"Come on, y'all!" Apple Bloom shouted, as she and her fellow Crusaders raced down a crowded city sidewalk. "We're almost to the finish line!"
"This is gonna be awesome!" Scootaloo proclaimed. "I can't wait to see how Rainbow Dash tears these wannabes' hearts out!"
"But she was stuck in traffic at the last checkpoint!" Sweetie Belle reminded her friend.
"Yeah, and Lightnin' was leadin'!" Apple Bloom chimed in. "I'll bet he ends up winnin' the whole thing!"
"You're crazy!" Scootaloo shot back. "That old geezer'll run out of steam long before the finish line!"
"No way! He wasn't even breathin' hard!" Apple Bloom hard. "He's got more than enough juice to—YAH!" She and her friends slammed on the brakes as Twilight and Applejack suddenly materialized before them.
"Apple Bloom!" Applejack glared down at her younger sister. "What did I tell you about stayin' near me? Canterlot is no place for a filly to just go runnin' off like you did!"
"But Applejack," Apple Bloom pleaded, "I wanted to catch the end of the marathon!"
"I'm know you're excited about the race and all, but that's still no excuse," Applejack stated firmly. "From now on, we're stickin' together like caramel on a candy apple."
"Then get your candy apple in gear, and let's go!" Apple Bloom turned and continued her race to the finish line, followed by Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle.
Applejack smacked her hoof to her face in frustration. "Fillies," she grumbled.
The finish line for the marathon sat directly in front of Canterlot Castle, surrounded by streamers, balloons, and excited spectators. "There it is!" Apple Bloom shouted as she and her friends approached the castle. "We haven't missed it yet!"
The Crusaders rushed down to the ropes that separated the fans from the course. "Let's see who's in front!" Scootaloo said. "Sweetie Belle, pass me the binoculars!"
"I don't have the binoculars!" Sweetie Belle replied. "Apple Bloom does!"
"What do you mean? I ain't got 'em!" Apple Bloom.
"But I left them for you at the last checkpoint!" Sweetie Belle insisted. "Remember? I put them on that flat rock when I went to the little fillies' room. They were right next to the hay fries!"
Scootaloo's face fell. "Don't tell me we lost the binoculars and the snacks!"
"I've got them," Applejack announced and she as Twilight caught up with the filly trio. "Y'all need to pay more attention to—"
"Great!" Apple Bloom interrupted, bouncing over to Applejack's saddlebag and snatching out the binoculars with her mouth in one leap. She immediately jumped up on a nearby mailbox, pressed the binoculars to her face, and focused her gaze on a hill off in the distance that the runners would soon be climbing.
"See anything?" Scootaloo asked.
"Not yet."
Looking up at her fellow Crusader, Sweetie Belle noticed that something was slightly out of place. "Er... Apple Bloom? I think your cutie mark is falling off."
"Huh?" Apple Bloom lowered her binoculars and looked down at her right flank, where a half-attached sticker of a small pumpkin was hanging on for dear life. "Ooh, good catch," she said, reaching down to smooth the sticker back onto her coat. "We gotta keep up appearances, you know."
"Uh-huh." Sweetie Belle nodded as she reached back to polish the pie sticker on her own flank. "After all, we got three whole bits for being in that newspaper ad."
"Focus, pumpkin head!" Scootaloo shouted. "Who's winning?"
Apple Bloom looked back through the binoculars. "Hold on... I think I see somethin'..." She paused for a few seconds, then leaped into the air. "It's Lightnin'!" she screeched. "He's still leadin'!"
"What? No way!" Scootaloo jumped up on the mailbox, snatched the binoculars away from Apple Bloom, and looked through them for herself. "That's impossible!" she declared.
But Scootaloo was wrong: Greased Lightning, running like a pony possessed, was the first pony to top the hill and and make his way for the finish line. Rainbow Dash appeared a few seconds later, but she was in third place behind a brown-coated earth pony who was doing all he could to keep her behind him. "Get out of the way, slowpoke!" Scootaloo screamed to no avail.
