Natalya, like all griffons, possessed the ability to manipulate clouds. While griffons could not control the weather like Equestria’s weatherponies, she still could do basic things with clouds, such as walking on them, moving them, and breaking them apart. The latter method was actually one of her guilty pleasures.
Natalya could argue that busting up clouds was just another one of her training routines, but the reality of the situation was that she actually enjoyed the activity. After all, some mindless destruction every now and then was good for the soul.
“Ack!” Natalya squawked then sputtered when yet another cloud splattered onto her face.
Today, however, she was not having fun destroying clouds, mainly because she was flying right into them. It did not help that her face usually took the brunt of the impact, and while the fluffy objects posed little danger of causing any pain, the equivalent of a wet sponge smacking her in the face was not exactly a pleasant experience. It was even more irritating since the clouds always surprised her because she was literally flying blind.
“Dang it, Rainbow! That’s the third cloud I’ve flown into!” Natalya barked. “I know that you want this to be a surprise thing, but how long do I have to wear this stupid blindfold?!”
“Just a little bit more, I promise,” Rainbow’s voice answered from right behind, her forehooves right on Natalya’s flanks to guide the griffon. “At least I didn’t make you wear it until just a few moments ago.”
“And I guess that you still refuse to tell me anything about where we’re going, huh?”
“Yep.”
Natalya huffed irritably, but she begrudgingly replied, “Fine, but do a better job of steering me. I swear that you’re driving me into clouds on purpose.”
“No, of course not!” There was a slight pause, then Rainbow added, “Well, at least the ones after the first…”
Even with her blindfold on, Natalya turned her head and did her best to drill holes through Rainbow with her baleful glare. When there were no cries of anguish from the pegasus, she snorted her displeasure, faced forward again, and asked, “So why again did I let you think that blindfolding me while flying was a good idea?”
“Because you trust me?”
“To let me clear the sky with my face maybe.”
“Hey, at least we’re going in the right direction. Plus, we haven’t crashed either.”
“You say that like it’s an accomplishment,” Natalya dryly remarked. “Why do I put up with you?”
“Because we’re friends, duh.”
“I think that we’ve established that I don’t always make the best life choices.”
Fortunately, the next few minutes were free of any more face-clouds, and Rainbow soon led them on a slow descent.
“Can I take this stupid thing off now?” Natalya asked as soon as she landed, feeling grass underneath her paws.
“Just one second, aaaaand…” Rainbow replied as Natalya felt the pegasus turn her around.
“Here we are!” Rainbow cheerfully announced when she pulled off the blindfold. She swiftly flew up a short distance, a big smile on her face, and spread her forehooves wide in a grand flourish. “Welcome to the Wonderbolt Academy!”
Natalya slowly looked around and saw that they were on some sort of airfield. The field was built on top of a plateau that was roughly the size of a city block and also tall enough to be among the clouds. The area was covered in trimmed grass and small bushes. Set up on one side were several flags and a series of hoops to fly through, and a wide asphalt runway ran the length of the plateau, ending near a short rainbow stream that came from a rainbow waterfall up above.
Not too far away from the plateau, Natalya also noticed several buildings set up on a long strip of clouds. They all were grey, cylindrical structures with roofs made of clouds, and the largest one had the Wonderbolt’s insignia of a lightning bolt with wings on its sides mounted above its entrance.
“So, what are we doing here?” Natalya asked nonchalantly when she was done taking in the sights.
Rainbow’s smile and posture deflated, and she landed on the ground with a frown. “Really? That’s it?” she complained incredulously. “No ‘Oh my gosh, so awesome,’ or ‘Rainbow, you’re the best?’ Could you at least maybe even look surprised?”
Natalya merely shrugged in response.
Rainbow groaned and facehoofed. “You are such a buzzkill sometimes. You know that, right?”
“Yep,” Natalya agreed unabashed. “So, again, what are we doing here?”
Rainbow sighed and stood back up from her disappointed slouch. “The Wonderbolt Academy is where ponies are tested and trained to become future Wonderbolts. I came here when I started training to be in the reserves, but the actual team also does most of their training here. There’s all sorts of cool equipment and other workout stuff around, so I thought that we could do all sorts of fun flying things while we’re here. We might even find something to help you get your Sonic Rainboom.”
Natalya blinked and then admitted, “That’s… actually pretty cool.” She had not done any real training since her wing healed up, and a day with some professional equipment certainly sounded appealing, not to mention that she would welcome any help she could get for her Sonic Rainboom attempts.
Rainbow grinned at Natalya’s piqued interest. “And that’s not all. I even got a special guest that wants to meet you.”
“And who would that be?”
“That would be me,” a third voice answered as a familiar pegasus mare landed nearby.
