The yellow unicorn threw himself onto his couch with a frustrated yell, he’d been in his new house at the very edges of Ponyville for a day already but he couldn’t figure out what about it that was bothering him so much. He quickly glanced around the room one more time trying to force his brain to cooperate but was distracted by a loud excited knocking at the door. Glad for something else to distract him, he trotted off towards the door and threw it open without forethought and was immediately assaulted by an explosion of colors in front of him.

“Hello Mister new pony! I heard there was a new hoof in town and I just had to come by and say hello as well as invite you to the party!” yelled an excitedly bouncing pink pony in a very… eccentric outfit. She giggled at his confused face and threw a hoof full of party streamers in his face then continued to bounce around excitedly.

Chrome backed off slightly not entirely sure if he was about to be assaulted by this crazy pony or not. His eyes focused in on a swaying piece of pink that was hanging from his horn, after pulling the offending streamer off his horn and tossing it aside he reluctantly focused his eyes back on her with a worried look.

“Oh silly don’t worry it’ll be the best party EVER!  Especially since now I can make it a welcome party! I love throwing those so much… Oooh ooh, we can invite every pony from town, and then I can bring those new cupcakes that I made and (GASP!) I can even ask AJ to bring some apple treats too! What was your name again?” She added as an afterthought as she kept bouncing around his doorstep excitedly.

He had to fight the urge to just close the door and hide deep in his workshop but after gulping quietly he finally found enough of his voice to answer meekly “Chrome, my name is Chrome… Who exactly are you again? You didn’t tell me your name.”

“What? Oh your name right, perfect! That will sound so great on the invitations. Oh I didn’t? Well don’t worry about that I’m just so excited about the party! Oooh the party right I need to go start talking to every pony and planning! Bye Chrome!” She nearly yelled as she then bounced back down the path towards Ponyville leaving him in a slight daze even though he couldn’t help but crack a slight smile.

“Well I guess I came to Ponyville because of the small town atmosphere, still I wasn’t quite expecting that kind of a welcome.” He thought to himself then after a moment amended the statement after closing the door and walking back inside. “I don’t think any pony is ready for that kind of a welcome…”

Chrome continued to muse to himself about the crazy pony and the supposed party as he wandered back into his house once again trying to figure out what it was that was bothering him. Sure it was a bit messy, but comparing it to the way it was before he had moved… Well yeah this was practically sparkling he thought to himself as he glanced around the room at the few dirty dishes, random tools, and even a couple of books scattered around the living room. But that was all part of being an inventor right? He got distracted easily is all; he could clean up the place any time he wanted. That is not the important part right now, first he must figure out what was bothering him so much!

After making himself feel better about the mess he wandered back into his workshop at the rear of the house and stopped dead in his tracks. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen it this clean, it seemed almost unnatural. He didn’t get very much time to muse over this though as once again he was interrupted by a knocking at the door. Remembering his last encounter with the door he doesn’t venture over that way until after grabbing a pair of goggles from his workbench with his magic and putting them on his forehead. He stopped at the door and took a few moments to steel himself before he tentatively pulled the door open with his magic.

“Oh sorry am I interrupting something?” asked a purple unicorn glancing at his goggles for a moment before she continued. “I just came by to say hello, and well since I saw Pinkie bouncing off maybe I should apologize if she scared you too much. She can be a bit, well enthusiastic at times.” She giggled quietly and glanced past him curiously towards the interior of his living room for a moment.

“Pinkie? Oh, you mean that bouncing pony who took it upon herself to invite me to a party without ever telling me her name?” He asked with a glance at her that silently pleaded ‘please be sane.’

She laughed loudly with a nod while covering her face with her hoof “Yeah that’s our Pinkie Pie alright, always looking for a reason to throw a party. Don’t tell me; welcome to Ponyville party, everyone is invited… You should come though, despite what I first thought I found out that her parties are fun and she really does just mean well. Anyways my name is Twilight Sparkle; I live in the library and just wanted to come say hello. I love to study well… everything! So if you ever have a question about something let me know I have tons of books and can probably help you out. Then maybe we could talk about your inventing I’m certain it’s very interesting! But I really should get back to the library now; I’ll see you at the party.” She concluded as she turned and gave him a wave of her hoof before walking off, leaving Chrome standing there not even entirely sure what just happened.

