The Castle was... well to be honest, it was pretty radical. The whole place was a fortress, made of thick stone and surrounded by towering walls that loomed over the ponies below them. As she walked through the red carpeted corridor, the filly had to admit, even if it wasn’t like the cloud marble scenery of Cloudsdale, the place had an appeal to it.

It just... oozed cool and as always, cool was Rainbow’s expertise and obsession.

Everywhere she went within the confines of the massive building, the guards watched her with smiles and she’d already started learning their names. To her surprise, every one of the guards she’d taken the time to talk to had been kind and all around pretty dang awesome. Especially Tornado Kicker, that stallion was all kinds of radical.

Unfortunately, every time Dash thought about how cool everything here was, the more she wished that Fluttershy was there with her. Her friend had never exactly been the most... assertive pony and it had fallen to Dash to defend her from the myriad of bullies who tried to take advantage of her. Even with Gilda being there to look out for her... Rainbow was worried.

At least Queen Celestia was understanding and had dropped any fees on ingoing and outgoing mail between the two; it was a nice gesture, Rainbow supposed. Speaking of the Queen, Rainbow Dash was conflicted. On the one hoof, she had forced Rainbow to move to the castle, and that was definitely a bad thing. On the other hoof, she was also incredibly kind and understanding. She’d taken the time to take Rainbow aside for a one on one talk to make sure that she was doing alright and assuring her that no matter what, she’d have a friend in her... which was just plain weird to think about.

Dash’s brow furrowed as she walked aimlessly down the corridor, her mandatory flying training wasn’t scheduled to start for another two hours and her father was out doing his job, leaving her with nothing to do.

“Oomph,” a filly’s voice said from in front of her.

Rainbow shook her head to clear her thoughts and glanced down to see another filly sitting there on the floor, a book fallen open on the ground in front of her. The purple maned unicorn looked at her with an irritated look.

“Why don’t you watch where you’re going?!” the unicorn asked her irritably.

“Why don’t you learn to walk and not read?” Rainbow Dash replied. “In fact, why read at all? Books are lame.”

“No they’re not!” the other exclaimed, clearly outraged by this ‘fact’. “Reading is the most amazing thing ever!”

“No it’s not, flying is,” the pegasus stated. “Reading is for nerds and eggheads, like you.”

“I’m not a nerd!” the unicorn shouted, her horn starting to glow a little.

“Oh yeah? You look like one!” Rainbow exclaimed, happy to have something to distract her from her worries about Fluttershy.

“Grrr,” the unicorn growled at her.

“Yeah, go on and growl,” Rainbow replied with a smirk.

That smirk rapidly vanished as the filly’s horn flared and Rainbow found herself somersaulting backwards until she landed squarely on her rear end.

“Ha, who’s a nerd now?” the unicorn asked her with a smirk.

Rainbow Dash let out a low growl. “Oh, it’s on!”

Queen Celestia sat at a table sipping tea calmly as the pair of diplomatic ambassadors sat across from her. On the right was Legacy Tracer, a light blue, white maned unicorn who acted as the Equestrian ambassador to the Griffon Kingdom. On the left was his wife, Flora Strongwing, a vaguely tiger-like griffin with deep orange fur and a head of of white feathers.

“-glad to hear that the King Irontalon has agreed to the newest trade agreement,” Celestia was saying between sips of her tea. “I was rather worried that he would insist upon keeping taxes on Equestrian traders high.”

“It was just a show of force to ‘remind’ you that he could,” Legacy stated with a small shrug. “Griffons are like that, I should know.”

Strongwing shot her husband a slightly miffed look but simply puffed out her feathers. “The King has his reasons, I assure you,” she stated. “As do all griffons.”

“I’m sure,” Celestia replied with a small smile.

She’d always enjoyed the pair, when they were not locking lips they were locking steel and it always made for good entertainment. The fact that both were devilishly good at their jobs, especially when facing off against each other, made the entire situation even better.

“Of course,” Legacy stated sardonically. “At any rate that ‘crisis’ has passed us by and I believe you had some news for her Majesty, dear.”

Flora looked down for a moment and Celestia saw a flash of actual nervousness flash through the sharp huntress’s eyes.