Natalya instantly recognized the yellow coat and fiery mane of the new pony. Even though she had never personally met the pony, she had seen the mare plenty of times. It was also pretty hard to not know who the captain of the Wonderbolts was, even if said pony was not in uniform.
“Captain Spitfire, ma'am!” Rainbow promptly greeted, standing up straight as she saluted.
“At ease, Rainbow,” Spitfire replied with a lazy smile. “It’s just us, and we’re not in uniform. You’re safe from my yelling today… somewhat”
“Right, uh, sorry,” Rainbow apologized, relaxing her stance. “Anyway, thanks again for letting us come here, Spitfire. Hope that it wasn’t too much trouble.”
“Not at all. Nothing really going on today with almost everypony gone, and besides, even if it was, I told you that I owe you, especially after the whole Wind Rider mess.”
Natalya blinked. “Wait, so in other words, Rainbow, you cashed in a favor with Spitfire so that you could bring me here?”
“Pretty much, but don’t sweat about it,” Rainbow answered.
“Er, well, thanks, anyway.” Natalya now regretted a bit that she had not seemed so interested when they had first arrived. A favor from the captain of the Wonderbolts could do so much, and yet Rainbow had used it up without a second thought just for her.
“So, you’re Natalya,” Spitfire said, turning to the griffon. “I’ve seen your name pop up quite a few times in various flying competitions, but this is the first time that we actually get to meet. Well, if you don’t count the death glares that you were giving me back at the Equestria Games.”
“To be fair, I was giving death glares to you and Rainbow,” Natalya clarified.
Spitfire chuckled. “Guess that you weren’t too happy about the results of the race, and I can sympathize with that. You’re not the only one who can get a bit grouchy when you don’t win. No hard feelings, right?” She raised a forehoof toward the griffon with a smile.
Natalya’s gaze drifted over to Rainbow for a second before switching back to Spitfire. She then lightly bumped the offered hoof with a fist. “Sure, whatever.”
Spitfire nodded in approval and dropped her hoof. “I’ve actually been wanting to meet you for a while. I heard that you'd rather keep to yourself, but it’s hard to not want to meet the talented griffon that’s won quite a few competitions around Equestria.”
“Thanks,” Natalya replied calmly. Her lackluster response hid the surge of pride washing over her. Despite not caring too much about the Wonderbolts, it was hard not to get a least a little bit excited about receiving praise from the captain of Equestria’s premier flying team.
“Rainbow also told me that you’ve been working on learning the Sonic Rainboom for yourself,” Spitfire added. “How are you doing with that?”
Natalya sighed. “Could be better… A lot better. It’s been weeks since I started training with Rainbow, and it feels like I've hardly made any progress.”
“Tell me about it. I and a couple of other members of the team have been trying to learn it as well, but none of us have had much luck either. We’re still going at it whenever we can, but with the ways things are looking, we wouldn’t be surprised if Rainbow is the only pony that can pull it off.”
“Good thing that I’m a griffon then,” Natalya retorted.
Spitfire chuckled. “Good attitude, but I don’t think that’s quite how it works. I’m certainly not going to stop you from trying though. In fact, helping you is part of the reason that Rainbow brought you here. You’re free to use any of the equipment around here.”
“Cool, thanks.”
“However, before you go, if you two have the time, maybe you could check something out with me first. Don’t worry, it’s nothing boring. In fact, I’m pretty sure the two of you will like it.”
“Sure. What’s up, Spitfire?” Rainbow answered before Natalya could get in a word.
Natalya rolled her eyes, but she said nothing and followed Rainbow and Spitfire down the runway.
“You remember our famous air obstacle course, right, Rainbow?” Spitfire asked.
“How could I forget?” Rainbow replied. “You probably had us run it like a hundred times before I became a reserve.”
“Only a hundred? I must be getting soft,” Spitfire said with a smirk, stopping near the end of the paved road. “Anyway, we made a few modifications to the course since the last time you went through it, and I want to know what you think about it.”
Spitfire then pointed up to the course that was in the air not too far from where they were. “To start things off, we got our standard cloud rings to fly through. It’s not exactly the same thing you went through before, Rainbow, because we arranged them so that flyers will have to make tighter turns and altitude changes to make it through them all.”
After quickly mapping out a path through the rings, Natalya looked ahead to the next part of the course. At first, it seemed to be clear air space, but underneath that area was a line of purple and pink machines. Each machine looked like a cylinder on top of a square base, and they were roughly twice the size of a pony.
“Those are our cloud launchers,” Spitfire explained, noticing what Natalya was looking at. “For that part of the course, you just have to get through it while those things are spitting clouds at you. We use a special mix so that the clouds will actually have some ‘oomph’ to them instead of bursting on impact. We also just upgraded the launchers with automatic feeders, so not only do we not need ponies to constantly reload them, they can spit out a lot more clouds to mess up flyers. If you get hit by one, it will knock you off course, but it won’t hurt you… much.”
