Chapter 1: Before the Boom!

Many Years ago

The cyan foal walked up to the grey filly and smiled at her. Rainbow Dash had been friends with Derpy Hooves since they joined school, but now she felt butterflies in her stomach whenever they were together. Between classes one day Dash told her this. Derpy blushed but told her she had to go "Do some things" but they'd catch up later.

Unfortunately, 'catch up' meant that the prismatic pegasus found herself alone at recess with dozens of pegasai- most of which she didn't know, some of which she disliked, but a few she had thought were friends- surrounding her. They were pointing and laughing, chanting "Lesbo Dash! Lesbo Dash! Lesbo Dash is a piece of trash!"

She was scared, confused, and angry. She was scared of the way her peers were treating her. It was uncomfortable and frightening. She was confused because she had no idea what 'Lesbo' meant nor why they were doing this. And she was angry for being called a piece of trash. She knew what that meant. She also was angry that Derpy was in the crowd and, while she didn't know why, she knew that what she had told her best friend had turned into this. She flew at Derpy and punched her square in the nose, crossing the brown pony's eyes as she was knocked out.

After being sent home for assaulting another student, Rainbow Dash asked her parents what a Lesbo was. They explained it to her and she quietly thought about it for a while, not telling them the full story of the event at school. A few weeks later she kissed one of the boys in her class and the 'lesbo' label left her. She felt better, or she thought she did. She started to vent her anger not by punching people in the face, but by beating them at the one thing Pegasai cherish more than anything; flying.

Some months later

Pinkamena Diane Pie was shoving a rock across the ground for a good two hours before she took a break. She sat down and sighed, looking around with a bland expression and glassy eyes. The grey dirt and grey rocks gave way to nothing new. Not now, not ever.

She was about to yawn but was interrupted by a tug, or a tingle. Something inside her that was suddenly different, but not in a bad way. She'd been getting these strange feelings more and more frequently over the past few years- floppy ears, twitchy tail- none of it made sense to her, but this feeling was new and it was strong. It pulled her attention and turned her head to the left where she saw three ponies approaching her father. He was on the far side of fields and she saw him greet them. She couldn't see the details of what was going on and, having nothing better to do, walked towards them.

Before she got five steps she stopped and stared at an orange filly who was staring back at her. The orange one was smiling slightly and lifted a hoof, waving to her. Pinkamena felt that tingle again and her lips formed an ever so slight smile. Lifting her hoof, she waved back, but before she could get closer the old green pony nudged the orange one and the trio left, leaving a cart of apples behind.

When the tingle inside her vanished Pinkamena went back to her rock with a sigh. She was bored again.

A few weeks later

Applejack bid her family goodbye as her few belongings and travel goods were slung over her shoulder. Her big brother, Mac, was sobbing but Granny Smith seemed to understand what was going through the young filly's mind. She wanted to try the sophisticated life of aunt and uncle out in Manehatten, and she told her family this weeks ago as she prepared for the trip. But she had a slightly less obvious reason for going. She felt...uncomfortable at home now. Or she thought she did.

She had been thinking about that pink pony out on the rock farm for a few weeks now, and she was also thinking about Rarity, the girl from her class she had become friends with while they prepared for a play. Rarity had made Applejack such an amazing costume that the teacher asked her to make outfits for everyone else. Applejack spent a lot of time with Rarity to help her design the costumes, though truth be told Applejack mostly just stabbed herself with the needles and got her hooves stuck to things with the glue, but she had fun.

Up until during a conversation Rarity asked if she'd ever kissed a boy. Applejack admitted that she liked to get kissed on the cheek from her brother but she made Rarity swear not to tell anypony that. She had an image to uphold as the tough rowdy cowgirl in class after all. Rarity giggled, promised, but meant a non-family kiss. When Applejack said she hadn't she asked if she'd ever kissed anyone non-family, and when AJ said no again Rarity leaned in and gave her a quick peck on the lips.

