Harmony strolled down the streets of L.A. It was nice to do, for once. Usually the band rolled in at dawn, and everypony slept until about three. Then, after setting up, they’d play until midnight, ignore the clamor for encore, and rush off to the next city. There never really was time to stop and look around. And even when she did go out, there was always a crowd of fifty following her. She could never be alone.

But L.A. was different. The band was going to stay here the whole weekend, and the insane fans, most of them anyways, wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow. And the normal ponies in Hollyhoof were used to being around famous ones, so they didn’t make a big deal of it. Sure a few would ask her to sign something, or take a picture, but generally they left her alone.

It was nice to be normal again.

--

“Sorry ma’am, but the weather team’s doing just fine. I got a spot down in Smog Control if you want it.” The heavy pony’s voice grated on Rainbow’s ears.

“I’ll take it.” It was the best the pony could get. Los Arabias had three weather teams, and not a single slot was opened. At least Dash had been able to find something.

“Good,” Generic Smith responded, his voice slowly driving Rainbow mad, “Come in tomorrow at 6 sharp. I’ll get one of the team leaders to take you through basic training and get you all set.”

“Thank you so much for the opportunity, sir, but now I really gotta go.” Rainbow dashed out of the room before he could reply.

The blue Pegasus was making remarkably good time. She’d only been in L.A. for a few hours and she already had a job. Sure it wasn’t glamorous, or even decent, but was money and money is important. Her stomach rumbled.

“Especially for lunch,” Rainbow thought to herself.

“Ms. Dash? Could you please pay attention? This is important.” The fancy pony looked impatient.

“What more do you want know? I’ve already said my side.”

The fancy pony sighed, “Yes, yes. But it’s my job to find out the whole story. Now-“

“Tell me what she said.”

“Alright. She said that you flew up to her, called her…” The fancy pony seemed uncomfortable, “a fucking bitch and then kicked her.”

A silence fell upon the room.

“You know, you could face jail time.”

“For what?” Dash shouted. There was no way he was telling the truth. At least, she hoped he wasn’t.

“For assault. You broke her wing, and, trust me, that makes a pretty convincing case.”

Another silence.

The fancy pony rustled through some papers. “I see that you’ve been seeing a therapist for a while. Behavioral issues. Care to explain?”

“Stupid rumors spread by that dumbass bitch.” A short pause. “Sorry, ignorant filly.”

The fancy pony cracked a small smile. “Tell me your side again.”

Dash rolled her eyes. She knew how this went. He’d ask her to repeat her story a few times, looking for inconsistency. Then he’d question her about her life, things that have gone on, all that jazz. Rinse, repeat. Harmony would win this fight. She was the sympathy pony. She had a broken wing, she hadn’t been forced to see a therapist for behavioral reasons. Dash was unscathed, she’d been written up six times before the rumors started and a few since then. Rainbow knew she was facing expulsion. She just hoped that Harmony wouldn’t press charges.

“Fine,” the blue mare sighed.

Dash found a small sandwich place in Pasamino. So far, she wasn’t really excited about L.A. Everything was overpriced and there were far too many Starbits. Plus the city was just too crowded. Even in the air she was surrounded by hundreds of ponies. She’d heard that Los Arabias was massive, she just didn’t expect it to be this large. Pasamino alone was as large as Ponyville.

Well, she came here to blend in, become invisible. It wouldn’t be too hard to do.

--

“Can I… Can I touch your wing?”

Harmony was momentarily surprised. Of all the weird requests she’d gotten from fans, this was the most, er, interesting. She tightened her wings against her side. She was pretty good with fans. But a few, well, far too many to be considered few, demands were creepy. This was one of them.

“Sorry, er, no.”

“Oh, all right…” the brown pony sighed. He trudged along down the street. Harmony rolled her eyes, and snorted quietly. Fans always did this when she denied their requests. ‘Oh woe is me. I didn’t get exactly what I want. Take pity?’ Harmony wasn’t one for pity. At least not undeserved pity. And a healthy, if sulky, college student did not deserve pity.

Harmony turned and walked back to Hollyhoof. It was getting relatively late and Westwood meant college fans. College fans were weird.

She was vaguely aware of a shadow. She could see it out of the corner of her eye. She wanted to move her head to see it directly, but the drugs were too strong. It took all of her energy just to stay awake. She tried to ask who it was, but her voice wouldn’t work. Whatever the nurse had given her essentially shut her body down. She was afraid to sleep. She knew she should, but, for some reason she couldn’t explain to herself, she was just too scared.

