Scootaloo twitched underneath the cloud-duvet and rolled over, snuggling her plushie tightly.

Even two months later, she still couldn't believe she was here. The home of Rainbow Dash, greatest flyer and most awesome pony in all of Equestria. And not as a burglar or a creepy stalker, but as a guest. As a resident. This was her home now. Her face scrunched into a contented grin as she allowed herself to bask in the pleasure of that revelation.

All it had taken was the courage to ask. Just six simple words: "Will you be my big sister?". Scootaloo had been carrying those words on the tip of her tongue for two years, and yet somehow she'd never been able to spit them out when faced with her idol. She couldn't. It was a stupid thing to ask, really stupid. There probably wasn't a day that went by when Rainbow Dash didn't get asked that by some giggling fanfilly. Of course, Dash would have to refuse such an uncool request, and then Scootaloo's life would be officially over.

And so, for two years, the idea had been nothing more than the desperate dream of a lonely filly. Apparently desperate enough that it had attracted the attention of none other than Luna, Princess of the Night and Guardian of the Realm of Dreams herself. With her help, Scootaloo had finally been encouraged to face her fear and pose the question to Rainbow Dash, and well, the results spoke for themselves. Scootaloo reminded herself that she still needed to send a thankyou to the Princess.

Admittedly, this wasn't exactly the most convenient living arrangement she'd ever had. Rainbow Dash's house had a notorious access problem; the front door was a rather poorly-made construction of condensed cloud, with the result that it didn't handle variations in temperature very well. The latch would tend to get stuck in cold weather, whereas if it was too hot, the whole door would expand into the frame and jam up.

Also, the entire house was perched on top of a cloud floating one hundred feet up in the air.

This had daunted her at first - while her wingpower had improved steadily over the past few months, she couldn't manage much more than a wing-boosted vertical leap, which wasn't much use for anything other than apple-picking. But Dash had made the arrangement work. Dash could make anything work. Every morning, she would give the filly a lift to school, and then find her in the evening to ferry her back up again. It was a little hit-and-miss - sometimes Dash forgot to pick her up, sometimes she forgot to be under the cloud at the agreed times - but they had gotten through it without any major mishaps, and Dash had assured her that her flight feathers would be coming through any day now.

The warm plushie twitched sleepily in her hooves, and she squeezed it comfortingly. Dash had even been good enough to share her bed, after two failed attempts to make a cloud-bed for her. Scootaloo couldn't blame her; Dash was an architect of cloud-banks and storms, after all. Making a bed was waaaaay beneath her talents -

Wait. Plushie.

Scootaloo blinked. She didn't own one. Well, actually she did, but she hadn't slept with it since she'd started living with Dash. There was no way she'd let herself be seen doing something that uncool.

She lifted the duvet to find herself clutching a small and very real orange pegasus filly with a purple mane, who was quietly drooling onto the mattress.

Scootaloo's stomach seemed to do a barrel roll. Is that...?

The filly's eyes opened suddenly, blinking in confusion for a moment before looking into hers. Her purple pupils shrank to pinpoints.

Both ponies screamed.

***

Well, actually it was just Scootaloo who screamed. The orange filly gave more of an astonished yelp, then leapt into the air, then skittered uncontrollably with her tiny, buzzing wings, colliding with a wardrobe, then a lantern, then the doorframe before hurtling out into the corridor with a crash.

Scootaloo panted with the sudden shock, pressing a sky-blue hoof to her pulsating heart. "What's happening?" she cried fearfully. Her wings buzzed and thwacked something; there was a crash from behind her as the array of items on Dash's bedside table went crashing to the floor.

Her head swam a little as she looked down and saw something which rightly should only exist in her fantasies. Her coat was blue from head to hoof, and twin rainbow-lightning bolts adorned her flanks.

Omigosh-omigosh-omigosh-omigosh...

She looked up to see the little orange filly pelt back into the room, wide-eyed and speechless.

"Oh, Dash!" she squealed, wings flaring as she dove forth to scoop her up. "This is amazing! I can't believe you'd do this for me!"