AJ blushed a bit but made an excuse to leave after waiting around a bit to make it seem like that wasn't it. Since then, she'd felt very wrong. She knew that girls shouldn't kiss girls- though she only 'knew' this from the agitation her Granny would show when in town and they saw two mares standing too close together, 'Carpet munching bi-' Granny would always say though she'd stop when she remembered Applejack was with her and correct herself to 'Carpet munching foals shouldn't be actin' all filthy like that'. While Applejack saw nothing filthy about it, she absorbed the dislike.

Now that she was thinking about how nice it would be to be friends with the pink pony and Rarity she started to feel like she was dirty. It was confusing since she had many mare friends, but something about the pink pony and Rarity made them different. It confused and scared her, so she wanted to leave for a while. Clear her head, make some new friends and enjoy the clean life of her wealthy relatives.

She gave her brother a kiss on the cheek and hugged Granny Smith before turning her back on Sweet Apple Acres and leisurely strolling away.

A couple days later

Rarity sighed in frustration, her eyes squinted in disgust at the newest hideous piece of fashion she had attempted. She slapped it aside and buried her head in her arms on the table. Why were her costumes so ugly? When Applejack was helping her they were absolutely fabulous but now her friend had moved away. She didn't even say goodbye!

True, Rarity had only met her a few weeks ago but they had been getting along swimmingly! Rarity absolutely loved being around the pretty orange foal and the cowgirl was the only topic of conversation that interested her for quite some time. She had rather naively asked her mother if Applejack could come live with them or if she could live with her friend since she loved being with her. Her mother merely chuckled and told her that it wouldn't be fair to the families if one of their loved ones had to leave.

She walked in on her parents kissing one day, asked what they were doing, got the explanation that when two ponies really care about each other they kissed to show it, and Rarity blundered out how she should kiss Applejack to show how special she was to Rarity. Her parents were immediately concerned and grilled her with questions for hours. After a while, they began to tell Rarity that she was just confused and the feeling would pass.

"Besides," her mother said, telling her what her mother had told her at that age, "That feeling you have is just your creativity trying to come out. What were you and Applejack doing when you first felt it?" Rarity had to think on that, since she had felt it ever since meeting the Sweet Apple Acres girl. She decided that it must have been when Applejack had asked for her help in making a costume for the play.

"Then you must really enjoy making costumes" her mother said, "Try making more"

"Well, Miss Chalk did say it was really good...she wants me to make more"

"Excellent," her mother had said. That made some sense to Rarity and for the next week she and Applejack had worked together on the costumes. Rarity decided to ignore her parents advice and gave Applejack a kiss. She assumed her friend knew what it meant, but a couple weeks later she left.

She must not have known what a kiss meant Rarity thought dejectedly. Everything Rarity had made had been perfect, but with Applejack's presence no longer here everything seemed horrible. Maybe her mother was right and by trying to force her feelings to Applejack she had lost those feelings for her costume designing. She closed her eyes and focused, trying to love the costumes as much as she had used to.

Her horn began to glow and it dragged her outside...

The next day

Fluttershy floated gently between clouds as she practiced flying out in the schoolyard. She looked around to find another empty cloud and leaped for it. She flapped her wings hard, her eyes clamped shut and her jaw clenched from the strain as she over-tasked herself, but she made the landing. She smiled and looked about, stopping only when she saw the best flier in class.

The blue pelt'd pegasus zipped around the air like a hawk or an eagle. She was so graceful and so amazing. Fluttershy didn't dream of becoming as good a flier as Rainbow Dash, but she did dream that the multicolored mane would be closer to her and help her and be her friend. But whenever Rainbow Dash would look at Fluttershy the yellow pegasus would blush and hide as best she could.

Fluttershy was watching Rainbow Dash when she went for a longer jump than normal. She flailed about in the air, her distraction costing her all sense of direction, and crashed into a cloud.

"Fluttershy! Fluttershy! Fluttershy can hardly fly!"

"Hey! Leave her alone!"

Fluttershy's heart stopped as she looked up and saw none other than Rainbow Dash coming to her rescue. She couldn't breathe for a moment, then two moments, and she felt her eyes start to well up with tears. Rainbow Dash was going to fly for her! She was going to put these bullies in their place...for her!