The shadow moved. Harmony caught a glimpse the multi-colored mane and panicked. The blue bitch was here to finish what she started. She’d probably break Harmony’s other wing. Or worse.

The white filly squeezed her eyes shut in  preparation of the blow. As if waiting for this, her mind let go.

And the pony slept.

--

“Two thousand a month?” Rainbow Dash yelled, more in shock than anger.

“Yup. That includes electricity. Take it or leave it.”

Dash looked around the apartment. It wasn’t awful, just tiny. In fact, the rainbow-maned mare was pretty sure it wasn’t much larger than her bedroom back in Ponyville.

“Take it,” the blue mare sighed. She signed the little sheet and officially became a resident of L.A. Her new life had begun.

Yippee.

“Expelled?” Her father roared. “For what?”

“Behavioral issues. Multiple write-ups. Fighting. Inappropriate behavior. Unstable psyche. The list goes on. Would you like me to continue?”

“No. That’s enough,” Lightning said, through gritted teeth. “I assume that there are no forms to fill out.”

“Just take the filly and leave. The paperwork is taken care of.” The graying stallion watched the pair leave, smiling to himself. Just one less problem.

“So,” Lightning started, “Behavioral issues?” He was almost too angry to speak. But the deathly silence and simple curiosity called for conversation.

“Lies. I didn’t do anything. Everypony just hates me. Especially that bitch, Harmony.” Dash spat at the name.

“Language, Dash. And I doubt that everypony hates you. So, seriously, what happened? They can’t kick somepony out of school just because they don’t like that pony.”

Dash drifted lazily to a small cloud. She couldn’t look at her father, and she shrugged of his obligated sympathy. Taking a deep breath, she told him.

Everything.

--

“Applejack, how do you plan to even find her once we get there? L.A. is a huge city.”

“That’s easy, Twilight. We’ll just wait for her at the concert.”

“There will be hundreds of ponies there. And she might not even go! Then what?” Twilight was extremely frustrated. While waiting for Rarity to show up, the two ponies had gone through this whole argument three times. It wasn’t that Twilight wasn’t concerned for her friend, she was, but AJ wasn’t being pragmatic. The orange pony was letting her emotions run her, and Twilight knew exactly where that road led.

“She’ll be there. We’ll find her. But if she ain’t, then ya will find her.”

“How?”

“Magic.”

“You want me to do a locater spell in the middle of a city? Do you realize how impossible that’ll be? There are millions of ponies in L.A, there’s no way I can search through all-“ Twilight was interrupted by the appearance of Rarity and Fluttershy.

“What’s the emergency? All Fluttershy told me was that something happened with Rainbow Dash and –” The white unicorn stared at the two glaring ponies, “- apparently you two are busy fighting. Would somepony be a dear and explain what’s going on?”

“Rainbow Dash ran away. AJ thinks –“

“No, I know.”

“That she went to L.A. She wants to go there and get Dash back, but she doesn’t… I lost you, didn’t I?” Twilight sighed. The other unicorn’s eyes were sparkling.

“We’re going to L.A? To Hollyhoof?” Rarity asked in disbelief.

“We ain’t takin a vacation. We’re goin’ to get Rainbow back.”

“Oh, of course, darling.” Rarity responded, attempted to tone down her excitement. “How are we getting there? It’s much too far to walk.”

“Pinkie said she had something that could carry us all,” Twilight responded for AJ.

As if on cue, the pink pony bounded up to the group.

“It’s ready,” she said, “To the Pinkiemobile!”

--

The pain woke her up. She had rolled onto her broken wing during the night, and when the drugs wore off, the pain returned triple fold.

The white Pegasus quickly rolled onto her other side. The pain subsided a bit. Before her, she saw a single yellow flower and a note. On it were two words:

Sorry, bitch.

Harmony stood in front of the mirror. She looked dead. She always did before a show. Every time, her fears would take over. Would she forget a song? Slip on stage? Perhaps she might crash during the flyover. These thoughts and countless others plagued her before every show. Fans were fickle. Should she mess up, she would never hear the end of it. Her following would diminish greatly, if not disappear altogether. She had spent years building up her popularity, but it was unstable at best.

And her fans only respected her voice and her beauty. Should she lose either one, they’d turn. Some would claim she never produced anything good or original. Others would deny that she was ever popular. Most would simply say nothing, and turn away.

She shook these thoughts away. The opening bands had started. In an hour, she’d be out there, singing her new songs and a few of the crowd’s favorites. Then the band would sign a few lucky copies of their new album and sleep. Tomorrow same thing, replacing sleep with flee.

Yippee.

