Rule number one for our posse," Mach One said. "No matter what- Nobody's Fools, Nobody Falls."

The jitters melted away... at least in part. Scootaloo smiled and nodded, confidence restored.

"Five seconds!"

The Nobody's Fools, and Scootaloo, lined up at the edge of the platform.

"Timing it for the wind," the Guide said. "Three...two... one... GO!" With a half defiant, half terrified yell, Scootaloo leapt into the void.

The trick to the North Face was, thanks to the shape of the mountain, the regular wind currents and a heck of a lot of Pegasus weather pony magic, every half hour, as regular as clockwork the winds would gather and make a massive updraft... an updraft powerful enough to lift a pony (one with the right gear- rental included in the price of the admission ticket) into the air. For five to ten minutes at a time, even a flightless earth pony could float on the wind... almost like flying. Scootalo plummeted through the air, legs outstretched like she had been coached, wings buzzing frantically. Any second now the updraft would kick in and she would actually be airborne.

Any second now.

The cliff face was still going by awful fast...

She started to panic. She looked over to Mach One, who was plummeting straight down alongside her, his face expressionless."Where's the wind?" she screeched. "There isn't any wind!

"Well then, I guess one of us had better learn how to fly really quick," he shouted back.

"WHAT?! AAAAAAAAAUUUUGGGH!" Just as she began to pinwheel her legs in panic, there was a sound like the moan of a distant freight train. With an almighty whoosh, the wind began to roar up from below. Whooping and yelling, the Nobody's Fools slowed their descent and began to hover riding on the pillar of air. Buoyed up by the wall of wind and by her own thrumming wings, Scootaloo shot back up past Mach One like a cork shooting out of a bottle. "YooOOUUU SUUUuuuuck" she squalled at him as she dopplered back up into the sky.

Roaring with laughter, Mach One stretched out his wing and spiraled up after her.

Once her heart stopped pounding in her throat, Scootaloo was in Nirvana. She buzzed up, down and around the updraft, swooping and banking and pulling silly aerial stunts, almost like Rainbow Dash... though of course the others were doing almost as well. Even the ground-bound among them were doing backflips, sailing up and down on the updraft. Well, all except for Wheezer and Softy. Wheezer was spiraling steadily down to the ground, looking rather queasy, and poor timid Softy had already pulled his drop-chute (extra purchase, added on to his ticket) and was descending in a slow, straight line, curled up in a ball at the end of his chute cords and his hooves over his eyes. "Don't mind them," Mach shouted to her, laughing. "A slow ride down is all they can take when they do this. But they always insist on coming along..."

Scootaloo laughed along. They were still pretty brave to do it anyway, she thought. Mach One circled around her, using his one wing as a sailfin to steer.

Mach rode the wind in closer as she hovered. "C'mon, you're halfway to really flying now," he said, suddenly serious. "More than halfway. You got the wingpower, you just gotta control it!"

He was right; here she was, up in the sky. She was so close; she just had to figure out how to stay there.

"Just push the magic out through your wings," he urged. "Feel the wind, the updrafts and downdrafts- the air all around you at your wingtips- CONTROL it, don't just let it happen! It's in your blood, it's in your bones. The sky is a part of you. TELL the air to lift you! "

She could. She could closer her eyes feel it all around her. Not just the torrent of wind holding them all up, but all the little whorls and eddies, every flap of a wing or curl of air current around her in all three dimensions... she strained, trying to push more of her magic out of her wings, to do more than just feel the air, to control it, to make it bear her up... almost, almost...

She felt the wind dying down. She opened her eyes and realized to her dismay that she was losing altitude. She was still zipping around, circling with the others, but she was losing altitude way faster than she was gaining forward thrust-which every pegasus knew was the aeronautical math formula for 'falling' rather than 'flying'. She expressed her disapproval in the standard fashion:

"aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"

Flump

- Only to come to a sudden stop in a billowy white cloud. "Wha...?" It took her a moment to surface from the cottony white and get a look around. When she did, she realized that she had come to a halt in a ridiculously thick layer of permanent cloud, netted in place a few dozen feet above the valley floor. All around her the other Fools were popping their heads out of the white like airborne gophers from where they had impacted the cloud cover. That explains why the ticket price included a free cloudwalking spell 'whether needed or not,' she thought. Mach One dropped down and skidded to a halt a few yards away, laughing as the cloudstuff flew up around him. "You JERK!" she said. "Why didn't you tell me there was a cloud safety net?"