"Nyeeergh!" Dash gasped, thumping on the adult pegasus's chest to make her relax her grip. "Slow down, kiddo! This wasn't my idea! What's going on?"

"It wasn't?" Scootaloo blinked, as she hovered effortlessly in the air. "Aaah! I'm flying! Omigosh!" She turned in a slow circle, flapping her wings steadily in place as she surveyed the room with her sister in hoof.

"Calm down and let me think!" Dash demanded, wriggling out of - her own - hooves before dropping to the ground. She buzzed her wings a few times, finding the sensation quite unsettling. "You haven't been playing with any freaky magic stuff, have you?" She looked up at the blue pegasus, who was bent double in the air as she examined her own rainbow tail, poking it with a hoof as if to verify it was actually real. "Hey! Scoots!" she yelled up at the ceiling.

"What?" said Scootaloo dreamily. "Oh! Oh! Wait till I show the Crusaders! They are gonna flip!"

"Just hold up. Don't do anything. We gotta figure out what's going on first." said Dash, checking herself over nervously.

"You're right!" agreed Scootaloo, righting herself in the air, a determined look on her features. "We need answers! We need action!"

"Yeah, so just -"

"We need Rainbow Dash!" Scootaloo announced, posing in mid-air. "Stay there, Dashie! I'll figure this out!" She swept toward the open window.

"No, wait - waaaaait!" Dash squeaked, running and clambering to the window as Scootaloo swooshed through it, her wings producing a colossal backdraft as she swept past the rainbowfalls outside. A tumult of liquid rainbow coursed backward in her wake and drenched the filly from mane to hoof.

She blinked as the colourful liquid dripped from her face and body, watching herself shrink to an ecstatic dot in the distance.

***

A curiously erratic rainbow trail tore through the skies over Ponyville.

Omigosh-omigosh-omigosh-omigosh... Scootaloo could barely fly straight in her giddy excitement. This was it. Things could literally not get any better than this. She'd always thought that becoming a great flyer was the highest goal she could possibly aim for, short of actually being Rainbow Dash herself. She hadn't actually expected to attain that impossible corollary. But then, wasn't that what Rainbow Dash was famous for? Making the impossible happen?

The dirt roads and glittering streams of Ponyville swept beneath her at speeds that she couldn't even comprehend. She'd never travelled this fast before, not on her scooter, not even as Rainbow Dash's passenger.

"Oh, this is going to be so awesome!" she squeed, as she tipped one of her wings and banked toward a large grey cloud nearby. The marbled mass of air loomed solidly toward her as she powered her flight muscles, a shockfront of air forming around her as she applied boost after boost to her speed. At the last moment, she tucked her wings to her side and plunged through it like a missile.

A tunnel of white mist appeared around her for the split second she was inside the cloud; a second later, the shockwave of her impact rippled and ruptured through the cloud, blasting it into an enormous expanding ring of gas that was visible for tens of furlongs. A dull boom thrummed through the sky as a few crackles of lightning fizzled out at the centre of the explosion.

Scootaloo soared backward in the air, looking flabbergasted by her hoofiwork. "BEST DAY EVER!"

She shot down lower to the ground, puncturing through a conveniently-aligned stack of several smaller clouds until she was zooming over the treetops of the main Sweet Apple Acres orchard. Okay, I'm gonna need help with this situation, and there's only two ponies I trust to handle it. Obviously, I'll be forced to show them some insanely cool stunts just to prove that I'm capable of handling it, but after that, we gotta come up with a plan.

Her slipstream cut a furrow in the orchard's canopy as she zoomed toward the main building of Sweet Apple Acres, seeking out the yellow form of Apple Bloom. She'd be on her way to school right now, but with sixteen wingpower's worth of flight muscle strapped to her back, this wasn't going to take long.

She roared over the path that AB usually took to school, but couldn't find any sign of her. Huh. Maybe she's late today? She tilted her wings up and felt the joyful whump of air lift her skyward, the pegasus swooping until she was upside-down, dangling in the sky as she surveyed the tiny treetops and farm buildings beneath her.