Spitfire then pointed toward four huge machines that were floating in the air, arranged in a two by two square formation. A pair of flags mounted on small clouds were set up some distance away from the nozzle of the machines, forming an invisible, horizontal line, with a second pair closer to the metal apparatuses.
“Normally, there would be a thunderstorm section next, but we haven’t got our shipment of storm clouds from Cloudsdale yet, so we’ll just skip right to the good stuff: our wind generators,” Spitfire proclaimed, a hint of pride in her tone. “Those things are capable of creating gusts that can blow a pegasus from here to Canterlot. While we usually just use them as another obstacle to avoid, I wanted to try something different. Instead of avoiding them, I want ponies to fly straight into the wind. The objective is to power your way from one set of flags to the other.”
“Um, I get that it’s a wind resistance kind of thing, but didn’t you just say that those things, and I quote, can blow a pegasus from here to Canterlot?” Rainbow asked warily.
“Would make for one interesting training session,” Natalya pointed out.
“Don’t worry,” Spitfire assured. “I’m not that ruthless. I had them turned down for the purpose of this exercise, but they can still pack a punch if you’re not careful.” She then turned back to Natalya and Rainbow with a proud smirk. “So, what you think about the new course?”
“Sounds like you made it a whole lot more difficult since I ran through it,” Rainbow commented.
“Got a problem with that?” Spitfire asked with an impish grin.
“Of course I do.” Rainbow flashed her cocky smirk. “I didn’t get to try it out.”
“That’s what I was hoping to hear. Besides the missing storm clouds, the course is pretty much ready. The thing is, we only finished putting it together the other day, so we have hardly been able to test it. It sure would be nice if a certain pegasus and griffon would help us out…”
“Sweet! I’m in!” Rainbow cheered.
“I wouldn’t mind having a go at it either,” Natalya added. “I’ve been too busy trying to learn the Sonic Rainboom, so this would be more like the intense workout that I’m used to.”
“Then it’s settled. You two get to try out the new obstacle course,” Spitfire confirmed. “Now, I would remind you guys that the purpose of this course is to test your precision flying in extreme conditions, but knowing you two, something tells me that this is just going to become another race.”
Rainbow grinned. “Of course we will! The both of us can’t wait to…” She trailed off, going quiet for a moment. Her eyes flicked toward Natalya, before switching back to Spitfire a second later. “Actually, we’re good with just sticking to the regular testing and training thing.”
Spitfire’s eyebrow went up. “Is something the matter?”
“She just remembered that I recovered from a wing injury not too long ago,” Natalya answered before Rainbow could. “Honestly, she’s just being a worrywart. Give us a moment to talk it over.”
Spitfire shrugged. “If you say so. I need to give everything a final check anyway, so let me know if you guys are ready when I get back.”
As soon as Spitfire flew away, Rainbow turned right to the griffon with an uneasy smile. “Hey, uh, it’s true that I’m a bit worried about your wing, but the main reason is… well… and I mean this in the most totally non-offensive way possible, but…”
“You’re worried that I might throw another hissy fit and storm off in anger if you win again,” Natalya flatly stated.
Relief flickered on Rainbow’s face before it scrunched back up. “Er, I wouldn’t say that…”
“So what were you going to say?”
“Um…”
“Well?” Natalya prodded after Rainbow remained silent for a few moments.
“Okay, fine. I might have said something like that.”
Natalya rolled her eyes. “Rainbow, you don’t have to sugarcoat it. We both know that I’m a sore loser.”
“That’s why I think that maybe we shouldn’t turn this into a competition. I remember how upset you got after our first race, as well as the hoofrace we had with Applejack. Besides losing your temper, you went all sulky and depressed for a while. I don’t want to see you like that again.” Rainbow paused for a moment and then hastily added, “Um, of course, this is all assuming that I somehow manage to win the race, and I’m totally not implying at all that you’re going to lose for sure.”
“Right…” Natalya drawled, unamused.
Rainbow chuckled nervously before taking a deep breath. “Look, Natalya, this is probably going to sound sappy and silly, but you’re a cool friend, and I rather miss out on a race than to risk our friendship.”
“Rainbow, I get your concern, but you know me well enough to know that I also don’t back down from challenges. And at the risk of also sounding sappy…” Natalya glanced away and idly scratched the side of her head with a talon. “While I might get angry if I lose again, I very much doubt that I would want to end our friendship. I like hanging out with you, and after all of the stuff that you’ve done for me, I can put up with you beating me in a race… probably. Just don’t go flaunting it around, unless you want my fist in your face.”
Rainbow chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Of course, this is all assuming that you do manage to win.” Natalya smirked. “You might be able to beat me in a straight up race with the Sonic Rainboom, but I doubt that you’ll be able to pull it off here. This obstacle course will be a whole ‘nother story.”
