♦♦♦
Scootaloo rubbed her hooves together. When she pulled them apart, electricity arced back and forth between them. Dash grinned. “Nice job!”
“R-really?” The electricity vanished with a small crack. Scootaloo frowned at the dissipation, but Dash gave her a pat on the back.
“Yeah, it took me until a few months ago with your dad to generate lightning.”
While Dash did not always get to spend the weekends with Scootaloo, Dash was seeing her more and more as the intensity of her training racked up. She had quickly caught onto Scootaloo’s physical limitations due to her small wings and underdeveloped back muscles but had also noticed that Scootaloo excelled in weather manipulation. She could craft clouds with just her hooves, something that usually took a pegasus circling around a decently large and moist area to do. Even when they had first met, Scootaloo could already produce sparks too.
Dash had wondered why Shadowbolt had not taken some time to instruct Scootaloo further, but when she had broached the subject to Scootaloo, Scootaloo had begged Dash not to mention it to him. So, Dash had decided to take it upon herself to instruct Scootaloo. She was already used to coaching through helping Fluttershy, and the idea of helping Scootaloo, regardless of whose daughter she was, elated Dash. It helped that Scootaloo was a quick study too. After just half a year, she was already performing weather manipulation near Dash’s level. Dash even entertained the idea of Scootaloo getting her cutie mark through it.
“Just keep this up,” Dash assured her. “We’ll make a great tag team.”
“Yeah!”
Dash had just mentioned it on a whim one day, but the idea of teaming up had excited Scootaloo more than Dash had ever seen her. When she was younger, Dash had made a similar proposal to Fluttershy, but it had quickly become clear that while they were good friends, Dash and Fluttershy’s flying styles alone made it too hard for them to team up. Scootaloo, on the other hoof, with her weather manipulation, could be a great partner to Dash. Her skill would be especially useful in tight spaces where Dash’s speed, her greatest strength, was impaired.
Plus, there were similar team-ups on the Wonderbolts. Both Scootaloo and Dash admired the collective team that ranked number four on the hero charts, but they dared not mention it in front of Shadowbolt. As he described it, he had “broken free” of the team and had clawed his way up alone to become the number three hero. It was the one aspect of Shadowbolt that Dash did not agree with as, while she was indeed awesome, she felt working with others was just more natural. Perhaps that is what had drawn her to a potential team-up with Scootaloo once they were pros.
They practiced a little more and traded stories. Dash regaled Scootaloo with how Fluttershy had taken up camping and other skills that allowed her to be closer with animals. Scootaloo, in turn, told Dash about life in Manehattan with her mother. She still had trouble making friends with other ponies in her class but had started drawing attention due to combining her weather manipulation with her scooter use.
Eventually, the curfew drew near. Dash and Scootaloo washed up, turned off the lights, and got into bed. Dash braced herself for the early-morning alarm and closed her eyes.
~~~
Dash gasped for air. Her breath came out in quick bursts of steam. Below her, the horizon curved to the east and the west. At this height, even the sun appeared in a different position and the moon was still visible to the west despite it being close to noon.
Dash pushed her body to fly though the thinner atmosphere and she whipped her wings to bring what oxygen there was in the air towards her face. She performed loop after loop, dive after dive, roll after roll while Shadowbolt watched. With his goggles on and his face partially obscured by his mask, he appeared like a statue, making only slight movements to keep an eye on Dash. When she had finished her circuit, she flew over to him, sweat spilling down into the stratosphere and back into the troposphere.
“Adequate,” said Shadowbolt. “You’re overcorrecting on your loops and you need to tighten up your rolls.”
“And the dives?” Dash huffed.
“Good.” Dash beamed at the praise. Another snort made her straighten up. “Which means you’ll be doing steeper ones after lunch. Let’s get you refu—”
The ascent of another pegasus cut Shadowbolt off. He was gasping even harder than Dash, but he managed to reach the pair. “S-shadowbolt, thank goodness we found you in time. A m-massive storm has formed over the Everfree and it’s headed right for us!”
“What!?” Shadowbolt barked. He got right in the pegasus’s face and pulled him close. “How did the weather service not notice it forming?”
