Spitfire had been sitting all morning in her office, looking over the paperwork that she had begrudgingly assigned herself to look over. She was wearing her sergeant attire, a customary costume that symbolized her rank and superiority over the Wonderbolts cadets that she had an obligation to train and discipline, complete with a pair of sunglasses over her eyes. On the outside, her face was one of a stoic expression, calm, cool and collected with no crack in her facial features. On the inside, however, her mind was all a-buzzing while she inwardly thought about the recent events that took place last night.
No matter how much she tried, she couldn't sway the scene of Rainbow Dash's harsh resignation from the Wonderbolts. She couldn't block out the intense anger on Rainbow Dash's face, nor could she try to turn her mind off to her angry voice verbally thrashing her and her team. She couldn't begin to feel how disgraced she was when she, too knew which party most of the blame went to. Spitfire thought that she could sleep it off that night and wake up earlier this morning just like any other ordinary day, but these recollections stuck with her like a growth on her chest. It would take some miracle just to pry it off.
A knock on her door was enough to bring her out of her thoughts; she needed the distraction.
"Come in," Spitfire called, not looking up from her paperwork.
The door opened, and Soarin' gradually walked into her office with a manilla folder tucked into his left wing. He trotted up to her desk, reached to his wing pull the folder out of his wing, and placed it onto her desk.
"Here's the incident report from last night that you requested, ma'am," Soarin' said. "I also have the bills for the cleaning crew's service for cleaning up the cotton candy mess, the cost for the medical care provided by Nurse Bigheart, and an angry note from the proprietor of the cotton candy stand complaining how one of her own wasted hundreds of bits of cotton candy with that last stunt."
Spitfire eyed the folder, then back to her paperwork. "Good work, Soarin'. I'll be sure to read over this report shortly. You are dismissed."
Spitfire continued to read over her paperwork down to the second-to-last paragraphs on the page and somehow, she felt like she was being watched. She looked back up to see Soarin' was still standing at her desk, not only disregarding her dismissal, but looking at her with an uncertain look. "Is there something wrong, Soarin'? You look like you just clipped your wing again and you're afraid to tell me."
That seemed to break Soarin' out of whatever trance he was in.
"What!?" Soarin' unfurled his wings and quickly inspected them. "Oh no, my wings are fine, really. It's just that I'm here to talk about last night. You know, after..."
Spitfire heaved a stressful sigh, crossed her hooves over her paperwork, and looked up at Soarin' straight in his eyes. "Look, Soarin', I appreciate you trying to make me feel better by making me talk about what happened last night," she started by the assumption of the stallion's arrival, "but what happened has happened, and there's nothing we can do about it now. Rainbow Dash has resigned from the team and she's never coming back. We have to accept that."
"No, it's something related to that, actually," Soarin' assured. "Lately, I've been hearing a lot of chit-chat about Rainbow Dash going around the academy. Her quitting has become the biggest gossip story since Wind Rider was dishonorably discharged."
This latest update brought Spitfire to her full attention. "Really? Please elaborate on what they're saying, Soarin'."
The stallion gulped. "Well, these are just rumors that are just floating around the academy, but they're spreading like wildfire. Last night in the lockers, I heard some ponies talk about what happened between us and Rainbow Dash, how it happened, and what should've been done differently. But earlier this morning, I heard some of the ponies in the mess hall question your leadership skills on account of the incident. Then when I was changing in the locker room changing into my Wonderbolts uniform, I heard some ponies say we might consider the possibility of having Lightning Dust back into our ranks because her speed closely rivals that of Rainbow Dash's. While I was doing my morning exercises before my flying practice, I overheard a few ponies say that the credibility of the Wonderbolts has been destroyed overnight; and just when I was on my way here, I heard a couple of ponies say that you should be replaced with someone more, uh... knowledgable about our traditions."
