“Spike?”

“Yeah?”

“Next time, I’m picking the art project.”

Rainbow Dash and Spike were at the park. The area of clouds that held various recreational activities also held empty spaces where the two, along with their friends Fluttershy and Gilda, could relax and hang out to talk about idiots at school, new things in their neighborhood, or recently, the Wonderbolts.

Right now, though, the four were helping out on the Rainbow siblings art project.

Which, for some strange reason, involved bowling balls.

“Urgh, remind me again what you two are doing?” asked Gilda as she carried one of the bowling balls.

“It’s not what we are doing; it’s what Spike is doing,” Rainbow grunted under another ball.

“It’s Starswirl’s cradle!” Spike piped up while carrying two more bowling balls. “Basically, when you connect five balls together, and have one ball on the end swing up and down to hit the ball next to it, through kinetic energy and some weird law of physics, the ball on the opposite side will swing up as well, and then-”

“Blah, blah, blah; you know what, you’re such an egghead sometimes Spike,” Rainbow remarked.

“I’m not an egghead! You just need to pay more attention to Miss Reflect!”

“Borrrring! Spike, seventh grade science is worse than last year. At least in fifth grade, we got to make a volcano!”

“We almost did, but somepony forgot to bring in the lab sheet, and for punishment, we had to watch others instead of our own blow up!”

“Yeah, well, mom’s volcano was better than all of them. Who knew you could make it spew different colors?”

“Dashie, just because mom helped us to make our own afterwards doesn’t make it-“

“Ahh!” In a moment of distraction, Fluttershy tripped and dropped her bowling ball. It rolled harmlessly across the cloud, as the blue magical aura around it made sure it stayed on the cloud and not drop down on some helpless bystander on the ground.

“Are you okay, Fluttershy?” Spike walked up to her, putting his bowling balls down to help her up on her four hooves. Her wings were now almost fully grown, the same as Rainbow and Gilda’s were. Spike had only begun to grow his wings in. They had started to grow back in the summer, but he still couldn’t feel nor move them much. He still walked on two legs, but Scrolls said that the wings will make him walk on four soon.

“I’m…I’m fine, um, thank you,” Fluttershy replied.

Spike sighed. “Flutters, you have to stop saying ‘um’ every single sentence you say. It’s cute and all, but… it’s… help me out here Dash.”

“Oh, nonononono. If you think it’s cute, then let ‘Flutters’ say it. I’m not stopping her,” Rainbow replied with a cocky smile, dropping her ball down to rest her back.

“Aw c’mon! It’s…degrading, I guess,” Spike sighed again.

“Degrading? What do you mean by that?” Gilda asked. She dropped her bowling ball to rest her claws.

“I mean that it’s not good for her to be like that….... to be shy and not… confident. Fluttershy,” Spike put his arm on her shoulder, “You don’t have to be scared around us. I know I ain’t a knucklehead like Dashie,”

“Hey!”

“Or funny looking like Gilda,”

“Oi, what?!”

“But we care about you, and don’t think we don’t see you starting to stay away from the others in middle school.”

“I…” Fluttershy was speechless. Had she been shying away from the other ponies at school? She did talk a lot to her friends though.

In fact, she only ever talked to her friends. The only ponies she talked to who weren’t her friends were her parents.

“It’s just that, you know…”

“Know what, Fluttershy?” Now Dash and Gilda wore worried expressions for her. They too noticed how Fluttershy kept to herself in school.

“I…” What did she have? What was her excuse for her behavior? Oh, she didn’t even have an excuse, she didn’t even have a reason! She was a horrible friend, and a horrible blank flank…

“Their cutie marks. Everyone in our class already has them, and we…don’t.”

The trio blinked at her. Rainbow looked at her flanks, bare and blue, and Gilda and Spike passively glanced at theirs.

“Hey, it’s okay. Who needs a stupid tattoo on their butt anyways? We’ve got a dragon and a griffon in our group! If anyone thinks we aren’t awesome, then they could go stuff it!” Rainbow finished with another one of her trademark cocky smiles. All four laughed, Fluttershy smiling with a tear. She wiped away the tear, content that at least she had three other friends who would be there for her.

She looked towards Spike and sighed. He had always been there for her, helping her out with homework and standing up for her when some bullies would target her.

Plus, he had gorgeous eyes.

It happened suddenly in fifth grade. She took one look at Spike and felt a little awkward near him. Her cheeks felt hot whenever he spoke to her, and she could only reply in stammered bursts. She had a crush on Spike!

Rainbow managed to find out one day when they were in her room together for a school project. Rather than telling, she decided to keep it a secret too.

Over time, she managed to control herself when she was around Spike, but she still sometimes slips up. Or in this case, drops the bowling ball.

That smile when she said that Spike called me cute was probably meant for me, she realized.

"Well, these bowling balls aren't going by themselves, so let's keep going. By the way, where did you find these balls?" Gilda asked.

"Eh, I found them (I'll take this one too, Fluttershy, don't worry) near the garbage can of the bowling alley. The manager said I can take whatever old balls there were as they were replacing them for new ones."

"These look like new ones though, how are they old?"

"Don't know. They were the prettier ones in the lot so I took them." All of the bowling balls were bright neon colors.