"Hey, don't blame me, I don't work here," Mach said. "That's Fledge's job."

"Ahh, go pluck yourself," the gryphon cub hollered.

"Heyy," Softy said, scolding. "There's a lady present!"

"Well tell her to move over, she's blocking my flight path," Scootaloo quipped. The others jeered. She looked over the side of the cloud to the ground... still a few dozen feet below. "Okay. So how do we get down?"

---

"You really didn't know about the safety net? And you STILL jumped?" Foster said, shaking his head. "You're either the craziest or the bravest one of all of us, Scoot."

"Well, you all SAID you'd done this before," Scootaloo said. "Considering you're not splattered all over the ground like raspberry jam, I figured there had to be something." She took a slurp from her paper cup.

The gang had reconvened at the hideout. They were all in a celebratory mood, and on the way back had spent their last few bits on some chips, dip, soda and other party type edibles which they were now lashing their way through. It wasn't a Pinkie Pie party, Scootaloo reflected, but somehow it was... specialer.

In the middle of the festivities, Bananas Foster got up and stood on an upturned crate. "All right, everypony. And zonkey. And gryphon (the heck you doin' here Fledge, I thought you were working? I kid, I kid). Welcome one and all to our fourth whenever-our-bit-jar-tops-off after-jump party!" There was scattered applause. "A good time was had by all- you should have seen it, Softy- or you would have if you uncovered your eyes this time-"

"Heyyy-"

Everyone gave Softy a good natured laugh and a few teasing pokes. "It's okay, you know we love ya," Foster said. "And also, we now get to officially welcome our newest inductee into this mob of goobers, geeks and dweebs: SCOOTALOO!"

"Really?" Scootaloo squeaked as the basement room filled with cheers and whistles.

"Really," Mach One said. He was lying on a pile of old burlap sacks, his forelegs crossed in front of him, surveying the room. "We don't do the whole 'initiation' thing but, hey, you ran with us, you even did the North Face with us... so we put it to a vote and you're in. If you want that is," he added as if it were an afterthought.

"I... thank you!" Scootaloo blurted out giddily.

Everypony within reach gave her congratulatory hoofbumps and backslaps. "So, Rookie," Foster said with a growing grin. "How does it feel knowing EXACTLY what answer you'll have to give your parents?"

"What?" Scootaloo's brow furrowed.

Foster pinched his nose. "If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would YOU jump off a cliff TOO...?" (1) he said in a high nasally voice. Scootaloo blew a raspberry at him. "My. How eloquent." He sighed dramatically. "And now she's one of us. I know I'll remember her inaugural flight with us..." He stared down at his hooves, eyes bugging comically, and began doing an impersonation of her less than dignified final landing, flapping his wings maniacally and hooves flailing in every direction in a mad tarantella. "YEEEEEE-"

"Laugh it up Banana Breath," Scootaloo shouted, throwing popcorn at him. The other Fools were laughing themselves sick; some of them rolling on the floor.

"Ahh, you know we love yah," Foster teased.

"Seriously, though. Welcome to the club," Mach said.

"Yeah. We know you said you're only in town for a while and- you'll be moving on..." Wheezer said. Several faces looked a bit downcast at that. "But wherever you go you're one of us."

Scootaloo's face puffed up like she was going to cry. She fought it down. "You guys are cool," she said, rubbing her eyes with her fetlock. She took a deep breath. It was now or never. "Okay, guys? There's some really important stuff I gotta tell you." The tone of her voice got their attention. The buzz of noise around the basement died down. "You all know I'm from out of town and stuff," she said. "Well... I sorta work for somepony..."