Rainbow’s smirk matched Natalya’s. “Oh, you’re on!” she cried out with a laugh, only to soften her smile and ask, “So we cool?”
Natalya smiled softly and raised a fist for Rainbow to hoof bump, which the pegasus promptly did. “We cool.”
“Everything is all set up for you two,” Spitfire called out as she returned, landing right next to the pair. “You guys worked out your thing?”
Rainbow glanced over at Natalya and then nodded at Spitfire. “Yep. We’re totally making this into a competition.”
“Totally did not see that coming,” Spitfire dryly remarked with an amused grin. “Gotta say though, I’m looking forward to watching this race.”
“Why watch when you can join us?” Natalya challenged. Given how she had already bested Soarin at the Equestria Games, she certainly would not mind the chance to beat the captain of the Wonderbolts.
“Yeah, why don’t you, Spitfire?” Rainbow agreed. “I can’t think of an awesomer race with the three of us all in it.”
“Tempting, but sadly, I’m going to have to take a rain check,” Spitfire apologized. “The whole point of this is for me to see if there are any kinks I need to work out of this course, and I can’t really do that when I’m concentrating on trying to beat you two. Plus, if anything goes wrong during the race, I’ll be ready to shut down the machines and get help.”
Natalya resisted the urge to taunt and goad Spitfire. As much as she wanted to test her skills against Spitfire, annoying, and maybe even angering, Rainbow’s captain did not sound like such a good idea if she wanted to let her friend keep her spot on the team.
Fortunately, Rainbow had no such qualms as she cried out, “Oh come on, Spitfire. We’re all pros here. The chances of us getting hurt are like zero, no, less than zero. You really need to get in on this. That is…” She devilishly grinned at the other pegasus. “Unless you’re scared.”
Spitfire snorted in amusement. “Really, Rainbow? Look, racing with you guys does sound like a lot of fun, but sadly, being responsible sucks. I have to make sure that the course is ready by the end of the week, so I really need to see how you guys do with it. Also, there’s the rule that there must at least be one pony on standby whenever the obstacle course is in use. It’s boring, but necessary, safety regulation stuff that could get me into a lot of trouble if I ignore them.”
“But you could…” A flat stare from Spitfire made Rainbow clam up with a sigh. Putting on a pout, Rainbow conceded, “Okay, yeah. I guess that your hooves are kind of tied now, huh?”
“Yep, but don’t worry. The next time we do something like this, I’ll be sure to set aside some time to show you two how a real pro flies.”
“Heh, looking forward to it.”
“Anyway, that’s enough yapping around,” Spitfire proclaimed. “You two came here to do some flying, so let’s get things started. First one to make it through the course and get back here is the winner.”
As they quickly lined up at the edge of the runway, Natalya snuck a glance at Rainbow, and her gaze met with her friend’s. Rainbow smiled back, and silently mouthed the words ‘good luck’. Without thinking, Natalya mouthed ‘you too’ right back, an act that surprised her, considering that she had never ever done that sort of thing before. Pushing aside thoughts on her perplexing action, she returned her focus on the course straight ahead.
It had been quite some time since she had been in a competition, and even though the last two instances ended up as losses, Natalya still missed the building anticipation and thrill of a race. Her heart was already starting to pound with excitement, and her wings were twitching to get in some extreme flying.
Yet despite her eagerness for the impending race, there was also some trepidation about going against Rainbow. Even without the Sonic Rainboom, Rainbow was still one of the most skilled flyers she had ever seen, and Natalya knew that this was not going to be an easy race for her to win.
As Spitfire moved to the side, Natalya shook her head and tried to clear her mind. She did not need those distracting thoughts if she was to have a chance at winning. The only thing she could do was fly her best, and if she happened to lose again, she would try not to complain… much.
“On your marks…” Spitfire began the countdown as Natalya and Rainbow bent their legs, poising themselves for takeoff.
“Get set…"
“Go!”
With a powerful beat of her wings, Natalya launched herself into the air. The familiar feeling of cutting through the air with unrestrained speed sparked sensations of thrills and elation within her, but she maintained her focus as she rocketed toward the cloud rings that made up the first part of the course. With Rainbow speeding along right by her side, it was a matter of seconds before they flew through the first ring at the same time.
As they dove, climbed, and veered through each and every ring, Natalya noted that, like Spitfire explained, the arrangement of the cloudy circles demanded some tricky flight maneuvers, and they made the hoops back at the Equestria Games seem like just a lazy flight. To make it through every one of them, Natalya had to not only concentrate on her flying but also constantly mapping out her flight path through the next several rings. It was taxing, both physically and mentally, and yet, she loved the exertion as it pushed her to the limit.