"What about the cradle? What are we sticking these balls into?"

"I've set the cradle up where we are going now. I also left a power driver there, I'll drill through the balls and loop some rope between them. Rainbow, I'll need you to hold the balls at that point."

"Ya got it boss!"

After two hours, Spike pulled the last bit of rope that connected the last ball up to the cradle. With a satisfied sigh, he made one more knot before stepping back and admiring his handiwork.

"Well, guys, what do you think?"

"I think," Rainbow began, "that we've done well, bro. Well, at least you did..."

"Whadoya mean I did? You helped too!"

"I only held the balls so you can drill them. You did everything else yourself."

"Yeah, but without someone holding them steady, I wouldn't be able to drill perfectly into them."

"You could have asked Fluttershy or Gilda to hold them."

"Eh, details. Now," Spike looked around, "who wants to try it out?"

"Oh, me! I wanna start it!" Gilda raised her talons up before running to one end of the cradle.

"Just lift the ball up and let it go. The cradle will do the rest!" Spike said.

As instructed, Gilda raised the ball up before parting her talons to let it drop. The ball collided with a bang to the second ball, and in a blink of an eye the ball on the opposite side of the cradle rose up into the air.

"Woohoo! It works!" Spike cheered. "Gilda, get away so it can swing back!"

Gilda realized her position when the ball started to drop, and she was in front of the other ball that would be thrown in the air. Instead of moving out of the way, she locked up and held her talons to her face, bracing herself with her eyes closed.

She felt an impact and tumbled over, but it wasn't in front of her. She landed to the side with a heavy object on top of her, pressing her down. When she opened her eyes, she saw Spike on top of her, pushing her out of the cradle's way.

She then looked down to see their lips together.

"Get offa me!" she cried. With a push of her back legs she crawled away from Spike, who was left stammering away from her. Both of their cheeks blushed bright red.

"I swear, I didn't mean to do that! I was just trying to push you out of the way!"

"No, just... No! Ugh, I hope you don't have any Dragon germs or whatever..."

"What?! No I don't! Rainbow, tell her that it was an accident!"

"Nah, it wasn't an accident," Rainbow stifled a giggle.

"Rainbow!" Spike cried in indignation. Rainbow couldn't hold it in anymore and fell to the ground laughing. She took a quick glance at Fluttershy.

Her posture was rigid, and her face was expressionless, save for a violent twitch in her left eye.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about her crush. Whoops...

"Well, you two kissing aside, looks like your contraption works, Spike." Rainbow widened her eyes. Fluttershy had all but spat out her brother's name at the end.

Rainbow stood up. "Heeeeey, it’s a grrrrrreat day out! I mean, it really is a great day, there's so much we can do like...stuff and stuff?" Rainbow wanted to try and steer the incoming train wreck away before it got any worse.

"Actually, I'm pretty beat. Let's head back home, Dash," Spike replied. He finished his point with a yawn, cheeks still burning. He just wanted to get away from everyone before he made himself look like more of a fool.

"What? C'mon, we still can hang around. Tell us about what we're gonna do with the cradle!"

"Enter it in the school competition and see how far we can go, now let's go, Rainbow."

Rainbow Dash held her head down in shame. Mouthing an "I'm sorry" to Fluttershy, who was now on the verge of tears but still stood very rigid, she walked with Spike out of the park, where he decided to leave the cradle and grab it later, after he didn't feel so embarrassed.

"...wa...wait Spike," Gilda called out.

Spike turned around with a full blush on his face. "Uh, y-yeah Gilda?"

"I...I just wanted to say I'm sorry for, uh, lashing out like that. You, uh, want me to take the cradle so you can pick it up at my house?"

"I mean, uh, sure. If you can push it around, that is..."

"Well, that's why you put on the wheels, right?"

"Uh, yeah," Spike scratched the back of his head with a goofy smile, "heh, that's why!" Both he and Gilda giggled hesitantly before looking away with brighter blushes.

"So, uh, I'll see you later?" Gilda asked.

"Y-yeah, I'll see ya later," Spike replied. Both looked at each other with a nod before Spike turned around to walk back to his house with Rainbow.

"So... You and Gilda, huh?"

"S-shut up!"

"Hey, I ain't judging. I'm glad my little brother has someone. Especially since it's someone I know."

"Little? I'm only a day younger."

"And I'm a day older. Say, why Gilda? What about Fluttershy?"

"Fluttershy...she's cute and nice, but she's so shy. I'm pretty sure she doesn't like me like that anyway. I like her more as a friend than anything else."

Well I tried, Fluttershy.

The two Rainbow siblings stopped at their house. Unlike the regular houses nearby, this house was more grand, with four pillars from the pre-harmony era supporting the front of the house, with each base having intricate and ornate carvings. As Gilda once said, they lived in a house meant for kings.

Inside, though, the family was anything but regal.

"Hi sweetie! Did you and your brother finish your project?" Rainbow and Spike looked up to see Firefly and Blitz haphazardly duct taped to the ceiling.

"Uh, yeah, we...did. Dad, why are you and mom?..."

"You're too young to understand and we're too old to explain why, now could you two be dearies and get us down?"

Spike sighed. "I'll go get the scissors..."

Author's Notes:

Chapter 5 will be uploaded tomorrow.