---

SEVERAL HOURS EARLIER

"She told you WHAT?" The Mayor shrilled, spittle flying. His personal assistant, a gangly orange unicorn with a mop of badly groomed blonde mane, cringed back behind him, clutching a stack of folders to his chest.

Gold Star wiped his face and sighed. "The Princess' ward, Scootaloo, told us she knew where the Nobody's Fools were. It seems that she knows several of them personally."

"Then why aren't you out rounding them up?" It was amazing the octaves the portly little politician's voice could reach when he was upset.

Her Highness Princess Rainbow Dash," Gold Star said, stressing every syllable of the title, "ordered us not to. Directly. She wants to take a more diplomatic approach, let her little assistant make the initial overtures and try to gain their trust."

"Gain their-" the Mayor choked. Gold Star was actually a bit impressed; the Mayor was reaching whole new heights of apoplexy this time."They're criminals and hoodlums with a rap sheet as long as your foreleg! They're connected to the Crownbreaker terrorists!"

"They're juveniles with a handful of misdemeanors and maybe a couple of moving violations," Gold Star corrected. "And any connection between them and these Crownbreaker posers is entirely speculative." Mostly speculation on YOUR part, Mr. Mayor, he added silently. "As the Princess was so conscientious as to point out. There's no call to send a Watch gang to pounce on them, especially if they're willing to cooperate-"

"I'll decide what's called for in this city!" the Mayor hissed, teeth grinding. "Now I'm going to tell you what's going to happen, Commissioner Gold Star. You're going to put a tail on that Rent-a-Princess's little brat assistant, you're going to follow her to wherever those hoodlums are hiding and you are going to send in every Watchpony you have to arrest all of them- or you are going to find yourself busted back down to handing out parking and loitering tickets on Kessel Run Road!"

---

"...You work for Princess Rainbow Dash?" Firecracker yelped.

Scootaloo nodded. She was surrounded by staring eyes and slack jaws.

"What, like as crew on her ship or in her entourage or something?" Foster ventured.

"More like... I'm her personal assistant, and sort of her apprentice," Scootaloo said sheepishly, sketching a circle on the floor with her hoof.

Spritz spoke for them all. "Whoa," he breathed.

"Why- why didn't you tell us?" Presto said, scowling suspiciously. Other members of the group started to look unsettled. Some started to mutter.

"A good question," Mach One said, getting to his feet. He fluttered his one wing and snapped it to his side. "I'd like to know the answer myself."

"Because I didn't want you all to freak just like you're doing right now!" Scootaloo snapped. Her expression softened and she pouted a little bit. "You were cool and I was cool and we were all having fun so what did it matter?"

"Look, we can talk about that later, okay?" She pressed on urgently before anypony else could start raising an outcry. "But this right now is kind of important. Rainbow Dash- I mean Princess Rainbow Dash- she wants to meet you all." That got some startled looks.

"Say what?"

"You especially," she said, pointing at a surprised Mach One. "It's about some real important stuff- and- well some other real important stuff... I swear you're not in trouble or anything but-" Before she could finish, there came a tremendous thud from upstairs. The heavy door at the top of the stone stairway that spiraled up the wall of the basement shuddered in its frame. There was another boom and the door blasted open, and a City Watchpony burst in through the door. "FREEZE!" he shouted. Two more shoved in behind him, even as he turned around from his two-hoofed door buck.

"Horseapples!" somepony swore. Crackerjack turned on Scootaloo, his eyes blazing with fury. "She ratted us out!"

"Everypony bail!" Spritz yelled. He and several others made a rush for the secret exit, only to have more guards pour in from that direction. "Oh BUFFALO NARDS!" In desperation he grabbed his rainbow juice paint sprayer and emptied it at the foremost pony.

"Halt! You are under- Aggkkgpthh!" the first Watchpony's warning was gargled out by a mouthful of periwinkle. The one behind him pressed in. Growling and snarling, Bowser ran in underhoof and began snapping at any ankle he could reach. Fledge took the hint and jumped in too, pecking and scratching. A third squeezed in through the door only to suddenly find himself with a faceful of little red angry unicorn. Crackerjack literally climbed up the stallion's peytral and began punching him in the nose for all he was worth.