He just stared at her for a few moments as she walked off back towards then glanced back inside. He couldn’t remember telling anyone in Ponyville that he was an inventor; he stopped and glanced at his cutie mark with the three interlocked pointed gears then remembers the goggles on his head. “I guess she just figured it out?” he asked to himself then wandered back inside his house to the workshop. He tried his best to try and find something amongst the boxes under his workbench or amongst the papers to distract him but can’t really figure anything out.

After a short while he noticed the end of a telescope sticking out of a box and considered it for a moment. He pulled it out with his magic and levitated it in front of himself while he examined it, no reason he couldn’t try and improve this some more. After making up his mind he appeared from his doorway with the telescope and a few tools levitated in front of him while he made his way around his house up onto a small rise. After setting up the telescope carefully he tried to find an interesting looking cloud off in the distance to focus it on.

“Hey now I know I’m a big deal and everything but you don’t have to go spying on me if you wanted to watch the great and wonderful Rainbow Dash. If you wanted to see me practicing my moves you could have just asked you know.” exclaimed a bold voice from directly behind him causing him to fall over forward in surprise as he barely avoided knocking over the telescope, falling into a jumbled mess of limbs on the ground instead.

After pulling himself up off the ground he turned around to see a cyan pegasus hovering right behind him with a mischievous grin that immediately burst into laughter at the sight of his frightened face. She then managed to retreat back to a nearby cloud and roll around on it for a few moments while laughing hysterically at the same time.

“The look on your face, was… priceless!” she gasped between bursts of laughter even as he stared right back at her with a look of shock plastered onto his face and he placed a hoof on his chest as he attempted to calm down the pounding heart in his chest.

“The great and wonderful Rainbow Dash I presume?” He questioned sarcastically as he looked her over curiously once more, sure she was an interesting looking pony with her rainbow mane, tight muscles, sleek form… He had to stop and shake the thoughts from his head suddenly as he tried to keep himself from staring at her for too long even while he continued to wonder about the grandiose introduction.

“What you haven’t heard of me? The only pony to pull off a Sonic Rainboom? Named the best young flier this year, fastest pegasus alive, and soon to be best member of The Wonderbolts!?” she demanded proudly as she thrust her chest outwards even while she bristled visibly that he hadn’t recognized her name.

“Err, sorry?” he ventured as he stood there awkwardly trying his best not to stare at her body but was having a hard time of it. He still wasn’t entirely sure what exactly was going on as he shied away from looking her directly in the eyes not entirely sure how to proceed from here.

“Tch how uncool can you get, you’re the new pony everyone has been talking about right? I don’t see what all the fuss is about if you’ve never even heard of me geez. Though maybe you just need a demonstration! Hold onto your goggles!” She added loudly as she launched herself off the cloud and zoomed right past his leaving her rainbow trail close by his head.  He staggered in place and stared as she soared into the distance. As her trail faded away though he saw that his telescope was spinning slowly on its stand.

He couldn’t help but drop his jaw slightly as he watched her speed around the sky; she was so incredibly fast and agile at the same time how was it even possible? He mused about it to himself as she darted around the clouds; but he soon had to flat out give up trying to analyze it. He had to figure it a lost cause as he realized that she wasn’t just idly boasting before. She was good, really good; she could probably even become as she said the best member of The Wonderbolts if she really applied herself.

She continued to race around the sky her rainbow trail giving him and idea on where she went even when she disappeared behind the clouds. Then suddenly she started to climb straight up into the sky going higher and higher until she finally stopped and grinned down at him. “Ready for the finale? If you’re not impressed yet, prepare to be!” she called out loudly.

*****

A ragged cheer wafted up to Rainbow’ ears as she started to climb again into the sky, she couldn’t help herself and she glanced downwards at the streets of Ponyville. Just as she had feared she noticed several ponies stopped in the center of the streets cheering her on as they took quick breaks from their work to watch her impromptu show. After she neared the optimal height for a Sonic Rainboom she found herself hesitating for a moment and gulped quietly as her nerves started to take over.

