My Little Pony--Beyond Equestria--Rainbow Dash Rights the Ship Read online

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  HASBRO and its logo, MY LITTLE PONY and all related characters are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission. © 2018 Hasbro. All Rights Reserved. MY LITTLE PONY: THE MOVIE © 2017 My Little Pony Productions, LLC.

  Excerpt from My Little Pony: The Movie: The Stormy Road to Canterlot copyright © 2017 Hasbro. All Rights Reserved. MY LITTLE PONY: THE MOVIE © 2017 My Little Pony Productions, LLC.

  Cover design by Ching N. Chang. Cover illustration by Tony Fleecs.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  Visit us at LBYR.com

  mylittlepony.com

  First Edition: February 2018

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Control Number 2017957396

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-55752-8 (paper over board), 978-0-316-55749-8 (ebook)

  E3-20171215-JV-PC

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A SNEAK PEEK OF THE STORMY ROAD TO CANTERLOT

  CHAPTER ONE

  On a normal day, Rainbow Dash would have barely noticed the sunlight peeking through the curtains of her bedroom. But this was not a normal day, and this was not her bedroom. At least, it wasn’t anymore. Rainbow Dash was back in her hometown of Cloudsdale. Instead of nestling into her fluffy cloud duvet back above Ponyville, the blue Pegasus was tucked tightly into the rainbow-patterned sheets of her fillyhood bed. She had a wing cramp. Clearly the bed was much smaller than she’d remembered.

  Rainbow Dash yawned and watched as the light made its way across the eclectic array of trophies, ribbons, and relics of her youth that were still in the exact spots they had been years ago when she’d carefully arranged and rearranged them with her tiny hooves. There were so many memories on display!

  Rainbow Dash’s eyes landed on her bookshelf, where her old stuffed teddy bear, Blue-Blue, sat with his signature blank expression. Rainbow Dash instantly remembered when her mother had given him to her as a reward for being brave through her first dentist appointment. Rainbow Dash then noticed her cloud-rimmed basketball hoop and recalled all the hours she had spent perfecting the perfect shot instead of completing her homework assignments. She never did enjoy studying too much. Only one test had ever mattered to Rainbow Dash—the one to get into the Wonderbolts!

  The poster above the hoop was evidence of Rainbow Dash’s longstanding devotion to the elite Pegasus flight team. It depicted the renowned Wonderbolt Super Stream in action—wings outspread and racing toward the big finish in the famous “Eye of the Storm” routine. It was a legendary show! Young Rainbow Dash had stared at that poster as she drifted off to sleep each night, dreaming of the day when she, too, would become a Wonderbolt and don the blue-and-yellow flight suit.

  Now that her dream had finally come true, Rainbow Dash often found herself visiting locales across Equestria with her team, performing complex routines and thrilling feats to the delight of adoring onlookers. Which was precisely why she was back here at this very moment, in Cloudsdale, in her parents’ house.

  “Good morning, dearest Dashie-kins!” Windy Whistles burst into the bedroom, carrying a tray of steaming porridge and toast slathered with cloudberry jam. The cup of orange juice sloshed around as Windy practically shook with excitement at hosting her daughter. “I made your favorite brekkie! How’s my favorite little Wonderbolt feeling today?!”

  “I’m, uh—” Rainbow could barely stammer before her dad, Bow Hothoof, popped in behind her mom.

  “Is she up yet, dear? Is our champion daughter ready for her big debut in the Wonderbolts’ anniversary show—The Loopy Woop Woop?!” He peered over Windy’s shoulder with a gigantic smile spreading across his violet face. His rainbow mane poked out in every direction, just like his daughter’s.

  “Dad, it’s called the Loop-de-Loop Hoopla.” Rainbow Dash sighed with a smirk as she bolted upright in bed. “And I guess I’m up now.” She tossed the covers away and began to climb out.

