Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony: Friendship is magic nor have I ever intended on claiming that I do. I just want to spread some joy to people with my interpretation of characters in said show.

Alert: An apology to anyone who read this story within the first hours of reading it. The editing hadn't worked properly, so it didn't read properly. Sorry about that.


Chapter 1: History of an old Friend

Everyone is familiar with the thought that 'the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step'. Of course, sometimes it isn't a step, occasionally it's a flap of a pair of sky blue wings attached to an incredibly quick and erratic pony, who on this day wasn't paying attention to what was in front of her as she hovered a little off the ground heading towards sugarcube corner.

*Flap Flap* *Thud*

What she was actually heading towards at that immediate moment was another pegasus who had been keeping his hooves firmly on the ground before his white coat, black mane and sidepouch was knocked over by the winged pony in question.

"Hey!" She exclaimed, while staring at the 4 legged creature she'd just run into. "Watch where... oh" She suddenly realised that the words that were about to come out of her mouth were not only incredibly rude, but seeing as she was still hovering and her unintended victim was on the ground maybe there were different things she should say.

"... I mean, sorry."

"Still the aggressor huh, colourful?" The grounded pony said with a mild chuckle in his voice.

"Aggressor? COLOURFUL? What gives you the right to use a pet name on me buster? Put 'em up and I'll put you in your pl-", She stopped dead mid-sentence upon realising exactly who was in front of her, see glanced quickly from his face, to his mane and to his flank where a playing card with a singular spade was etched permanently in place. Her eyes opened wide and a dumbstruck look came across her face, this couldn't possibly be who she thought it was.

The grounded pegasi managed to finally work his way to his feet, his eyes half shut and a sly smile growing into a full blown teethy grin in front of his long unseen friend. He raised one hoof and poked her hovering form right in the face, he immediately broke into full laughter when even after his attempt to distract her, she remained absolutely dumbstruck. His smile became toothier, and obviously fake.

"Do watch where you're going in the future, Dash." He said, poorly holding back a snicker. He watched concerned as her left eye twiched either with menace or confusion, and he was honestly not entirely sure he wanted to know which way. His concern was immediately punctuated by a pink pony suddenly tackling him to the ground.

"Oh no you don't mister! I saw what you were up to, how'd you paralyze Rainbow Dash? Huh?" She yelled while staring straight down into his bright red eyes. Her eyes grew and shrunk to slits as she tried look after look trying to fish information out of the now extremely confused visitor currently half an inch from tasting dirt.

"Pinkie Pie, get off of him. It's fine." Rainbow Dash said, finally snapping out of her mind numbed stupor to realise her prankster pal had attacked the now dirty colt.

"A-HA! So it was mind control instead... who are you, Discord in dis-"

Rainbow Dash got tired of her friend's unnecessary interrogation and just pushed Pinkie Pie over so she could help the white colt back up to his feet, she flashed him a sheepish smile trying without words to apologize for Pinkie's 'odd' behavior. The colt just smiled back, he should've known better then to expect that Rainbow Dash would have normal friends.

"A-a-a..."

"Having a little trouble there, Dash?"

"... Ace?"

Pinkie Pie sat up and noticed the two of them just staring. She tilted her head and looked to Rainbow Dash for an explanation.


*Flashback*

A young white pegasus is standing in front of another one, sky blue with a rainbow mane.

"You don't have to go Ace, it's just a wing. You can still walk on clouds... somehow..."

The white pegasi looked at the right side of his torso rather forlorn. His wing was missing under a layer of tape holding it to his body. He looked at his friend across from him and gave her a quick smile.

"When you become the best flyer around I'll come see you, I promise."

"What if I don't become the best? You know I'm not good in front of other ponies."

"I'll take my chances, you're a friend who's worth it."


About twenty minutes and a barely touched plate of donuts later and Pinkie Pie was bouncing in her chair at the excitement of meeting a long unseen friend of Rainbow Dash's. Ace was barely listening, instead looking around at the interesting confectionary decor of Sugarcube Corner. When they had first come in, the place was fairly clean, with all kinds of sweet things on display... now the countertops were covered in carry out boxes and other junk as Pinkie had insisted on digging through cupboards for her 'special' donuts. Which Ace would not touch with a ten foot pole. His lack of attention was cut off by a pink hoof poking and prodding him in various places and manually flapping his wings.

"Yup, seems real to me."

"What the heck are you doing?" Ace had to ask. Rainbow Dash looked at him and smirked.

"Pinkie does what Pinkie does." Rainbow told him. She was happy to see him again but she could tell that he'd changed a little bit, he used to be cocky and boistrous but now he seemed much quieter, or maybe it was nervousness. Rainbow Dash did have a question for him though, he did say he'd come back and visit but he was more than late at this point. She won the competition a while ago and it seemed odd that this would be the time he'd show up.

"So what brought you to Ponyville?" She asked him.

Ace laughed, "What? I made a promise, and I'm keeping it." He gave her a half-cocked look and tried to hide his lie.

"I said, what brought you to Ponyville, not what you're getting out of the way... Ace of Spades" He hated others using his full name, this was practically torture from Rainbow Dash, but if he was going to lie, she wouldn't hold back.