The rest of the assembled crowd cheered as the racers approached the finish line. "Woo! Go Lightnin'!" Apple Bloom shouted.
This time, there would be no late-race fade, no piano falling on Greased Lightning's back, no stray mental baggage weighing him down. If anything, the single-wing pegasus seemed to be getting stronger with every step, pulling away from his competition as they battled for second place. Despite the ponies gathered all along the course and the flashbulbs going off from all directions, Lightning's expression remained unchanged: nostrils flared, teeth gritted, eyes focused squarely on the finish line. He wanted this one badly, more so than he had wanted any victory in his entire career.
Behind Lightning, Rainbow Dash's temper finally boiled over from the defensive maneuvers of the colt just in front of her. "I have had it with you!" she raged. "Move it or lose it!" She reached out and grabbed the colt's tail with her teeth, then flung him out of the way with one powerful swing of her head.
"AAAHHH!!" the colt screamed as he tumbled into the crowd.
"Yeah!" Scootaloo cheered at Rainbow's honorable and sportsmanlike gesture. "Now hurry up and catch that old geezer!"
"It's too late!" Apple Bloom proclaimed. "Lightnin' is gonna win!"
A load roar went up from the crowd as Lightning broke the tape that stretched across the finish line, and the winning pegasus suddenly found himself mobbed by deliriously happy ponies. It took a few moments for Lightning to break out of his serious mindset and realize what was happening, but his determined scowl was quickly replaced by the biggest smile he had made in a long time. "I... I did it!" he shouted. "I won! I really won!"
"You sure did!" Apple Bloom confirmed as she leaped off the mailbox and onto Lightning's back. "You showed them all who's boss!" she squealed as she wrapped him a big hug.
"Thanks, kid," Lightning said as he wiped a tear from his eye. "I couldn't have done it without you."
As Lightning celebrated his victory, Rainbow Dash and her brown-coated adversary crossed the line to finish second and third respectively. The irritated colt immediately got in Rainbow Dash's face. "You cheated!" he accused. "You grabbed me and threw me out of the way!"
"Well, I wouldn't have had to move you if you had gotten your pokey flank in gear!" Rainbow fired back. "I would've beat Lightning by a mile if I hadn't had to stare at your sorry rump all the way across town!"
"Yeah? Well, I would've destroyed that geriatric jerk if you hadn't been breathing down my neck the entire time!"
"Get real! You ran out of gas halfway up that stupid hill! You were lucky I didn't run you over then and there!"
Lightning chuckled as the two ponies continued to argue. "Now, now, you young'uns better mind your manners," he offered in a mock-serious tone.
"Go soak your head!" Rainbow replied.
"Yeah, get lost!" the brown colt added. "Isn't it time for your nap?"
Lightning smiled, shook his head, and turned his hooves towards the sky. "Kids these days. No respect for their elders!" The line drew a hearty laugh from the ponies assembled around him.
A mint-colored earth pony wearing horn-rimmed glasses suddenly pushed his way next to Lightning. "Mr. Lightning? We need you in the tent for the winner's press conference."
"Oh boy." Lightning took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then looked back at Apple Bloom. "Now for the hard part."
"Aw, this'll be nothin'!" Apple Bloom proclaimed confidently. "Go in there and show them what you're made of!"
"I'll try." Lightning knelt down to let Apple Bloom climb off his back, and then followed the green pony through the crowd towards a large tent.
Inside the tent, Lightning found himself staring out a a pack of twenty to thirty members of the press, their pencils and quills at the ready, with nothing between him and the scribes but a large table with a pink tablecloth. He felt his hooves start to shake, and he closed his eyes and tried to psych himself up for the session. You can do this, Lightning, he told himself. Just be funny, be honest, and above all, be yourself.
Lightning opened his eyes, put on his best smile, and leaned in towards the table. "All right, guys. Bring it on."