  “No, no! Don’t move a muscle, missy,” Windy urged as she rushed over and tucked her daughter back in, balancing the breakfast tray in an impressive teetering display. “Relax and eat your food. You need to save your energy for the big performance. Everypony in Cloudsdale is coming, and they just can’t wait to see you! The girls are even coming—making a whole day of it! Dressing up, seeing the show, then grabbing lunch afterward at the Raindrop Café. Finally, it’s my turn to show off my daughter. If I hear another thing about Snowfall’s daughter, Moon Trotter, and her Snowflake awards, I just don’t know!”

  “The giiirls?” Rainbow groaned. “All of them?” Rainbow’s mother was very active in the Cloudsdale Decorative Plate Collecting Club. It sounded tame enough, but when all those mares got together, they could be quite the hoof-ful.

  “No, no, of course not.” Windy laughed. “That would be ridiculous! Just Snowfall, Blue Skies, Pom Pom, Dew Shine, Sparkle Showers, Sunny Shores, and… Helen.” Windy grinned proudly. “Oh! And Barbara.”

  “Who doesn’t love Barbara?” Rainbow Dash laughed nervously and hid her mounting feelings of anxiety by taking a bite of toast. Ever since she’d blown up at her parents for being too supportive at her last Wonderbolts show, Rainbow Dash had made a serious effort to accept their support and praise. She was a lucky pony to have such loving parents, even if they were over-the-top sometimes. Thanks to Scootaloo and her school report, Rainbow Dash remembered that now.

  “And I hope it’s okay that I invited the old buckball team, too,” Bow Hothoof added, blushing. “They still can’t believe that the little tyke who used to fly around the court following ’em and asking ’em to race is a real Wonderbolt now!” Bow wiped away a proud tear. He gathered Rainbow Dash into a big bear hug.

  “Invite the whole city, if ya want. I actually invited some friends, too,” Rainbow Dash admitted. “But I’m really not sure if they’re going to come. I mean—I don’t even know if they got my invitation. . . .”

  “Why wouldn’t they?” Windy furrowed her brow. “Didn’t you have their addresses?”

  “It
’s not really like that,” Rainbow explained, taking the last bite of porridge. She wiped away a rogue drop from her chin. “They, uh… don’t have addresses. These friends are sort of… always on the go? I hope it’s okay—I kinda invited them to the house first.”

  “How lovely!” Windy chirped with her signature optimism. “It’s so nice to have guests.”

  “Well, I can’t wait to meet ’em,” Bow Hothoof commented. “Any friend of my daughter’s is welcome in this home. Now, how about you let me do a bit of tidying before they arrive?” He trotted over to the window and thrust the curtains open. A blast of fresh air and sunlight filled the room. But before Rainbow Dash could thank her dad, Bow let out a loud, startled grunt.

  “Whoa!” Bow’s jaw dropped and his eyes became larger than a set of Windy Whistle’s collector plates. “What in the cumulonimbus is that?!”

  “Stand back!” Rainbow Dash sprang to action and darted over. She was ready to take on whatever fearsome sight she might discover. Rainbow Dash wasn’t afraid. She’d seen it all: Dragons, Manticores, new and scary creatures in Klugetown, and even a Storm King.

  That’s why Rainbow Dash should have expected to see the massive object lurching straight toward their house.

  But it took her completely by surprise.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The colossal airship burst into view with its colorful feathered wing-sails outspread, cutting through the wispy clouds. It felt like forever since Rainbow Dash had seen her new friends, Captain Celaeno and the swashbuckling pirate parrot crew, but there they were—right in front of her parents’ house! It almost didn’t seem real.

  “It’s them!” Rainbow Dash shouted with glee as the quickening breeze picked up and whooshed through the window and into her mane. “My friends are here!” She spun around to see that the color was coming back to Bow’s and Windy’s faces as they breathed a sigh of relief. It had been such a long time since they’d been introduced to friends of their daughter. But ever since they’d become privy to the information that Rainbow Dash was a Wonderbolt, it was as if their social circle was widening tenfold.