"Alright, alright. Jeez, you're harsh. I'm here -"

"WITH THE CIRCUS!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed, having shifted behind him and started rummaging through his pouch without his notice.

She pulled out a handful of tickets and a poster with his face on it, as well as the faces of a couple other performers. Pinkie immediately flashed him a huge smile with the tickets between her teeth as he turned around with a stunned look on his face. His eyes shrunk down to a glare as if Pinkie had just ruined the greatest game ever played or something like that. He got up and starting walking towards her with clenched teeth, Pinkie proceeded to back up a step at a time laughing at his rediculous face. After a couple steps, Ace just flapped his wings at her angrily while she kept on smiling.

It was almost like Ace was a toy to the two ponies because before he could even turn back around, Rainbow Dash was already next to him manually lifting and flapping his right wing as if it was the most amazing thing she'd ever seen. It was pretty close as far as she was concerned, the last she had seen this wing it was damaged enough that it was never going to heal.

This is impossible, she thought.

"Dashie, whatcha doing?" Pinkie Pie asked, very confused by her rainbow maned friend's strange behavior. Not that she particularily minded it.

"Let's sit down," said Ace, "this probably all needs an explanation."


*Flashback*

"So Ace, it's very simple. All we have to do is mix these two vial togethers and nopony will ever have to deal with mane loss ever again!"

A larger pony stood in front of his young son, much like his son, he is a bleached shade of white. However unlike his son, he doesn't have a pure black mane. He is wearing thick goggles and a very dirty lab coat.

"Yes Dad, I get it. Science and all that stuff." Ace was completely uninterested in his father's experiments, but that being said, so was all of Cloudsdale. Which is why he was stuck here as his father's unwilling assistant, at least his father attempted to make this sort of thing appeal to him.

"Think of it like this Ace, there is a chance that this mixture might explode." His father's deeper voice was filled with encouragement and it worked great on Ace. Ace loved the idea of chance, although he much preferred to mess around with cards. So he sat up a little, his mind imagining just how cool an explosion would be.

"How young and naive I was then. Thinking that seeing an explosion would be cool." He said to Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, his facial expression changed to one of regret. "Maybe if I hadn't hoped that father would fail against the odds."

Rainbow's face immediately sunk into her hands, she hadn't seen what had happened. But even as a very young pony she'd seen the results and to be honest, she wasn't sure she really wanted to hear.

Ace's father took a vial full of a neon pink liquid and held it up to the light, in a hold apparatus nearby was a test tube full of a solid material that looked puffy and white. Balancing on one hoof, he took one of his hind legs and hit a record button on a tape recorder nearby before standing on his hind legs.

"So if we add Electrified Colour to Concentrated Cloud Mass, the result should be a colouring liquid that will be the base to my hair growth serum!" He shouted with excitement at the tape recorder while his son was next to him rolling his eyes.

He poured as much of the pink liquid as he could into the test tube with the pink fluffy stuff and watched as the cloud mass turned a dark black colour, much like clouds were if a storm were coming and then...

"The force knocked me back as if I'd been hit by a train, my father had been standing to my right. I remember I felt the impact high and to my side, I know it broke right when it happened. The pain didn't last very long though, I slammed into a bookcase full of books and it all fell on me in the worst way. I was unconscious pretty quickly, but not before my wing went numb."

... Young Ace woke up and looked around, he didn't quite know where he was, but he knew that it wasn't good. He tried to fly himself out of the bed and wound up tipping himself to the right and slamming into the ground. His right wing wasn't free, it was taped down to his body. A nurse walked into his room and immediately rushed to his side, helping him get back up onto the bed.

"No no no dear, you musn't try to fly."


Ace's voice reduced to barely above a whisper. "Crushed Gravel."

"What?" Both female ponies said at the same time.

"That what the doctor called my right wing, right before he told me I'd never fly again."

"But, it's healed... you were just flapping it... how?" Rainbow asked, she was leaning over the table getting closer and closer to him.

Ace sputtered a little bit, he really didn't want to have this conversation right now. It was important Rainbow learn exactly what happened but if he didn't get her friends to come to the circus, there would be hell to pay. He had a more important responsibility now, keeping Rainbow Dash safe.

"I have to get back to the Circus and help everybody set up. But how about I make you a deal. Hand those tickets out, I perform first tomorrow and maybe after I'm done, we can go somewhere and catch up while your friends are enjoying the rest of the acts." Ace stood up and walked out of the cafe.

Rainbow Dash immediately tried to run after him but as quick as she got to the door, he was already gone. She turned back to Pinkie Pie with panic written on her face as clear as day. Pinkie bounced over to her side and put an arm around her, trying to comfort her friend who was probably extremely confused. It turns out that Dash wasn't confused at all, she just had an incredibly out of character need.

"I need Rarity. Now." She said with a confused certainty.

"Okie Dokie!" Pinkie Pie replied, bouncing out the door and down the street towards the boutique.


AN: What could Rainbow Dash possibly be thinking? Why would Ace have to keep her safe? How can Ace fly if his wing is crippled? Aw man it's so much fun to be writing again.

Comments are of course, always appreciated.