--

“So,” Dash said, coughing, “what’s a pony,” coughing, “ to do for fun around here?” Her eyes were watering. Smog control was nothing like being a weather pony. It was dirty, painful, and downright boring. But a job was a job.

“Lots! Especially tonight. I just so happen to have a spare ticket to O.H.W’s concert. Care to come?” Her mentor replied. He’d been assigned the task of showing her the basics of pollution control, not that there was much to it. But he really spent most the day flirting and showing off. He was definitely overly friendly, but nice enough.

“O.H.W?” Dash asked.

“Awesome band. They’re pretty much just metal with a couple of throws to the classics. It works very well. Tonight’s the start of their ‘Yellow Flower’ tour. You really should come.”

“Well, it’s not like I’ve got plans.”

“Great, I’ll stop by your place at six. Be sure to get you there nice and safe.” The flirty stallion smiled, spreading his wings slightly, before snapping them to his side.

Dash flew off to her overpriced apartment. So far L.A. wasn’t too bad. Sure everything was super expensive, and her job sucked. And her only friend was her boss. But life would go on. L.A. could work.

The remainder of the semester passed uneventfully. Dash went to the small public school back home, and essentially hid throughout the last two months. She graduated, barely, and immediately moved from Cloudsburne to Cloudsdale. The whole issue with Harmony and JSBS wasn’t discussed outside her mother’s angry sobs and father’s unwanted sympathy. The blue mare found a job as a waitress, although she dropped quite a lot, and cut herself off from her family and old life.

Less than two years later, a familiar old stallion appeared at table six. Dash treated him the same as any other customer. Lighting treated her as he would any waitress. Except, her might have padded the tip, just a bit.

“Sir!” Dash ran after him, envelope in her mouth, “You forgot this.”

“Keep it, Rainbow. It’s your tip.” Her father walked on.

“It’s customary to leave only cash.”

Lightning ignored her.

Rainbow carefully studied the envelope’s contents. Four hundred bits, a key, and a note.

“Stop hiding,” it read, “the world’s best flyer in Cloudsdale all of Equestria should own the world, not be owned by it.”

It ended with an address in Ponyville.

--

“Why do we think Rainbow’s gone to L.A?” Rarity asked, leaning over the side of the basket. The balloon was extremely crowded.

“Because, we found this and –” AJ held out the picture.

“Who’s this? And are they kissing?”

“I’d explain if ya would let me finish. It’s the lead singer of some band – Out of Harm’s Way, right?” Pinkie nodded to Applejack’s question, “And they’re starting their tour in L.A. and-”

“Rainbow knows a famous pony? Why didn’t she ever tell us? Oh Celestia this will work wonders for m-”

“Rarity, focus on the point.”

“Right, right.”

“We think Dash is gonna be at the concert. Ya’ll are gonna help me find her an-“

This time, Twilight cut the orange pony off. “Actually,” she said, “Rarity has a point. Why didn’t Dash ever tell us about Harmony? You’d think she’d brag about that as often as possible.”

“I dunno, maybe she was jealous or something. Look, it ain’t important. I don’t care why she did or didn’t te-”

“Look!” Pinkie exclaimed, cutting AJ off again, “There it is! We’re here!”

The massive city loomed on the dark horizon.

“Can a pony finish a sentence ‘round here?” AJ muttered.

--

Dash sighed. It was refreshing to rid herself of all that grime and other-unnamed-things away. The pegasus looked around her dinky little apartment and sighed again. This time of sadness. She missed her glamorous house, her old job, the fresh clean air of Ponyville, and, above all else, her friends. Rainbow was tempted to abandon L.A. and return to Ponyville…

‘No,’ the blue mare though to herself, ‘what’s there to return to, save torment? It’s better here. I know it is.’

The buzzer buzzed to let her know that someone was at the door below. She hit the little talk button.

“Come in, just drying off.” She hit the button to unlock the gate. She quickly patted herself dry and then shook out her mane.

“I wasn’t expecting to get this wet. You sure know how to get a colt ready,” he said from the door, winking.

Dash glared at him, but smiled softly. “Let’s go, I wanna beat the crowd.”

They didn’t beat the crowd. Not in the least. Despite arriving two hours early, they still managed to get booted off to the back. Awwell, it was better than nothing. After an hour of nothingness and another of horrid opening bands, O.H.W. finally appeared. Four unicorns and a single white pegasus.

Dash gasped as the memories she’d been trying to bury for the past two days came flooding back. Dash didn’t even say anything to her date. She just reacted.

Once again, she fled from her past.