"You're surrounded, give- OW!"

"OwOW OWWW!"

The stairwell was hosting its own little drama. The column of watchponies tromping down the stairs single file found themselves facing a robed and hatted colt. He stood athwart their path, waving a staff in one hoof and a paper bag sitting next to him. "YOU... SHALL NOT... PAAAASSS!" Presto yelled theatrically. He dug in the bag and began flinging misshapen little paper packets at the guards by the hooffull. Some of the packets exploded in showers of sparks or in clouds of multi-colored smoke; others went off like cherry bombs underhoof. Still others released rapid-growing vines that tangled the watchponies' legs. The ones in front actually started backing up, bumbling into the ones behind. A pegasus guard made the mistake of leaping down to the main floor; Mach One was there waiting for him, teeth bared and nostrils flaring. He reared up and met him headlong; the stallion and the teenage colt went to the floor in a tangle of thrashing wings and limbs.

But there were already a half dozen watchponies and still more pushing their way in. The Fools' last heroic stand came to an end when four unicorns entered, two at the stairwell and two at the back entrance, and cast an entrapping spell over the entire basement. Every fighting colt, gryphon and zonkey froze in place, trapped in the magic like amber.

Presto's magic smoke dissipated; the guards on the stair kicked the dead shriveled vines off their legs and tromped down to the main floor. The ones at the back way set their petrified fight partners none too gently on the floor. Grumbling and cursing they began tying ropes around forelegs and wings and pushing magic restrainers down over horns, ignoring the shouting and swearing from their immobile prisoners.

Once they had every pony trussed up like a turkey, the unicorns let the magic dissipate. For whatever reason- probably because she had remained frozen in shock and hadn't moved from where she stood- Scootaloo had not been restrained. The minute she could move again she ran up to the impassive watchponies. "What are you idiots DOING?" she screeched at them.

"A bang up job, from the look of it," said a smug voice at the top of the stairs. There stood the Mayor, his ever-present assistant in tow; next to him stood the Commissioner, looking very displeased with things; next to him stood an old pony in coveralls with a ball cap and a floor-brush mustache. A couple of ponies wearing press passes in their hats crowded in behind. Flashbulbs popped.

The brush-mustached pony looked at the other two in disgust. "I told you idiots I had a key," he said. He looked down where Mach One was lying, bound wing and hoof, and his expression turned to regret. "I'm sorry, boy," he said, "But they showed up out of the blue..."

"It's okay, Brushy," Mach One said sadly. "It's not like a janitor could say 'no' to the City Watch."

"Well, well, well," the Mayor gloated. "I've finally caught you all. You all had your fun, but now it's time to pay the piper..."

"What are you DOING?" Scootaloo repeated herself at the top of her lungs.

"Rounding up the single biggest gang of juvenile delinquents in the city," the Mayor said. He looked around at the painted walls and gave a cursory kick at the Nobody's Fool logo on one of the murals. "And a bunch of would-be little terrorists." He looked over at her and his tone shifted to condescending. "We're sorry, but we couldn't go through with your plan. Things were happening too quickly. Thank you all the same though, Miss Scootaloo." There was a calculating gleam in his eye. He spoke loudly enough for every one of the Fools to hear him. "We couldn't have done it without your help-"

She stared at him, jaw hanging in disbelief.

He took a glance around at the expressions curdling into rage, looked her square in the eye and smirked.

And that's when she bit him.

---

Dear parents, if you are tempted to use the old retort "if everyone else jumped off a cliff..." Don't. Suppose you were up on a cliff surrounded by all your family, friends and relations and they suddenly all jumped off. Which is the more likely explanation: that everyone except you spontaneously turned both stupid and suicidal... or they all knew something you don't? Blind iconoclasm is just as stupid as being a blind follower. Dear Kids: The obvious answer is "Sure, seeing as they've all jumped TWICE."