The last one gave Spitfire a bunch of ticklish shocks on the insight, though her demeanor didn't change. Sighing through her nostrils, she took off her sunglasses, placed them on her desk, and looked back at her wingpony with a firm look in her eyes. "Okay, Soarin', you'd better listen closely, because I want to say this once, and I want to make it clear to the rest of the team," she said, pointing her hoof as Soarin'.
"One, we are not going to have Lightning Dust back into our academy. She was too proud, too reckless, and too dangerous with her flying, even putting the lives of innocent ponies in grave risk. That rumor needs to be debunked as soon as it can, you understand?"
"Yes, ma'am," Soarin' acknowledged.
"Two, I can't speak for the current credibility of the Wonderbolts after Rainbow Dash quit," Spitfire continued. "I can tell you that while the resignation has come as a shock to the Wonderbolts, we can't let it falter us. We as a team have to remain strong and learn how to move on from these sorts of incidents.
"Three, I will never, ever, ever consider a replacement for my position unless I was ordered by General Clear Wing to step down and let somepony else with as much leadership skills as I take over. On that day, I am going to walk out of this place with my head held up high. Anyone who has a problem with that or had a problem with how I run the Wonderbolts can tell it to me in my face. Is that understood?"
"Loud and clear, ma'am," Soarin' acknowledged.
Spitfire placed herself back on her seat, looking back down on her paperwork. "Good. That'll be all for now. You're dismissed."
Once again, Soarin' broke off from his salute, turned and walked out of the office. Just as the stallion walked out of the office, Fleetfoot walked into the doorway, knocking on the inside of the frame, heard by Spitfire but not seen. "Come in."
Fleetfoot entered the office and saluted. "Ma'am, Princess Twilight Sparkle is here to see you."
This unprecedented information had caught Spitfire's undivided attention. Knowing of the reason for the surprise visit from the Princess of Friendship, Spitfire placed her paperwork and the folder into one the desk drawers, and placed her hooves together, supported by the elbows on the surface of the desktop.
"Okay. Send her in."
Fleetfoot glanced down the hallway, nodded once, and marched inside the office, standing aside to allow Twilight Sparkle inside. The first thing Spitfire noticed on the Princess of Friendship's face was how calm she was, but she knew well from first glance and personal experience that she was putting on that face to mask what she really felt inside. She could tell that this meeting would go so well ending with a sarcastic remark.
"Thank you, Fleetfoot. You're dismissed," Spitfire told her wingpony, the mare giving a firm salute before she walked out of the office. When Fleetfoot closed the door behind her to give the other two mares some privacy, the two mares looked at each other with a short but prolonged silence. "So, I assume you're here to talk about Rainbow Dash."
"You assume right," Twilight replied curtly. "Would you care to give me your side of the story about everything that happened before last night? When you started calling her 'Rainbow Crash'?"
Spitfire sighed. "It was just after Rainbow Dash messed up her first performance. We started training her to fly and perform just like the rest of us, but things just kept going downhill. Every time we called Rainbow Dash 'Crash', she kept getting distracted for a split second which caused her to underperform or, as you may as well guess, crash into the other flyers. That earned her the duty to clean up the entire compound at the end of the day because she was the worst flyer of the day. I thought at first that Rainbow Dash's mishaps was because of those first-day jitters, but something seemed a bit off with her the next day."
"A bit off?" Twilight's curiosity peaked. "What happened with Rainbow Dash that seemed a bit off to you?"
"It wasn't just me, it was the entire Wonderbolts team," Spitfire clarified. "First she started acting all goofy to everypony when we were waking up, up to the point where she put up balloons, flown around like crazy, and acted like some kind of hyperactive puppy; then she was talking in this weird, goofy country accent and acted like such; then she started to talk like some egghead, giving out checklists and telling us all about how wings work when we've already long known how they worked; then she starting acting like she was shy and timid; then she started talking like some fancy Canterlot pony, and she even made Soarin' very unconfortable when she was talking to him because he was under the impression that she was seducing him."
Twilight pondered the key points of the story to herself; why did those actions seem so familiar? "Crazy and hyperactive, country accent, talked like an egghead, acted so shy, and speaking like a pony from Canterlot?"