  “Well, what are you waiting for, dear?” Windy called out over the loud hum of the ship outside. Her cropped red-orange mane whipped against her forehead in the wind. “Ask them in!”

  Rainbow Dash darted to the yard, speeding past her mother’s prized hydro-rangea bushes and across the perfectly manicured mist lawn. As the ship’s massive balloon approached, it seemed to fill up the whole sky, eclipsing the golden sun and shrouding the family home in darkness for a brief moment.

  It was easy to spot the outline of Captain Celaeno, a tall parrot with white and green feathers, by the distinctive shape of her wide-brimmed pirate’s hat with the peach plume. She stood triumphantly at the bow of the ship, poised with her claws on her hips. Her crew of birds flocked and squawked around her. They tightened ropes and pulled pulleys to ready the ship for docking. Once they’d met with solid cloud and thrown down their chains, the crew birds lowered the gangplank.

  “Rainbow Dash!” Captain Celaeno shouted, her beak twisting into a sneaky grin. “You sent for us?”

  “This is… awesome!” Rainbow Dash squeaked in delight as she zoomed over. “Boy, are you guys a sight for sore eyes! I can’t believe my letter made it you.” Rainbow Dash put her hoof to her chin and raised her brow, remembering the way Fluttershy had tied the note to a bird’s little foot and sent it off into the sky. “That random homing pigeon Fluttershy found to deliver it must have been a genius. . . .”

  “Actually”—Captain Celaeno laughed as she began walking down the gangplank—“that was Putt-Putt. Used to be a part of the crew.” She winked at Rainbow Dash, who couldn’t tell if the captain was joking or not.

  “Rainbow Dash!” called out a green parrot with an eye patch and wild red head feathers. He looked around in awe at the impressive neighborhood built entirely out of cloud structures. “This is where you live?”

  “No, First Mate Mullet.” Rainbow Dash shook her head. She motioned to the scenery behind her with pride. “This is where I grew up! Welcome to Cloudsdale—the Pegasus city. Cool, huh?”

  “Almost as cool as where we hatched back in Ornithia,” Mullet admitted as he ambled down after the giggling captain. The other pirates followed suit: the burly and hook-clawed Boyle, the boisterous Lix Spittle, and the wacky cross-eyed shipmate, Squabble. The pirate birds were clearly as excited to see Rainbow Dash as she was to see them! So why did they stop abruptly at the bottom of the wooden plank and stare at one another? Even Boyle looked nervous.

  Rainbow Dash cocked her head and her spiky mane flipped to the side. “Everything okay?” She looked to her mother for any clues. Was it true that birds needed extra encouragement to jump from their nests and spread their wings? Windy just shrugged and did what any good mother would do—started cheering them on.

  “Dashie is right—don’t be shy now! You can do it! Get on down here and let us host you ladies and gentlebirds!” Windy Whistles hollered, accidentally startling Squabble. The batty bird squawked and flapped his feathered arms, knocking over Lix Spittle, who came tumbling down the gangplank, shrieking. She grabbed on to the wood with all her claws, eyes bulging out of her head.

  “Sorry about them, ma’am,” Celaeno replied with a sigh. “Rainbow Dash’s letter may have mentioned that only Pegasus ponies can walk on the clouds here. These scalawags are being a bit… er… dramatic about it. Not to worry, though!” Captain Celaeno tugged at two straps on her shoulders and spun around to reveal a contraption that looked like a mini-balloon with jets. “We bartered for these sky-packs from a friendly Earth pony aeronaut on the way here!” She tugged at the straps again and soared over, landing her claws safely on the cloud lawn next to Rainbow Dash.

