The repetitive beat of Rainbow Dash's wings was almost cathartic in nature, a slight reverb vibrating against her ears as her body sliced through the calm winds, wingtips grazing the clouds. Occasionally, she allowed herself to fall into a dive, the weightlessness a feeling she was wholly unaccustomed to, but relished in the odd moments—a total lack of control.
Rainbow had long realised that it was only a fantasy of surrender. When the ground drew close, she knew it was hard and unforgiving by nature, and swiftly pulled up to save herself from a painful landing. Still, it was the illusion of falling that Rainbow held dear, the fact that she could fall, twice as easily as she could rise.
Work had been stupid and dull. Five days of running practice drills with new recruits all the way in Baltimare's division was in no way Rainbow's idea of a fun work trip, but according to Spitfire someone had to do it, and by 'someone' she had clearly meant the newbie.
Rainbow almost shuddered as the word crossed her mind. A year she had been a Wonderbolt now, and still she was the newbie. Rainbow was pretty sure that there had even been other new 'bolts since her promotion, but somehow the nickname—including her superiors' tendency to hand her all of the menial tasks—had stuck.
Rainbow felt a scowl crawl onto her muzzle as she flipped around, allowing the sun to cast its rays over her belly. It didn't matter if she flied rings around half of them, or if she had personally saved the lives of a few of them, she was the one who got carted off to teach amateur hotheads how to put the breaks on before they killed somepony.
Still, the accommodations hadn't been bad. That was about the only thing that Rainbow could say for the trip, the actual work had been intensely difficult. It was hardly her first time teaching, she had shown Twilight how to fly, after all, but as it turned out, instructing a dozen recruits at once was an entirely different challenge.
Rainbow Dash wasn't like Spitfire, who self-admittedly reveled in the act of teaching and instructing, breaking down and molding her recruits into something better, more efficient. Spitfire wanted her recruits to be the best they could possibly be, Rainbow just wanted to get her job done. Demonstration was easy, but one on one explanations with each recruit while simultaneously assuring that nopony was messing up while her back was turned? Rainbow could have turned to drink by the end of the third day, and she wasn't sure anypony would blame her.
That was over now, though. She sought to remind herself that despite the setbacks, she had eventually seen results from every recruit, and was dismissed by the Baltimare captain with a smile and a tidy little bonus. With the bits that she had saved from flying to Baltimare and back, this week had turned into a nice little earner.
Not that she ever spent bits on anything, really. Rainbow could feel the weight of her saddlebags behind her, and attributed over half of it to a pile of golden coins, wrapped and strung in a neat little purse. It was fair to assume that they would be deposited and forgotten, just like the remaining quarter of every payslip she had received in the last year.
Then again, maybe she could buy herself a nice dress, or something. Rainbow smiled at that idea, she deserved a treat after all of her hard work, and it was about time she indulged herself a little. The problem was finding a designer in Equestria that didn't personally know Rarity, it seemed they all did. Rainbow was sure that they were conspiring against her, congregating and discussing her for the sole purpose of making her feel awkward.
"Stupid fashion ponies," Rainbow grumbled to herself as she watched the hills slowly roll over in the distant horizon, a verdant landscape germinating before her eyes as the old one was washed away. "Can't even pick up a freakin' Cosmaponitan without Rarity jumping out of the woodworks." That said, it didn't have any baring on her monthly subscription; Rarity didn't know everypony.
Flying was a chance to think, to unwind. The sky was Rainbow Dash's default domain, and over the years she had probably spent twice as much time in the air than out of it, maybe more. It was strange to think that she felt most at peace even as her muscles began to burn from the stress of keeping aloft for hours, her limbs yearning to make contact with some surface, lest they go numb. Perhaps it was her position as an athlete, or it could simply be her pegasus nature.
Rainbow began to chuckle, a soft and charming sound for all of its harshness, resplendent against the relative silence of the countryside morning. She had realised what she was doing, considering why it was that she considered things in the place that she did, and the answer seemed painfully obvious: She liked to fly.
Satisfied that she had found the solution to the day's great mystery, she pressed on, gaining absolutely nothing in speed. Ponyville to Canterlot? That was a breeze, full speed and she could be there before anypony had even asked. Baltimare to Ponyville? That's an endurance flight, going full speed would only be an unnecessary strain on her.
Besides, when she got home, she knew she would be liable to collapse at any point. No point in tiring herself further, she actually wanted to enjoy the few days off she had, not sleep through them all because she'd decided to spend her last drop of energy on blasting her way home. She missed Ponyville, she missed her bed, she missed her Tank, but she could wait a little longer to see them if it meant actually getting to appreciate them properly.
There was an aching sensation to her wings, Rainbow Dash had a loving relationship with it. They told her she needed a break because they cared for her, yet she continued to defy them and push the limits, and they had only ever became stronger for it. Pushing through the pain was synonymous with Rainbow's lifestyle, and only made her rest more desirable, and gratifying once she received it.
Minutes trickled by with the shifting of the land beneath her, she passed over a small village, knowing from the familiar sight that she was almost home. Her eyes lingered on the earth pony architecture, strikingly similar to the buildings that made up Ponyville, and for a brief second she entertained the notion that she could have moved there, rather than where she was now, all those years ago when she left Cloudsdale.