Then it hit Twilight so suddenly, like a brick thrown to the head. "Ohhh... I see now. She must've taken my advice the wrong way."
"What advice?" Spitfire inquired.
"After she came home from her first day with you guys and told us how rough her first day was, I told her to think of the Wonderbolts like her friends," Twilight explained, mildly sheepish. "She must've thought that by acting like her friends, she would make more friends with the Wonderbolts, and I guess that turned out bad."
"Taking your advice in her way was the least of our worries," Spitfire said. "Do you even know what she tried to do in our last performance?"
Twilight raised an eyebrow; this was going to be news to her. "No."
"She tried to showboat us," Spitfire told the princess. "She was so determined and ambitious to prove herself that she tried to perform a dangerous stunt using that storm cloud to make a grand entrance, and you've probably seen how badly that turned out. With poor planning and timing, Rainbow Dash ruined the show with that crash, leaving us to pay the cleaning crew for their troubles, and give everypony in the audience refunds for their disappointment. After the show, we confronted Rainbow Dash about her major slip-up. She told us that the only thing she was ever good for in the Wonderbolts was for making mistakes, and we tried to assure her that the nickname 'Rainbow Crash' wasn't a big deal."
"And then the rest is history," Twilight finished for the Wonderbolt captain, "but there's something I don't understand, Spitfire. If you knew something was off with Rainbow Dash, then why didn't you talk with her about it?"
"Being in the Wonderbolts isn't like the friendship problems you're accustomed to solving, Princess Twilight," Spitfire put it bluntly. "In the Wonderbolts, we have to toughen up and straighten out. That's the way it's been. When the Wonderbolt rookies make their first rookie mistakes, we accept those mistakes by accepting it as our name in the 'Bolts. But with Rainbow Dash, this is a completely different story. With Rainbow Dash, she was seriously messed up by that nickname and she never explained why before last night. If we knew ahead of time that being called 'Rainbow Crash' hurt her so badly, we wouldn't lost our team player this way."
"But you do know that part of the responsibility falls on Rainbow Dash's shoulders, don't you?" Twilight asked.
"I do. Rainbow Dash is proud, but she can be too proud at times, and that is what instigated the tension between her and us." Spitfire sighed. "You know, if I'm being honest here, I'd say this is the first time that a high-flying Wonderbolt quit out team on account of our own actions, let alone one of the ponies that saved Equestria over and over. We had to expel our other high-flyers because of their own greedy gain and we had to let go of our other high-flyers because of their own personal reasons, but to quit on us for something we had a hoof in playing is something else entirely."
"Spitfire, I know you feel responsible for Rainbow Dash quitting the team, but it doesn't have to be that way," said Twilight. "As the Princess of Friendship, I have a solemn duty to help rebuild the broken friendship between two friends. I don't care if Rainbow Dash decides to rejoin your team or not in the end, but if you two can't patch things up, then things will only get worse before they can get better."
Spitfire sighed dejectedly, and turned away in her seat. "I hate to say this, Princess, but I think it's already starting to look that way."
"And how's that?"
Suddenly, the door slammed open, and the two conversing mares turned to a Wonderbolt stallion rushing in the office as if he was in a hurry. He stopped and gave a quick but formal salute to his captain, letting his body go stiff as a wooden board. "Pardon the interruption, Captain Spitfire, but I've got something here that you might need to see!"
"What is it, Feather Squall?" Spitfire asked.
The stallion named Squall Feather unfurled his left wing, and reached for the latest newspaper delivered to the Wonderbolts newsstands with his teeth. Twilight levitated the paper in front of her face, and read the article with squinting eyes as Spitfire dismissed the stallion from her office.