A gray-coated pony sporting a fedora stood up in the back of the room. "Tell us about the race. How do you think you performed?"
Talk about a softball question, Lightning thought to himself. "Well, considering that I won, I'd say the race was excellent!" A few stray laughs went up from the crowd, which eased Lightning's nerves. "Honestly, the race couldn't have gone any better if I had tried to script it. I got a great jump off the line, hung with the lead pack for most of the race, and then saw a clean path to the front, made a move, and stayed up front the rest of the way."
"How were you received by the other racers?" an orange unicorn next to the table asked.
"It felt a little icy," Lightning admitted. "but I think most of it was this thing." He reached back with a hoof and tapped the scar on his back. "After all, the one-wing look isn't exactly in fashion. The crowd was really great, though—I heard them cheering along the whole course, and I even signed my first autographs in years!"
A bespectacled reporter in the middle of the pack raised her hoof. "How does today's victory rank among your previous ones?"
"Right at the top," Lightning answered without hesitation. "I know, I know, I wasn't flying, I wasn't competing on the circuit, and I wasn't even going that fast, but after all this time, after everything I've been through, to be standing here today is pretty special." He paused to wipe his eyes. Darnit Greasy, he chastised himself, pull yourself together! You know these ponies feast on weakness! "Sorry, guys," he apologized. "I'm getting sappy in my old age, I guess, but you never know when you're going to be in this position again."
"Do you think this settles the debate over whether you or Rainbow Dash is the fastest pony?" a lime-green pony at the back of the room called out.
Lightning shook his head emphatically. "No way! I've raced her six times in the past three months, and this is the first time I've managed to beat her. I was just looking up her records the other day, and honestly, I'm just glad to be mentioned in the same breath as her. I mean, seriously, who wins eight consecutive Talladega Treks? I never made it through that place without crashing!"
"So you think Rainbow Dash is the faster pony?" the green pony continued.
"Yeah, I do."
Another hoof went up from the middle of the press contingent. "There was an editorial in last week's Canterlot Chronicle calling for you to withdraw from the marathon before you embarrassed yourself. Would you like to respond to that?"
Greased Lightning opened his mouth to reply, then stopped and reconsidered what he was about to say. "Nah. I'll let the race speak for itself."
A wrinkled reporter chomping on a cigar stood up in the front of the room. "That was an awfully strong performance for somepony your age. Would you like to comment on the rumors that you have been using performance-enhancing substances in your training leading up to the race?" he asked without smiling.
Hah! I was prepared for this one, Mr. Grumpy Pants! Lightning smiled at the questioner. "It's absolutely, positively, 100% true!" he declared, chuckling at the gasp that arose from the audience. He bent down and snagged a conveniently-placed can that sat underneath the table. He placed the can next to him on the table, making sure that the logo was facing the press. "As part as my training regimen," he proclaimed, "I've been eating three servings of Pumpkin Pie's Prize Produce Products every day! These babies are power packed with all the vitamins and nutrients you'll ever need, and I personally recommend them to anypony, whether you're training to be the world's fastest flyer or just looking for something good to eat!"
Lightning's answer earned him a bunch of bewildered stares from the gathered scribes. So much for being my own celebrity spokespony, he thought.
Another hoof went up from the gallery. "One of your business partners was just arrested for insider trading on the Canterlot Exchange. How do you feel about being associated with an accused criminal?"
"Blue Chip is my cousin, not just my business partner," Lightning pointed out with a slight edge in his voice, "and we're standing by him. I'm not going to judge a pony for a mistake when I've made so many of them myself."
A purple pegasus wearing a coffee-stained polo shirt stepped forward. "You haven't given us many details about your disappearance since you surfaced in Ponyville three months ago. A lot of ponies want to know: Where have you been all this time?"
Here we go, Greasy thought to himself. "Well, I can't tell you everything, since I've promised a couple of fillies that they could ghostwrite my tell-all biography whenever I got around to putting it together. For now, let's just say I've spent the last few years in isolation deep within the Everfree Forest, undergoing intense occupational therapy."