How much would have changed? She would never have been an Element of Harmony, that much was almost definite. Would she still have friends like the ones she did now? Would she still be a Wonderbolt? The questions that her mind brought forth were interesting to ponder, but she dismissed them quickly, knowing that the answers were as inconsequential as they were unfathomable. She had moved to Ponyville, and all that had happened was a direct result of that. She couldn't have been happier with her choice.
Pegasus navigation was a funny thing. A common misconception regarding pegasi was that their magic was limited to flight, cloud walking, and the workings of clouds. In actuality, pegasi possessed an ability that even unicorns were unable to emulate, and that was a keen sense of just where everything they might have needed to find was. Rainbow begrudged that it didn't work for smaller things, like keys or the Wonderbolts pin that she had misplaced in Baltimare and now needed to replace, but it did work for landmarks and structures.
Finding north was as easy as facing it, remembering the structure of a landscape was like looking at a personalised map on the back of her eyelids. As such, Rainbow was able to find her way around very easily, and along with her keen eyesight, her sense of direction helped her to arrive at her destination swiftly and without fault.
It was for that reason that Rainbow Dash paused around a two minute flight from Ponyville, squinting into the distance with a queer look about her.
That can't be right.
Slowly, cautiously, Rainbow began to inch closer, grounding herself in her surroundings, looking about to find everything precisely where it should have been, from the buildings below to the hills and mountains in the distance, the ravine running beneath her and Canterlot in the far distance. Everything except for her house.
Shaking her head, Rainbow closed her eyes, allowing a mental picture to supplement her obviously faulty senses. In her mind's eye she saw the exact same thing, with the obvious and clear addition of her home, precisely where it should have been. Even so, she opened her eyes to find that the space before her was unquestionably blank.
She narrowed her eyes, allowing them to narrow on the space in the sky. There was a large concentration of wisps, as if a huge cumulonimbus had been kicked apart and left to slowly dissipate. Horror stories of cloud homes floating away dancing to the forefront of her thoughts, Rainbow Dash sped forwards without thought or consideration of her wings' noncompliance.
It hurt to fly so quickly after going for so long, but she didn't care. Something was wrong, and she had to see what was going on. Within moments she had arrived at her destination; the sight seemed to confirm her worst suspicions, and she hovered in place with a face of disbelief, despair slowly beginning to be etched across her features as she considered the possibilities, the ramifications.
Rainbow briefly wondered if she had managed to confuse herself, if the lack of sleep and the long flight had somehow addled her senses, and she was in fact on the wrong side of Ponyville. A short search of the hills below revealed that she wasn't mistaken, for her letterbox sat there clear as day. There was something else too. The ground had been ripped up in places. It wasn't so bad where she first noticed it, but the ground's scars became more and more prominent the further she looked away from town.
The jutting slabs of earth cut straight through the path of her home, or rather, what was left of it.
Floating in the air, a rainbow poured into a large crater below, though rather than being attached to a full structure, it was affixed to a sole remaining fragment, maybe a sixth of the home it had once been. The remainder either floated away or simply seemed to have been erased from existence.
The whole thing was almost too surreal for Rainbow to comprehend, but the implications set in immediately. Her home, it was gone. It was gone and it wasn't coming back. It had been destroyed, totally and completely. Barely a trace of its presence remained.
Rainbow considered herself to be a strong mare. Strong mares were Wonderbolts, strong mares were Elements of Harmony, and saviours of Equestria, and all around badasses. Strong mares also knew when to cry.
Rainbow Dash shivered in solitude. She had nopony to share her confusion and woe with in that moment, to communicate her sheer emotion to. Her mouth flapped open as shut as she tried to comprehend the situation, trying to find the words to affirm the situation to herself, to assure that what she was seeing was in fact actuality, and not a mistake.
Deep down, she knew that she didn't need to. It was all there right in front of her, or rather, it wasn't. There was nothing there for her now, and her soft, wailing serenade was the only thing to mourn that fact. It wasn't as if anyone else would care, she was the only one that lived there, after all.
...Tank.
Rainbow Dash shook off her tears like the light distraction they were, thundering towards the remnants of her home at full speed. "Tank!" she felt the screech from her muzzle, rather than hearing it. It was a strangled thing buzzing against her throat, and yet it wasn't loud enough. She repeated his name as she reached the only two surviving rooms, screaming and bellowing it as she rushed through but to no avail—there was nothing left.
Rainbow resisted the urge to break down in tears again, there had to be an explanation. There had to be. If there wasn't, what was there? Calm down, think objectively. Wiping the freshly forming tears from her eyes, she traced the ground to find that the cracks in the ground grew increasingly widespread the further they went. Jumping up, she concluded to follow them, flying for a straight minute in their direction before discovering that they inexplicably ended about a minute's walk from the Everfree. A few trees had been torn up, somehow.
The direction of the rampage was erratic. Rainbow's instinct and geographical knowledge suggested to her that some kind of twister was responsible, but with all of the creatures, villains, and magical powers she had witnessed in the last few years, she knew that literally anything was possible. Maybe it was none of those things. Maybe the heavens had just taken a disliking to her and decided to take away everything she owned as recompense.
Whatever the reason, it was terrible and unfair, it was heart wrenching and scary. Rainbow had no clue what to do, what she could do, but she decided that the most productive first step was finding answers, that and making sure that Tank was okay. He hadn't been in the house or the surroundings, but neither had his—
Rainbow didn't finish that thought, she couldn't. Speeding away, she angled her way to Twilight's castle, leaving a small tuft of cloud and a promptly extinguishing rainbow in her wake.