"'Where Do Loyalties Lie?' by Type Writer," she first read the bigger headline aloud. "'Equestrian hero and former Element of Loyalty Rainbow Dash quits the Wonderbolts the night that took placed after their last disastrous performance at Heigh-Ho Hills. After receiving medical treatment for her injuries, Rainbow Dash was confronted by the Wonderbolts regarding their performance which led to an argument between her and the Wonderbolts team captain, Spitfire, claiming that they repeatedly harassed her with a demeaning nickname after making a failed good first impression as the newest member of the Wonderbolts a few days prior. During the skirmish, Rainbow Dash claimed that despite the harassment she endured from her teammates, they tried to sweet talk her back into rejoining the team. Despite interventions from Princess Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash resigned from the team and has yet to comment on...Continued on page 2a'."
After the article was cut off on the front page, Twilight's lavender coat faded into marble white from all the shock her body reacted to. She couldn't bring herself to finish the article; it was making her stomach sick. "Oh, this is bad. I don't know how they managed to get the scoop, but if Rainbow Dash sees this, she's gonna feel worse than ever! Spitfire, we've got to do something about this and quick!"
"I wish I could, Princess Twilight, but Rainbow Dash made it clear that she didn't want to see or talk to any of the Wonderbolts again," Spitfire said. "Even if I could walk up to her front door without my uniform on and convince her how sorry we were, she's just going to slam it in my face and not listen to a word I have to say."
"She'll listen to me," Twilight said. "After all, she may not have her team, but at least she still has her best friends to listen to."
"I'm not sure she'll listen to what the Wonderbolts have to say to her, even if our apology is relayed to her through her."
"That's why I have to try. I know it won't be easy, given how stubborn Rainbow Dash can be at times, but I'll at least try," Twilight assured. "What are you going to do about this?"
"Me? I'm gonna try and keep the Wonderbolts together," Spitfire answered. "I'm gonna be up to my shoulders juggling the upcoming Wonderbolts shows, the rumors going around the team, rebuilding the trust with our teammates, and training the newbies at the academy. If Rainbow Dash's resignation somehow brings our team's morale to an all-time low, then we're going to have a hard time trying to boost it back up. Once everypony in Equestria reads the article, then our relations with the public will be, shall we say, less-than-trustworthy."
"You focus on your team, Spitfire. I'll worry about Rainbow Dash."
"You know, she's lucky to have a friend like you," Spitfire said solemnly. "At least you're more considerate about her feelings than we are."
Not all the time, Twilight figured. She could recall a few times when a wedge was driven in her friendship with her friends, a couple of them involving Rainbow Dash in it, but that was a story for another time. "Spitfire, try not to beat yourself about this either. Rainbow Dash is beating herself up because she realized she could've done more to prevent this from happening."
"How is she doing?"
Twilight shook her head. "Not good. She was so distraught by what happened last night that she smashed every Wonderbolt collection she had and left them all in a messy pile in her room. On top of that, she hadn't slept well, and she's beginning to show signs of clinical depression."
It wasn't much, but Twilight spotted a micro expression of surprise change on Spitfire's face. "So, she's got it worse than the whole of the Wonderbolts combined, huh?"
"It would seem that way."
Spitfire hummed, a little dejected sigh somewhere mixed in. "Well, when you see her again, could you tell her on my behalf that the Wonderbolts must apologize for putting her through so much? If she won't accept it, then could you tell her that I apologized as well? Not as a captain or as a member of the Wonderbolts. Just me as a pony and nopony else. "
"I'll try, but it's just like you said, it won't be easy trying to get her listen," Twilight said. "Although, once she wakes up from her nap, I'll tell her what you told me."
"You telling her is more than what I can do for her at this point."
There was a knock on the door that interrupted their conversation. After Spitfire yelled the visitor to enter, the door opened to reveal Misty Skies, or as her fellow teammates called her, Hoof-in-Mouth. "Captain, theresth a sthatllion in a sthuit who wantsth to sthee you."
"Oh, that must be Publicity Stunt," Spitfire deduced. "Listen, Princess, I hate to end our discussion short, but I need to meet with my PR guy about this situation. If you want to schedule an appointment to meet with me next time, you can always check in with my receptionist on the way out."