--

The yellow flower wilted pretty quickly. Harmony didn’t care. It wasn’t the flower that mattered to her. It was the note. No, not even the note. The two words scrawled upon it.

Sorry, bitch.

Two words, that for some reason, made a huge impact on the white pony. Looking at her broken wing, Harmony sighed. She knew why Dash did this. She knew that on some level, ok, several levels, she deserved the six months as a cripple. She only had one question, for herself:

Why did she turn on her friend?

Six months later, she had no answer.

“I want to press charges on that murderous bitch. She should go to jail. Attempted murder also. If my little Harmony wasn’t so strong, I shudder to think what would have happened. Assault, Attempted murder, hell, why not Attempted Rape either? I want to see that little dyke in jail for-”

“No.” Harmony cut her father off.

“Excuse me?”

“We aren’t pressing charges on Rainbow.”

“Honey, I know you’re scared, but don’t worry. The court will-”

“I said no, Father.”

“You don’t have a choice, dear. I’ll bring the case to court, whether you want me to or not.”

“But how will you win if the victim denies everything? You won’t. You’ll be just an old stallion trying to steal money from a poor young filly. No, Dad,” Harmony turned to leave, “we are not pressing charges.”

And she left.

--

“Sold out? How can ya be sold out?”

“Sorry ma’am. The band’s hot, and tickets are icecubes.”

“Huh?”

“Everything’s been gone since Friday.”

“Horsefeathers!” Applejack turned to the group, “Now what are we gonna do?”

As if in response, a streak of rainbow flew by.

“Dash! Wait!” A colt’s voice called. He, too, flew past the group, only at a much slower rate.

AJ didn’t miss a beat. “Fluttershy! Quick! Follow ‘em.” AJ called to her friend. This was her lucky night. It was highly unlikely that there were two rainbow streaks with the nickname ‘Dash’ in all of Equestria. Ok, not highly unlikely, but it was all she had.

Fluttershy took off after the pair. The earth-bound ponies trotted along after them.

“At least ya don’t need to try a locater thingy, Twi.”

--

“Sorry about that,” Dash blushed, when her friend finally caught up. She was standing outside the gate to her complex. “I used to know that girl. We didn’t get along, to put it nicely… I kind of overreacted.”

“Say no more!” A small pause. “All that speedy flying made me thirsty, mind if I come in?”

“No, not at all,” Rainbow led him inside. “Make yourself comfortable,” she said, turning on the water.”

“I already am,” he chuckled. Dash turned. His wings were spread very wide. Dash giggled a little, but she was cut short by him pressing his face into hers. She broke off the kiss immediately.

“I’m sorry, but-” She was interrupted by him doing it again. This time she pushed him back. He glared down at her for a couple seconds, then slammed against her. The Pegasus lost her balance and slammed into a wall. She let out a small terrified squeak as he pressed his side against hers, wrapping his wings around her. She pushed against him, he pushed her against the wall and nuzzled her neck, working backwards.

“Get your perverted hooves off her!” An angry voice shouted. Suddenly, Dash’s attacker collapsed, a dent in his head. He was quite unconscious.

Dash pulled herself up off the ground to meet her savior face to face.

“Hey, AJ.”

--

“I could’ve taken him.” Her rainbow-maned friend said.

“Of course ya could’ve, sugercube. ‘fore or after he raped ya?” AJ responded, glaring at the stallion’s body. Rainbow was silent. Twilight arrived with the police. There was a brief amount of questioning, then both Dash and AJ gave statements. After everything was properly recorded, they left with Dash’s boss, who was still unconscious, but cuffed.

“How’d you manage to get in? The complex is gated all the way to the top.”

“Some nice old mare let us in. And ya left your door unlocked. Ya really shouldn’t do that.”

“Oh.”

A silence passed between the two.

“Sugercube,” Applejack started, “Why’d ya run away?”

Dash looked away thoughtfully. Then she told her friend.

Everything.

--

Another silence. Dash watched her friend slowly take it all in. The orange pony slowly shook her head.

“So ya thought I’d act like Harmony and turn all your friends against ya?”

“Yeah…” Dash nodded sadly, “I was just so afraid tha-”

“Sugercube,” AJ interrupted, “I love ya. Sure I don’t wanna get all cozy with ya, but that don’t change the fact I love ya. And the thought of living without ya just makes me –”

The earth pony couldn’t finish. She just teared up. Dash offered a sympathy wing, AJ took it. After several hugs and a short, effusive sobfest, the two ponies worked everything out.

“C’mon, let’s go home.” Next Chapter: Epilogue Estimated time remaining: 12 Minutes