The purple pegasus arched an eyebrow at the vague answer. "Occupational therapy? What does that mean?"
"Well..." Lightning again pointed at his non-existent left wing. "When I lost this thing, a lot of other stuff went with it: My confidence, my nerve, even my reason for living. It took six years of digging in the Everfree soil and one unexpected visit from a friend to find them all again."
"Are you concerned that your behavior will set a bad example for our youth?" another reporter chimed in.
"Well, I hope that—"
"Were you forced into exile because of gambling problems?" a pegasus along the back wall asked.
"No, I—"
"What would you say to the ponies who were deprived of seeing you compete by your disappearance?" somepony along the far wall shouted.
"Um..."
The questions started coming faster now, each one more personal and more biting than the last: "Were you afraid of racing against Rainbow Dash?" "What do you say to ponies who think your return is bad for pegasus racing?" "Are you ashamed about having to beat a bunch of amateurs today to feel better about yourself?" "Do you consider yourself a coward?"
Greased Lightning looked around the room nervously, but saw nothing but serious faces demanding answers. He started to sweat as the questions piled up around him. How am I going to get out of this one? he wondered.
Right on cue, a loud voice cut through the din of the questions with a single word: "FIRE!!!"
"Fire?!" The questions suddenly turned to screams as everypony in the tent jumped up and scrambled for the exits. Greased Lightning attempted the same maneuver, but instead tripped over one of the table legs and fell to the ground. As he picked himself up, however, a thought struck him: He recognized that initial screaming voice...
Lightning stood up and looked back over the table. The reporters had all left the premises, but a single pony still stood in the center of the tent: Rainbow Dash. "Those idiots nearly trampled me on their way out of here," Rainbow said as she shook her head. "They're bigger scaredy ponies than you are."
Greased Lightning couldn't help but laugh as he realized what had just happened. "You're not supposed to do that in a crowded room, you know."
"Yeah, well, you looked like you needed some help."
Lightning nodded. "I did. Thanks, Rainbow."
"Don't mention it." Rainbow jumped into the air and folded her front hooves as she looked down at Lightning. "I just hope you realize that the fastest pony ever isn't always going to be around to bail you out."
"Maybe not," Lightning agreed, "but I'll always know where to find her."
Rainbow smiled, and turned towards the exit. "Take care of yourself, grease ball."
"I will!" Greased Lightning waved as Rainbow Dash flew off, then turned to make his own escape.
"Hold it right there, Mr. Lightnin'!" a voice called out, freezing Lightning in his tracks. "We've got one last question for you!"
Lightning looked back to see Apple Bloom standing in the center of the tent holding a pad of paper that had been dropped on the ground by its previous owner. "Mr. Lightnin," she began, trying to sound as official as possible, "now that you're back from retirement, how long do you think you'll keep racin'?"
"This is probably my last race, actually," Lightning admitted. "Things are getting pretty busy at the pumpkin patch, and I've got a lot on my plate now, what with managing the payroll, building up our distribution network, brainstorming more ideas for our marketing campaign..." He chuckled at Apple Bloom's disappointed expression. "I'm kidding! I'll never stop racing—after all, it's what I do best."
"That's good to hear!" Apple Bloom looked back at her flank, where her pumpkin sticker was starting to fall off again. "I hope I find out what I do best someday," she sighed.
"Don't worry, kid." Lightning walked out from behind the table and placed a hoof across Apple Bloom's shoulders. "You'll find out someday, and when you do, you'll never want to do anything else. Trust me on this one."
Apple Bloom looked up at Greased Lightning and smiled. "Thanks, Mr. Lightnin'."
The pair's heartfelt moment was rudely interrupted by a loud rumbling from Lightning's stomach. "Dang, I am starving!" he declared. "Let's find your friends and get the heck out of here. Lunch is on me!"
"Sounds like a plan!" Apple Bloom left her notepad on the ground, and she and Lightning exited the tent together.