“It’s okay Dash, just like you’ve done before, don’t mind the audience you’re going to be the star of The Wonderbolts, you need to learn to perform in front of crowds. You can do this Dash…” she muttered to herself while trying to psyche herself up. Once she’s talked herself up enough she smacked the sides of her head a few times with her hooves and suddenly dove downwards. She had to grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes nearly shut as she kept going faster and faster.  As she approached the familiar barrier she couldn’t get the thought of all the ponies watching her out of her head. As she battled to clear her head she suddenly noticed that the wind had stopped and looking around she felt the familiar pressure of the barrier pushing back at her with a huge amount of force.

“Uh oh…” is all she could manage to say as she glanced down at Chrome with a worried look on her face before she was thrown backwards into the air flailing and yelling loudly. Her uncontrollable flight sent her several hills over where she smashed right into the branches of a tree and was immediately lodged and tangled amongst all the branches.

*****

“Umm are you okay Miss Dash?” Chrome yelled out loudly while he ran over the hills towards the tree he saw her disappear into. As he got closer he couldn’t help but notice the limbs of the tree were shaking violently as she tried to free herself unsuccessfully.

“Yeah, sure peachy no sweat, all part of the plan! I just need some more time to get that trick to the full hundred and twenty percent.” she called out extending her foreleg out from the branches just enough to wave it at him nonchalantly. “Never… been… better…” she said stubbornly as the tree once again shook a few more times. “Just knock off that Miss Dash business it’s so uncool; just call me Rainbow Dash, or Rainbow.” She added angrily while she tryed once again to free herself and could do no more than make the tree shake violently.

“Hey tell you what, Chrome buddy old pal; I’ll do you the favor of allowing you to help me out of this tree. You’re new in town and you get to help out the coolest pony around how does that sound? Not every day that happens you know.” She added in a cocky tone of voice that made Chrome think he could actually hear the grin on her face.

He couldn’t help but just stare up at the tree with a look of shock on his face then after a quiet chuckle at her stubborn way of asking for help he stopped to examine the situation. He extended his magic surrounding a good portion of the tree branches with it and carefully started trying to pull open a gap for her to wriggle out of. He worked with her as best as he could trying his best to judge which branch needs to go where based on her frequent yells of indignation. Finally after what seemed like half an hour of yelling and frustration, her face poked out from the tree and she squirmed her way free with a few twigs sticking out in random directions from her wings.

“Are you sure you’re okay Miss Rainbow? That was a nasty crash…”

“Didn’t I tell you to cut out that Miss business!?” yelled Rainbow at him loudly before her expression softened. “But thanks for the help anyways, I couldn’t have done it without you.” She added as an afterthought with a slight blush while she started trying to pick the twigs out of her wings and then glanced back off towards town thoughtfully.

“Hey I’ll see you at the party okay? The weather is misbehaving.” She explained simply as she stretched her wings wide in a testing manner then zoomed straight off towards town and started to clear out some of the larger clouds that were drifting over the town.

He shook his head once again as he stood there he watched her zoom around the sky much faster than was really necessary; she left behind her rainbow trail the entire time she worked allowing him to easy track where she was going. She cleared out the sky back to a bright shiny day and left a few smaller clouds to drift around for aesthetic purposes.

After finally getting enough of watching Rainbow fly around and perfect the look of the clouds he looked back at his telescope with a slight sigh. It was now pointing in the wrong direction and almost all of the clouds he was using to test the magnification on were gone.

“Maybe I should get a helmet out as well if random mares are going to start dropping out of the sky on me.” He muttered to himself quietly with another sigh as he picked up his telescope and slowly started to walk back towards his workshop with all his gear.

“Okay maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, but I’d prefer to have my wits about me if that did start happening,” he chuckled to himself with a stupid grin as he turned his attention back to his telescope and laid it out on his workbench.

“Well that was alright, but I’m sure I can get more power out of it…” he mumbled to himself while he took it apart with his tools. He was glad that he had finally found something to distract him for a while. He poked and prodded at it scrawling plans for improvements onto pieces of paper and made his adjustments, soon he got lost in his work and lost track of the time.