“Indeed I do,” she said as she reached for her own glass of tea and took a small sip before setting it back down on the platter. “Queen Celestia, it is with the greatest of regret that I must inform you that a very powerful artifact was recently stolen from our armory.”

Celestia paused and frowned at the griffon with confusion before speaking. “While it is regrettable that you have lost this ‘artifact’ I hardly understand why it my concern,” she said slowly.

“Because your Majesty... it happens to be the Stormbow of Darkness,” Flora admitted, looking down at the table.

Celestia’s breath caught in her throat. The Stormbow of Darkness was one of the few weapons that she knew without a doubt could disable her. It was her... antithesis and had the power to cripple her magic. Any arrow shot from its string would inflict a grievous wound upon her and temporarily disable her connection to the sun and thus her magic. Discord had created it as a throwaway joke during their fight and even the Draconequus had been surprised how well it had worked.

“I see...” Celestia said though her voice was quite a bit... darker than normal. “And how pray tell did your King even come into possession of the Bow?”

“I honestly haven’t the faintest idea,” Flora said with an irritated growl. “I wasn’t told, Ma’am. All I know is that I was told to tell you that it was stolen and to be on the lookout for it.”

Celestia let out a long breath and then nodded. “Well, tell your King thank you for me. It is good to know that he is stallion enough to take some form of responsibility and tell me of the situation,” the alicorn said at last.

“You’re welcome your Majesty, and I will tell him that,” Flora stated, letting out a relieved sigh, apparently she’d been worried that Celestia would ‘shoot the messenger’.

“Told you it would be fine,” Legacy told her, patting his wife gently on the shoulder.

“Yes well-”

BOOOOOOM

Anything that Flora was about to say was cut off by an incredibly loud explosion of noise and strangely... color that rocked the castle.

Celestia’s teacup shattered, along with windowes througought the castle, and the husband and wife fell out of their chairs, Flora landing atop Legacy.

“What in Celestia’s name was that?!” Legacy shouted.

“Celestia has a pretty good idea,” Celestia stated dryly as she got up from her seat. “Ambassadors, if you’ll please excuse me, I believe I have a filly to reprimand.” She then turned on her hooves and strode out of the room.

“That came from a filly?” Flora asked incredulously as she maneuvered herself off of her husband.

“I guess so, the Queen doesn’t lie,” Legacy replied. “Still, some filly.”

Rainbow Dash panted, she’d never done that indoors before and the filly beneath her looked just as stunned.

“Wow...” the purple mare said softly as she looked up at Rainbow who was currently lying on top of her chest.

“Yeah... wow,” Rainbow agreed as the black eye that the other filly had given her with a particularly strong magic blast began to ache. “So... what’s your name?”

“Twilight Sparkle,” the unicorn replied before she shoved Rainbow Dash off of her chest and then took a moment to survey the hallway.

It was... to be quite frank... a disaster area. There were broken windows, downed drapes, dashed pieces of pottery, crashed suits of armour, and even one or two guards blinking blearily as they returned to their feet.

“Oh crud...” Rainbow said as she looked back at the havoc she’d reaked. “We’re in trouble.”

“Oh no nonononononon,” Twilight began to recite to herself as she looked around desperately. “The Queen is going to kill us!”

“Okay... okay... we got to think about this,” Rainbow Dash said, her brain beginning to panic yet staying focused. “Alright, you and me weren’t fighting... you were practicing your magic and- then- and then-”

She noticed that Twilight was staring at her with extremely wide eyes.

“She’s right behind me, isn’t she?” Twilight noded faintly, her head shaking. “Crud.”

“Crud indeed young one,” Celestia’s voice said from above her. Rainbow Dash looked up to see the Queen looking down at her with a look of hard eyed sternness. The pegasus suddenly felt weightless as Celestia’s golden aura wrapped itself around both herself and Twilight who was still staring numbly at Celestia in horror.

“I’m sorry Master!” Twilight shouted.

“I’m sure you are,” Celestia said as she trotted down the hallway. “And I’m sure you’ll both have plenty of time to think about it while you’re in detention.”

“Detention!?!” Twilight shouted in horrified shock.

“Nerd,” Rainbow whispered to herself as she glanced at Twilight’s terrified expression.