A speck of yellow caught her attention as it galloped slowly along a streaky dirt path toward Ponyville. Wait. There she is! But what's she up to? She's not heading for school. And what's with the hat?

Winds whipped at her rainbow mane and tail as she allowed herself to drop from the sky, letting gravity do all the work. Dash had taught her all about that.

"Gravity is like lending bits to a friend," Dash had said. "At first, she just asks if she can borrow ten bits so she can go see a movie because it's the last showing in the theatre. Then, later, you ask her to pay you back, and she's all like, 'Oh, I didn't actually go see the movie after all, I had to babysit my friend's little brother,' so you figure she must still have the money, right? But then she tells you that it's her mother's birthday next week, and she really wanted to get her this awesome necklace because it's on special offer, but she needs five more bits, but it's okay because she's getting paid the week after and she'll totally have the money to pay you back by then. So I lend her the five bits, but I'm getting pretty suspicious by now, because I'm pretty sure her mom just had a birthday, and seriously, she can't afford five bits but she can still get her horn varnished every week? So it gets round to a month later and I go and visit her and tell her that, you know, this is not cool, seriously, just give me my money and I'll say no more about it. And she's all like..."

Scootaloo hmmed. Now that she thought about it, she might have fallen asleep somewhere during that explanation. It had been pretty late. But she got the gist of it anyway. What goes up, must come down. She gently eased her wings open as she neared the ground, curving into a graceful arc until she was parallel with the galloping Apple Bloom and gaining on her from behind. Where's she going in such a hurry?

She closed in on her prey, which noticed the shadow a little too late; Scootaloo seized her by the middle and rocketed back up into the sky with her new charge.

"WuaaaaAAAAAaaah! Whut in the world? Rainbow Dash! Whut in the name of sanity d'yer think yer doin'?" the filly demanded, clutching her stetson to her head. "You put me down right this instant! Ah've had a bad enough mornin' already, Ah don't have time for yer nonsense!"

"AB, it's me!" Scootaloo grinned. "It's Scootaloo! The most amazing thing happened!"

"Scoota..." she took a moment to absorb that. "'kay. You're Scootaloo. That makes sense. No reason why me an' AB should be the only ones, Ah guess."

"Huh?" Scootaloo blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Ah mean, this 'amazin'' thing that's happened to you also happened to me an' Apple Bloom. Pardon me if Ah don't share yer excitement. That filly friend o' yours ran off with mah body!"

"Applejack? But... but..." Scootaloo's eyes were shining with excitement. "But that's awesome! That means Sweetie Belle probably swapped with her sister too! All three of us!"

"It ain't as awesome as yer might think, young missy," frowned Applejack, pouting at Scootaloo in a way she found eeriely familiar. "Me an' Rainbow Dash an' Rarity all have jobs to do. Are you gonna do those jobs?"

"Me? I can clear the sky in ten seconds flat if I need to! Piece of cake!" Scootaloo proclaimed defiantly.

Applejack's golden eyes narrowed. "You sure yer not Rainbow Dash?"

Scootaloo giggled. "One hundred percent. So where is Apple Bloom?"

"Darned if Ah know! That little hoodlum took off like a rabbit on rollerskates!" said Applejack, folding her forelegs grumpily. "Now would yer mind puttin' me down? In fact, while yer at it, yer might as well take me inter town if yer goin' that way."

"Er, sure thing," said Scootaloo, adjusting her heading toward the tall town hall building in the distance. "So, er... do you know why this is all happening?"

"Nope," said Applejack brusquely. "But Ah'd bet mah right hindleg that Twilight Sparkle has somethin' all to do with this. Some cockamamie spell that went wrong as usual Ah'm guessin'."

Scootaloo had to agree with that theory. She'd been on the receiving end of an accidental brainwashing spell from Twilight last year. Even now, she still couldn't think about that incredible, amazing doll without squeeing a little. If anypony could cast a spell capable of affecting ponies all over town like this, it was her.

The rainbow pegasus soared into the town square and gently lowered Applejack to the ground, a short trot from Twilight's tree.