  Rainbow Dash leaned in to get better look at the unique contraption. “Okay, these are seriously cool,” she admitted with a nod of approval. All the other times her non-Pegasus friends had visited Cloudsdale were thanks to seriously complicated spells placed on them by Twilight Sparkle. Rainbow Dash made a mental note to get some of these snazzy sky-packs to keep on hoof for her Ponyville friends.

  While First Mate Mullet anchored the ship to the side of Rainbow Dash’s house, Boyle helped the others figure out how to work their packs. Soon, the whole crew of pirates began jumping across the clouds in a sort of bouncy motion and giggling like fillies and colts. As Captain Celaeno and Rainbow Dash stood together watching the madness of the ragtag crew, Windy Whistles rushed over in a panic. “If we don’t leave soon, we’re going to be late to the Wonderbolts’ Hoopla!”

  “Oh no!” Celaeno cried. She didn’t want to make Rainbow Dash tardy for the very event that they had come all this way to see. “You’d better get a move on, matey.”

  “Oh, right. Well, at least we know they can’t start without me, huh?” Rainbow Dash joked before taking off at full speed toward Wonderbolts Stadium. “See ya there, scalawags!”

  Bow Hothoof grinned at the signature rainbow trail his daughter left in the sky. This was going to be an excellent performance, and he couldn’t wait for Rainbow Dash’s new friends to see just how special she was. “Hurry, everybird! We’ve got a show to get to.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The second after the Loop-de-Loop Hoopla show had concluded, there was already a crowd of adoring pony fans gathered around Rainbow Dash. Apparently, she was famous. Captain Celaeno and her crew tried to hang back and let all the ponies have their turn, but the pirates couldn’t help but rush over and push through the crowd to congratulate her.

  They had never seen such a spectacle in all their lives! Except perhaps the moment in which Rainbow Dash and her friends had convinced them to stop working for the Storm King and be awesome again. But even the Sonic Rainboom she’d performed back then didn’t hold a candle to the expert flight patterns of the Wonderbolts performing together as a team.

  “That was incredible!” Captain Celaeno gushed. She threw her feathered arms up in the air
to illustrate the maneuver. “That loopy thing that ended in a giant, pony firework? We knew you had moves, but not like that.”

  “Nice job, kid.” Boyle gave her a friendly nudge. “I wasn’t sure this whole flying pony show thing would be worth leaving our swashbuckling schedule for, but I’m glad the captain made us come check it out.”

  “Come on, I’d never steer you wrong,” joked Captain Celaeno. “Well, at least not again, I won’t.” Their Storm King days were long over. Now Celaeno made sure that she and her crew were chasing nothing but adventure. And friendship from time to time.

  “Thanks, guys.” Rainbow Dash peeled off her yellow-and-blue Wonderbolts mask. “It means a lot to me that you would take time off and support my little show.” She blushed pink with embarrassment. Rainbow Dash had performed with the Wonderbolts a hundred times by now, but for some reason knowing that all these supercool pirates had just witnessed it made her feel a bit silly. She had to make the journey they’d taken all the way to Cloudsdale from Celestia-knows-where worth their while. An idea began to form in her head.

  “Hey, Captain!” Rainbow Dash blurted out. “While you’re here, how about I show you birds around Cloudsdale?”

  “A tour of the sights?” First Mate Mullet adjusted his eye patch and grinned. “I do love me a good guided tour! Whaddya say, Boyle?”

  “Sure.” Boyle grunted and pointed his hook at the towering Weather Factory building in the distance. “Can we see what’s inside that, there?”

  “Does it include dinner?” Lix Spittle grunted. That old cook always had food on her bird brain. “Don’t forget—we fed you and your friends our finest slop aboard the old ship!”

  Rainbow Dash cringed at the memory. The friends they made onboard Celaeno’s ship had been great, but the cuisine was something she’d rather forget. The taste of the powdery gray gruel hadn’t left her taste buds for weeks after. She’d eaten probably thirty cupcakes, which Pinkie Pie had been happy to make, to try to get rid of it.