“Now now, enough of that,” Celestia said sternly. “You two out of the three fillies who are going to be in and about the castle in the forthcoming years, other than Cadence, and I expect you to learn to be civil with each other.” As she was talking, Celestia’s horn glowed brighter and they appeared within a bare carpeted room containing only a set of chairs.

Celestia let the pair fall in a heap on the floor, Twilight on top this time, and then fixed them both with a harsh stare.

“Now, tell me how it came about that you received a black eye and then proceeded to destroy an entire hallway,” the Queen said as she stared down at Rainbow Dash.

“Well... I ran into her because she was too busy reading her book when she walked,” Rainbow Dash began, pointing at Twilight who shot her a glare. “And then she hit me in the face with her magic so I punched her in the face and then she hit me with magic and then I tackled her and she kicked me in the stomach and so I-”

“I see,” Celestia said, cutting her off before she looked at Twilight. “And your half Twilight?”

“Well, I was walking along the hallway, reading the ‘basic magics’ book you assigned me, and suddenly she comes out of nowhere and slammed into me,” Twilight stated, looking at Rainbow with a glare. “And then she called me a nerd and punched me in the face so I hit her with my magic and one thing led to another until she somehow did that thing...”

Celestia let out a small sigh and closed her eyes. This is going to be a long day...

“I’m sorry,” Rainbow Dash grunted from her corner of the room.

“What?” Twilight asked from her corner.

“I said I’m sorry,” Rainbow Dash said a bit louder. “I shouldn’t have called you a nerd.”

Twilight looked away from her wall to see the rainbow maned pegasus looking at her, an ashamed look in her eyes.

“I’m not a bully... and I know what it’s like to be called something you don’t like,” she continued. “I’ve just... been under a lot of stress since I moved here and...”

“I... it’s okay,” Twilight said, giving her a small smile as she rubbed her black eye. “At least neither of us really got hurt.”

“Yeah... still, I’m sorry,” Rainbow Dash said as she walked over to Twilight and sat down beside her.

“Well... it’s not all your fault,” Twilight stated with a blush. “I’m the one who hit you first.”

“I guess you’re right,” Rainbow agreed and then rubbed her face. “And it was a nice hit too.”

“Really?” Twilight asked with a surprised expression. “I... I’ve never had that much power before. My brother is the strong one.”

“Could have fooled me,” the pegasus replied before chuckling. “It caught me off guard, that’s for sure.”

“I do my best,” Twilight replied before looking at Rainbow intently. “You don’t really think books are lame do you?”

“Hmm? Na, I mean, I’m not a big reader, but there are much lamer things then books,” Rainbow replied with a shake of her head. “You don’t really think flying is lame, do you?”

“Of course not!” Twilight stated emphatically. “Flying is amazing!”

“I know right?” Rainbow said, grinning widely. “I’m going to join the Airforce when I grow up!”

“Really?” Twilight asked her with a frown.

“Yep, I’m shooting for the Wonderbolts!” Dash answered.

“Wow...” Twilight trailed off and then looked at Rainbow with a smile. “I’m going to be the next Archmage!”

“Really?”

“Yes! I’m already the Queen’s personal student and everypony knows that that’s the way you get to be Archmage,” Twilight informed her. “It’s what Sunset Shimmer did, and she’s the best Archmage we’ve had in years!”

Rainbow Dash smiled, she hadn’t realized that there was another pony shooting for the stars like she was.

“That’s awesome!” Rainbow replied. “And rad, and cool, and extreme!”

“Don’t forget stupendous, fantastic, spectacular, and tremendous!” Twilight added with a smile of her own. Rainbow stared at her for a moment, this was the first time anyone had ever added to her ‘list of awesome words’ in a long time.

“You know what?” Rainbow Dash asked her.

“Do I know what, what?” Twilight asked back with a frown.

“I like you,” the pegasus replied, offering her hoof. “Friends?”

“Friends,” Twilight agreed, accepting the hoof and giving it a shake.

They stayed like that for a moment longer before Rainbow Dash frowned. “So... how do we get out of this room?” she asked, looking around the plain room which had only one door. It seemed to have been at least three hours since Celestia had deposited them, and both fillies had grown tired of the place.

“I don’t know... but between us I think we can manage something,” Twilight said as she surveyed the room. “How do you feel about stunts?”

Rainbow Dash just grinned, she liked this filly a lot.