Throughout the entire first section of the course, neither of them managed to pull ahead for more than a second. At one point, Natalya was tempted to bump into Rainbow, her larger body more than capable of pushing the pegasus off course, or to try and block Rainbow like she had done to Soarin. However, the cloud rings were actually quite large, and they offered more than enough space for her and Rainbow to fly through them together, making such methods ineffective.
But even if the circumstances did allow her to interfere with Rainbow, Natalya doubted that she would have gone through with it. Natalya knew that Rainbow would never do that sort of thing, and she wanted to keep things clean, partly because she did not want to do that sort of underhanded stuff to her friend, and partly because she wanted to see if she could beat Rainbow without resorting to any tricks.
Eventually, the two flyers cleared the last of the cloud rings together, and they made their way into the second part of the course. As soon as they were over the first set of cloud launchers, a chain of booming sounds rang through the air, and Natalya barely had time to look down and see the machines rapidly fire pink balls of clouds right at them.
She and Rainbow jetted off in opposite directions as they dodged and weaved around the fluffy projectiles. More than once, Natalya narrowly missed getting hit as she barrel-rolled and evaded the barrage of speeding clouds. Except for avoiding the occasional irate griffon back at Griffonstone, she had never done this sort of thing before, and she was very thankful that her reflexes had been honed through all of her time in the Abysmal Abyss. And yet, despite the harrowing, intense situation, she was actually finding the ordeal kind of fun, and each projectile that she dodged felt like a miniature accomplishment.
When she finally reached the end of the section, Natalya noticed Rainbow returning to her side. A further glance made her smirk a little as she realized that she had managed to pull ahead, albeit only a small bit. However, her lead was short-lived as her brief distraction made her almost fail to notice one last cloud heading right for her. With less than a second to react, she banked hard to her right, and while she managed to avoid taking a direct hit from the projectile, she winced as the cloud clipped the tip of her left wing, making her spin out of control.
Fortunately, it only took a second for Natalya to right herself, but she cursed to herself when she saw that Rainbow had sped ahead, putting some distance between them. She saw Rainbow shoot a worried glance back at her, but the pegasus quickly returned her focus straight ahead when Natalya promptly resumed her flying to try and regain the lead.
The next part of the course was supposed to be filled with thunderclouds, but as Spitfire had mentioned, they were not set up, leaving nothing but a clear, straight sprint toward the wind machines. Natalya tried to catch up to Rainbow, but much to her chagrin, she could not close the distance. In fact, Rainbow was slowly gaining even more of a lead with no obstacles to encumber her. Cursing and growling to herself, Natalya focused on getting to the last part of the obstacle course, ignoring the growing pit in her stomach, and hoped that she could turn things around at the last part of the race.
Rainbow approached the first set of flags, marking the beginning of the wall of wind, and as soon as she did, her forward momentum came to a grinding halt, and Natalya could almost see the look of surprise on the pegasus’s face when she was actually pushed back. Rainbow swiftly redoubled her efforts, beating her wings faster, and she started moving forward again, but at less than half her usual speed.
Seeing her chance, Natalya surged forward into the wind wall. While it did take a moment to adjust to the sudden change, she almost laughed when she felt that the machine-generated winds were nowhere near as strong as the gusts in the Abysmal Abyss. With her speed barely affected, it did not take Natalya long to overtook Rainbow, who was still going at a sluggish pace. Not wanting to make the same mistake that cost her the lead earlier, Natalya kept her focus on what was ahead, although she did manage to catch a glimpse of Rainbow’s wide-eyed look of amazement when she passed the pegasus.
As soon as Natalya saw that she made it to the second set of flags, she pulled out of the makeshift wind tunnel and dove back toward the runway. Within a few moments, she was skidding across the pavement to stop in front of Spitfire.
“Not bad. Not bad at all, Natalya,” Spitfire praised.
Natalya gave a nod to Spitfire as she caught her breath and looked around. She did not see Rainbow since she had overtook the pegasus during the push through the oncoming gales, nor did she see her friend anywhere on the runway.
Did I do it? Did I really just—
“Congrats, Natalya. You won,” Rainbow said half-heartedly as she touched down next to the griffon, a small smile on her face.
“I did it? I really beat you?” Natalya could not help but ask.
“You sure did…”
“Huh…” was all Natalya could utter.
“You know, I expected you to be doing a lot more celebrating, or at least be rubbing it in my face for the next few hours.”
“I don’t usually make a scene when I win.”
“So you only do that when you lose, huh?” Rainbow snarked.
Natalya rolled her eyes. “I won’t deny that. But really, I’m not too sure why I’m not at least gloating about my victory. I guess that I’m still surprised that I actually managed to beat you.”
“Good thing that I couldn’t do my Sonic Rainboom then, huh?” Rainbow teased.
“Yes, it’s a very good thing that you didn’t,” Spitfire remarked. “A Sonic Rainboom would have wrecked the course, and you would have been spending the rest of your days scrubbing the entire academy with a toothbrush.”