"Thank yer kindly," said Applejack, adjusting her hat. "An' if yer find Apple Bloom, tell her she's grounded for the next thousand years."

"I will! See you later Applejack!" said Scootaloo, powering back into the air again.

This changes everything! I've got to call a Crusader Crisis Conference, stat. She pondered using the beacon relay system they'd set up for just such an emergency, but quickly dismissed the idea. Apple Bloom's location was unknown and Sweetie Belle presumably wasn't at home, so it wouldn't achieve much beyond setting the east orchard on fire again. She soared up to a small nearby raincloud and alighted for a moment, giving herself a rest from all the zipping around. Even Rainbow Dash needed to take a power break every so often.

Her hooves and belly squelched into the hazy skin of the raincloud as she draped her nose over the edge, peering down at the toylike town beneath. Apple Bloom's probably trying to do the exact same thing I'm doing now. Round up the Crusaders. She lifted her left wing and gave it a few heavy flaps, lodging a hoof deep beneath the moist cloud surface as it began to spin gently, allowing her to survey a full circle around Ponyville. She squinted along the route Apple Bloom would most likely take out of Sweet Apple Acres, following the river to Twinmill Creek, where Sweetie Belle lived. Too far away to see.

With a few deep breaths, she stood and stretched out her wings, pushing gently up off the cloud and climbing above it.

Deep down, she knew perfectly well that these clouds were here for a reason; they'd been placed here by a weather pegasus according to a schedule which had been carefully planned out by researchers from the Ponyville Meteorological Office. Dash sometimes brought upcoming weather plans home if there was a particularly tricky operation that she needed to prepare for.

She hammered downward toward the cloud and shot straight through, bursting out through the bottom in a shower of raindrops as the cloud went POP behind her, shattering into a mini-deluge. Her rainbow trail arced away from the descending column of rain as she sped toward the river.

On the other hoof... zooming through them was just so fun.

***

Apple Bloom peeked out from behind the twisted trunk of an old willow tree, watching the door of Sweetie Belle's home and awaiting the filly's exit. "Whut's takin' her so long? Surely she hasn't left already. Ah can't just go up an' knock on the door now, can Ah?"

"Nah, you don't wanna do that," said Scootaloo from behind her.

Apple Bloom yelped and leapt into the air, flailing for a moment before landing on her belly with an enormous crash.

"Hey... Applejack," Scootaloo grinned, folding her wings back lazily. "Whatcha up to?"

"Oh! Rainbow Dash!" Apple Bloom squeaked, finding herself prostrate in front of the blue pegasus. She scrambled to her hooves, brushing her mane out of her eyes. "Ah wus just... ah... gonna visit Sweetie Belle's mom! Yeah, Mrs Belle asked me to take a look at her, uh, oven."

"Sounds boring," smirked Scootaloo. "How about we go find 'Rarity' and head on over to the Clubhouse instead?"

"A who whut now? What're you talkin' about?" said Apple Bloom, perplexed. "You mean mah Clubhouse? Ah mean, Apple Bloom's Clubhouse?"

Scootaloo giggled, unable to keep up the pretense any longer. "Apple Bloom, it's me! Scootaloo!"

Apple Bloom's green eyes popped out a little at this revelation. "No way! Seriously?"

"Seriously!" Scootaloo grinned, hovering up a few feet and posing dramatically. "Can you believe it? It's totally like a dream come true!"

"Wait wait wait," Apple Bloom interrupted. "This is happening to everypony? Ah thought it wus just some weird thing with me an' Applejack!"

"Well, it's just you and me as far as I know," said Scootaloo, "But it stands to reason that it must have happened to Sweetie Belle too, right? There's no way it'd be just the two of us. Magic doesn't work that way."

"Makes sense," Apple Bloom agreed. "So, wait - yer reckon Sweetie Belle isn't at home?"

"Of course not, she'll be at the Carousel Boutique, won't she?" said Scootaloo. "We gotta find her ASAP so we can have an Crisis Conference and decide what we're going to do about this situation."

"Agreed," Apple Bloom said, nodding. "Let's go!"