"I will," Twilight responded with a nod, "and if you ever need help with your situation or with your friendship problem, you can always find me at the Castle of Friendship."
"I'll take you up on that offer when it comes to it," Spitfire responded, standing up to shake hooves with Twilight. "Oh, and before you go, Princess, I have one more thing to say for Rainbow Dash. I hope things work out for her. I really do."
"I'll be sure to mention that to Rainbow Dash later," Twilight said. "Goodbye, Spitfire, and good luck."
"You too, Princess."
With it, the Princess of Friendship turned and trotted out the door, allowing a stoic, hard-faced pegasus stallion carrying a black briefcase in his feathers. He had a beige coat, a pair of big thick-rimmed glasses, a black mane styled to the left of his head, and a beige tuxedo complete with a vest and a tie. The pegasus stallion was renowned through Equestria as one of the best lawyers anypony could hire, as well as the public relations stallion for the Wonderbolts, and a good friend of Spitfire's.
While Twilight was walking out of the premises of the Wonderbolts Academy with the intent of returning to the cloud house, Publicity Stunt, Spitfire's faithful lawyer, public relations manager and friend was invited inside of her office. "It's good to see you again, Spitfire," Publicity Stunt greeted with a smile.
"Believe me, I wouldn't have called you in here unless it was important," Spitfire said.
"I knew it had something to do with your team when I read the headline this morning," Publicity Stunt replied, his smile fading back into seriousness. "I've seen the public's reaction to the story on the way here. From what I've seen so far, it's not starting to look good."
"I've been hearing that a lot for the past hour," Spitfire said. "Even the team's morale is starting to lower. Soarin' told me that the other team members are questioning my worth as a leader, starting rumors of me bringing back a former Wonderbolt who we kicked out months back to fill in for Rainbow Dash, and me resigning my position as captain and replacing myself with somepony better."
"And are you going to resign?" Publicity Stunt asked.
"Not unless I was given orders to. You know that rule perfectly well," Spitfire said.
"I do, considering that I also serve as General Clear Wing's public relations stallion as well." The pegasus stallion adjusted his glasses and firmly rested his briefcase in his lap. "Now then, before I can give you my sage advice as to how to wave off the bad publicity, I need to know your side of the story first. Tell me about what happened between you and Rainbow Dash."
Spitfire sighed; she'd have to tell him the entire story again. "Okay, then, I will. So it started off when we hired Rainbow Dash into our reserves..."
Rainbow Dash could feel her eyes slowly open from her brief sleep, her eyelids fluttering to get to sleep out. The first thing she saw when opening her eyes was her ceiling, the cloudy texture a blur at first. Her eyes were burning and watery, so she blinked a couple of times and sniffed deeply through her nose. She turned over, hoping to expect the pile of destroyed Wonderbolts memorabilia she left on her floor. Instead, there was only a clean, barren cloud floor with only a few scraps left behind.
She turned herself back up and faced the ceiling. She began to mull over the events that happened to her in the last few days, thought back to how it could happen, and why it had happened. To be honest, she felt a bit indifferent about quitting from the Wonderbolts. She didn't need those traitors. She did better on her own flying solo than with some other cockamamie pegasus in a skin-tight suit. Rainbow Dash had friends she could depend not to call her that nickname. They were more like family to her than the Wonderbolts could ever be.
For the first time in her life, Rainbow Dash felt free. She was free to do what she liked, and there would be no condescending bullies, no upstart Wonderbolts, and no Spitfires to hold her back. She was gonna fly free from her past torments, and she was never going to look back again.
The sound of door hinges squeaking drew Rainbow Dash out of her tired reverie. She turned her attention to the door, and there at the doorway was a familiar pegasus filly with an orange coat and a violet mane that was similarly styled to her tomboyish punk-styled mane. She was looking at her Number One Fan, and she looked at her back with the biggest look of concern she has ever seen.
"Rainbow Dash? Are you feeling okay?"