“Heh, good one, Spitfire,” Rainbow said with a nervous chuckle, but she quickly clammed up when the Wonderbolt captain gave her a warning glare. Rainbow cleared her throat and hastily switched topics. “So, uh, yeah, Natalya, you really deserved the win. That was some really awesome flying.”
“No arguments here,” Spitfire agreed, also turning to the griffon. “You lost a lot of ground from that last cloud launcher, but when you reached the wind generators, I gotta say, I was really impressed. It was like they weren’t even on with the way you were just plowing through it all.”
“Yeah. I’ve seen Gilda stand up to some pretty powerful gales, but she doesn’t hold a candle to you, Natalya,” Rainbow praised.
“I did tell you that I train in the Abysmal Abyss all the time,” Natalya pointed out.
Rainbow's eyes widened, followed by a facehoof. “I totally forgot about that! No wonder you plowed through those wind generators.“
“What’s this Abysmal Abyss?“ Spitfire asked curiously.
“It’s this giant ravine not too far away from Griffonstone. The winds over there make the ones we just flew through feel like a gentle breeze,“ Natalya explained, purposefully neglecting to mention the safer spots where she actually trained.
Spitfire turned to Rainbow with a devilish grin. “So what I’m hearing is that I need to turn things up even more. Hope that you’re ready for more training, Rainbow. You might only be in the reserves, but here at the Wonderbolts, there’s always room for improvement.”
“Um, okay. I suppose that’s a good point,” Rainbow conceded. “So what do you have in mind?”
“One hundred laps around the perimeter now!” Spitfire barked, her relaxed visage suddenly replaced by a fearsome scowl. “Go! Go! Go!”
“Yes, ma'am!” Rainbow hastily blurted out before she took off and began speeding around the academy.
“I thought you said that you two were off-duty or something like that,” Natalya remarked, although she was not complaining about the amusing show.
“We are, but I wanted to see if I could still get her to do it. That, and I like yelling at newbies,” Spitfire said with a smirk, earning her a snort of amusement from the griffon.
Shifting her attention back upwards, Natalya watched as her friend flew around. Even if the academy itself was not that big, it was still impressive to see Rainbow complete lap after lap, each one being done in ten seconds flat. The pegasus was only a blur at the speed that she was going at, and she would have been hard to keep track of if it were not for her trademark rainbow trail. Without any obstacles to impede her, Rainbow’s speed was a marvel to watch, which Natalya recalled was how the pegasus first caught her eye back at the Equestria Games, even if it was with contempt at first.
“She sure is something, isn’t she?” Spitfire said.
“Yep,” Natalya replied, her eyes still tracking her best friend.
“How do you like hanging out with Rainbow?” Spitfire asked.
“It’s cool.”
Spitfire’s eyebrow went up. “Really? That’s it?”
Natalya finally looked at the Wonderbolt captain and shrugged. “What do you want me to say?”
“How about anything? Come on, Rainbow talked about you quite a bit when she was up in Canterlot for the royal garden opening.”
“Really?” Natalya uttered with a hint of surprise. “What did she say about me?”
“In short, you’re a giant pain in the flank, but at the same time, you’re actually a pretty fun griffon to hang out with, not to mention that you’re a pretty decent flyer.”
“Funny, I could say the same thing about her. I guess if I really have to say something, I can add that she’s just a really good friend. She’s done a ton of stuff for me without expecting anything back, and even though I complain about some of the things that she wants me to do, I have to admit, they eventually turn out to be for my benefit in the long run. Also, she’s not a pushover, since she’s not afraid to stand up to me if I’m doing something… questionable.”
Spitfire chuckled. “Yeah, she’s pretty good at that last part. I might be her captain, but I’ve been on the receiving end of her lectures at least twice. Remember what happened at the Equestria Games tryouts at Rainbow Falls?”
“Not really,” Natalya admitted. “I was only paying attention to my team back then.”
“Fair enough. Well, during practice, Soarin injured his wing and almost got into a nasty crash, but Rainbow saved him. He still had to go to the infirmary, so Fleetfoot, a longtime member of the team, and I were worried that we were going to be down a member for the qualifier, so we convinced Rainbow to cover for Soarin. At first, it was meant to be a temporary thing, but you and I know that Rainbow is talented. Really talented. So Fleetfoot and I decided to completely replace Soarin with Rainbow.”
“Don’t the rules say that you can only represent the town you’re from?”
“Yep, but even though Rainbow lives in Ponyville now, she used to live in Cloudsdale, making her eligible for our team as well. The rules also say that a pony can only be in one team, so having Rainbow join ours would get rid of the competition from Ponyville.”
“That’s quite ingenious,” Natalya complimented. “But I imagine that Rainbow wouldn’t go for that sort of thing.”
Spitfire chuckled sheepishly. “Well, we might have lied a bit… or a lot. Soarin got better, but we got him to just keep on resting while we told Rainbow that Soarin would not be able to make it. We even went the extra mile to make it sound like that we needed her.
“Having to choose between Ponyville and Cloudsdale ended up really stressing Rainbow out. She wanted to fly with us because of the whole Wonderbolt thing, but at the same time, she did not want to abandon her Ponyville friends. She ended up faking an injury to try to get out of having to make a decision, but when she got sent into the infirmary, she met Soarin and that’s when everything fell apart.”
“She gave you guys a friendship lecture?” Natalya guessed.
“She gave us a friendship lecture,” Spitfire confirmed with a nod. “She marched up to me and Fleetfoot and chewed us out, and we deserved it. We were jerks, and Rainbow was right to call us out. We were so concerned about winning that we not only were willing to bend the rules, but we also kicked a friend and fellow teammate to the side. Winning is great and all, but there are definitely things that are more important than it.”
“I get the same spiel from Rainbow, and as much as I hate to admit it, the idea is actually starting to stick,” Natalya said. “It’s probably her fault why this recent win over her feels a bit weird.”
Spitfire chuckled. “That’s Rainbow for you. I have to say, things have gotten more interesting since I’ve met her, and I think that I’m even a better pony because of her.”
“Then why not just promote her to one of the main Wonderbolt flyers as thanks?”
“Because I would get into a heap load of trouble. Just because I’m captain doesn’t mean I can do whatever I want. There are protocols and procedures that have to be followed. I also seriously doubt that Rainbow would like it if she made the team just because I played favorites.”
Natalya thought about it for a moment and then nodded. “Yeah, I guess I can see that. So what was the other time?”
“What other time?”
“You mentioned that Rainbow had lectured you twice. You just told me about one.”
“Oh, right. Well, the other time happened farther back, when Rainbow was getting trained to become a reserve member. A lot of it had to do with another pony, Rainbow’s old partner to be exact.”
Natalya was already pretty interested to learn more about Rainbow, but now her attention was fully grabbed. Recalling the night that she went flying with Rainbow way back, Natalya remembered how she was compared to the unnamed partner. At the time, Natalya did not care to dig into the issue, but now that their friendship had grown exponentially, Natalya admittedly wanted to learn more about the mystery pony, and who better to find out more about her than the captain of the team.
“Rainbow actually told me a few things about her,” Natalya informed. “The gist I got was that they were friends, but the partner got kicked out because of her recklessness.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it in a nutshell. The mare was good, but she wrecked a bunch of academy equipment and put a bunch of ponies at risk.”
“Mind telling me more about this partner?”
“Well…” Spitfire rubbed her forehoof on her chin in pensive thought. “I guess I could. You could get the story from Rainbow, so you might as well hear my side of things. Just don’t go around telling everypony where you heard it from.”
“Sure. Got it.”
Spitfire took a deep breath. “Rainbow’s partner was a mare named Lightning Dust. She and Rainbow were easily the top flyers in the class, so it’s no big surprise that they were paired together. Now, when we pair trainees together, one would be the leadpony while the other becomes the wingpony. Rainbow was the wingpony.”
“So Lightning Dust is a better flyer than Rainbow?” Natalya could not help but ask, a hint of disbelief in her voice.
“Not exactly. She and Rainbow are pretty equal in terms of flying skill. Lightning, however, stood out more because she was constantly pushing her limits during training and was willing to take daring risks to better herself.”
Spitfire sighed. “And I screwed up big time. I was so sure that she would eventually make a great addition to the team that I didn’t do my job of keeping her in line. I openly praised her risk-taking, and even though I noticed her reckless behavior, I looked the other way. Other staff members were voicing their concerns about Lightning, but me being the stubborn mare that I am, I pushed their complaints aside. Lightning was a very promising flyer, and I thought that her rash behavior could be worked on over time. But then came an incident that was too big for even me to ignore.”
“Rainbow mentioned that she pulled a stunt that almost got a bunch of ponies hurt,” Natalya stated.
Spitfire grimly nodded. “It was a simple cloud clearing exercise, but Lightning wanted to be the best, as usual, so she convinced Rainbow to help her make a miniature tornado to clear everything at once. Unsurprisingly, they lost control of it. That tornado ended up wrecking a whole bunch of stuff, but things really got dire when a hot air balloon with mostly non-pegasus ponies in it came up through the clouds. They were coming in to dock at our loading zone, but that’s kind of hard to do when a tornado tears up your balloon… Fortunately, Rainbow and the other trainees were able to rescue everypony.”
“And do you know what’s the worst part of that fiasco?” Spitfire asked, her frown deepening. “I was sitting in my office, doing paperwork, the entire time that all of that went down. So imagine my surprise when Rainbow burst into my office, went on a tirade about me rewarding dangerous, reckless behavior that puts other ponies at risk, and then quit the Wonderbolts.”
“Rainbow quit the Wonderbolts?” Natalya repeated, her eyes widening. She knew that being in the Wonderbolts was Rainbow’s biggest goal, and while she knew that things worked out eventually, it was still a surprise to hear her friend had given up on her lifelong dream, even if it was just a temporary thing.
“Yep, she got fed up with Lightning’s recklessness and me not doing anything to stop it. She had tried to talk to me more than once, but I ignored her. Seeing her Ponyville friends almost fall to their doom was more than enough to push her past her tipping point.”
“Wait, they were on that balloon?” Natalya asked in disbelief, her eyes widening even more. “No wonder she blew up on you. I know from experience that Rainbow puts her friends in front of just about everything else.”
“No kidding, and I respect that. So yeah, needless to say, I was feeling like a real idiot after Rainbow’s visit. I got my act together and after quickly confirming the reports with the other instructors, I apologized to Rainbow and made her leadpony.”
“And Lightning?”
“Demoted to wingpony and put on probation. Unfortunately, Lightning did not take the change well, and she continued with her recklessness, even with me keeping a watch on her. It didn’t take long for me to decide that she had to go.”
“So where is Lightning now?” Natalya asked. “I think that Rainbow wants to see her again. She still feels guilty that she didn’t do enough to stop her or something like that.”
“Sorry, can’t help you there. Rainbow already asked me the same thing. We didn’t keep track of Lightning after we kicked her out.” Spitfire slowly shook her head as she sighed again. “It’s my fault that Rainbow has to deal with this. If I did my job better, those two probably would still be hanging out as buddies. Before all of the mess, those two were really hitting it off. Even after the whole tornado incident, Rainbow still saw Lightning as a friend, going as far as trying to stop me from giving her the boot.”
“Seriously? She did that?”
“Yep, and since I owed it to Rainbow, I did give Lightning another chance. Sadly, things didn’t work out. Lightning just kept doing what she wanted and blamed Rainbow for getting her into trouble.”
A growl escaped Natalya. “You would think that she would be a bit more thankful that Rainbow stood up for her.”
“Lightning doesn’t even know because Rainbow wanted to keep what she did a secret. She didn’t want Lightning to think it was a pity case. A blow to Lightning’s pride like that while things were still so tense could easily have made things worse.”
Natalya wanted to grumble about how Lightning was too much trouble and how Rainbow should just forget about the mare, but she realized that it would only make her a hypocrite. After all, her own stubborn and rash behavior was not too far off from Lightning’s.
But at least I had the decency to listen to Rainbow…
“So hopefully I managed to help a bit,” Spitfire said.
Natalya nodded. “You cleared a few things up for me, and it’s good to know how far Rainbow will go if I go and do something stupid.”
“That’s just how Rainbow is. She might be a showboat and have a big head at times, but from what I’ve seen, once you’re her friend, you won’t find anypony more loyal than her.”
Natalya nodded and turned her gaze back up to watch Rainbow again, her talk with Spitfire giving her a new sense of appreciation for her first and best friend.
“By my calculations, she should almost be done,” Spitfire informed as she also looked up at Rainbow. “Just one little request before she gets back. Rainbow is my friend too, but things are kind of weird between us since I’m her captain and all. Doesn’t change the fact that she’s a good pony, and I want to see her succeed. You take care of her for me, alright?”
A few moments later, Rainbow finished her laps and swiftly dove back toward the runway. “And that’s a hundred!” she shouted as she landed right next to the pair. She was panting hard from her exertion, but she was sporting the cocky smirk that Natalya knew all too well.
“Nice work, Rainbow,” Spitfire praised. “Even if I did go easy on you.”
Rainbow chuckled weakly, and it was not just because she was winded. “Heh, yeah. Thanks for not making me do the usual five hundred laps.”
“I didn’t want to eat up all of your time since you brought Natalya with you.”
“Yeah, thanks for that. So what did you two do while I was up there? Looked like you guys were talking about something.”
“Nothing much. Just flying stuff,” Spitfire replied as she shot a quick glance at Natalya.
Taking the hint, Natalya nodded. “Yep. Flying stuff.”
“It was about me, wasn’t it?” Rainbow flatly asked.
“Maybe,” Natalya and Spitfire both replied.
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Alright, alright, I get it. I’ll stop asking. So, Natalya, ready to get some training in?”
Natalya nodded. She did want to talk with Rainbow about Lightning, but since they were here at the Academy, as well as all of its equipment, the discussion could wait until later. She certainly did not want to waste all of the effort that Rainbow had gone through just for her.
“Know of any cool equipment that I might like?” Natalya asked with a soft smile.
An impish grin grew on Rainbow’s face. “Actually, I got the perfect thing in mind. Let me show you a little something called the Dizzitron…”