“I-it came out of nowhere!” The pegasus managed to choke out. “An emergency deployment of all pegasus heroes and an evacuation order have been given!”
“Damn.” Shadowbolt spun towards Dash. “Rainbow Dash! Change of plans, we’re helping with the evacuation today! This’ll be good practice. Level seven weather isn’t something you get every day.”
“I-isn’t she a little young to b—” Shadowbolt’s glare cut the pegasus off. He gulped and stammered, “I… I need to get back now.”
He bolted away. Shadowbolt took a deep breath and grinned. “Alright. Time to actually put some work in. Rainbow Dash, you go ahead of me. Observe the situation and inform me about it when I get back. If it hasn’t been overtaken by the storm yet, we’ll meet over Cherrywood Lake. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Just as Shadowbolt turned away, Dash called out, “What about you?”
Shadowbolt kept his back to Dash. “I’m off to get Scootaloo.”
Without another word, Shadowbolt blasted off. Dash watched him get smaller and smaller. She wore a proud smile and could not wait until the day she could utter a line like that and look so awesome. Taking a breath to refocus herself, she sped off in a different direction. As part of her training, she had long ago memorized the closest evacuation centers, so her path was clear.
~~~
Dash could feel the foulness of the wind in her wings. This was something more than the Weather Training Facility, something even more than the homemade level six weather Shadowbolt subjected Dash too. This sent her hair on edge and made her stomach squirm.
All around her, she saw other pegasi reacting in a similar manner. Wings twitched, eyes darted left and right, and a general air of unease emanated from the steady stream of pegasi flowing down to the ground. Some packed their hooves to the brim with precious household items while others bore nothing at all save for the foals on their backs. In the opposite direction, Dash glimpsed pure black clouds veined with thorny protrusions.
The only pegasi headed that direction wore costumes. Dash even spotted a few Wonderbolts zooming toward the storm.
“Hey!” came a voice from behind Dash. She got up from the roof and turned to see that a hero had appeared behind her. She wore bright white suit that complemented the pink fur that poked out between the lightning bolt pattern on her legs. “What are you doing just sitting here, kid?! You need to get down to shelter!”
Dash bolted away from the hero before hershe could chastise her more. This was the fifth time she had been warned by a hero, so she decided she had observed enough. She had not noticed anything really noteworthy, and the evacuation seemed to be under control. Zipping under and around the clouds, she made her way to the lake.
The winds blew harder over the choppy water. The storm was closer now and Dash could hear the thunder rumbling. A hero would fly by every now and then, so she kept herself tucked in a cloud. When Shadowbolt finally appeared, she popped into the air and flew close to him.
“What were you doing in that cloud?” he asked.
Dash kept her eyes down. “Sorry. The other heroes were getting mad at me for not evacuating.”
“Bah, this is why age limits on heroes are ridiculous,” Shadowbolt scoffed. He swooped toward the storm. “Come on, we’ve got a storm to deal with.”
Words of protest rose up in Dash’s throat, but a glare from Shadowbolt kept them locked behind her lips. When he flew, she followed. She dared not open her mouth until Shadowbolt asked, “So, how was the situation?”
“Appeared standard, sir,” Dash answered. “The heroes had everything under control last I checked.”
“Figured,” Shadowbolt chuckled. His tone then shifted back to serious. “That’s why the job will focus on containment. These aren’t going to be like any clouds you’ve ever handled before. Be ready for anything.”
Dash nodded and tailed Shadowbolt. They drew closer and closer to the storm. The winds grew so strong that Dash had to start manipulating the air to keep her path straight. The scent of ozone assaulted her nose and Dash felt her hair rising from the static. Bolts were visible a little further ahead. The area below the storm was just a blurry splotch due to the heavy downpour.
She saw tiny dots buzzing around the storm and knew they were ponies despite how small they looked compared to the storm. They plunged into the storm and sliced off slivers of it, slowing its advance. It looked less like heroes dealing with a weather phenomenon and more like a fight against a behemoth villain.
Shadowbolt steered Dash to the right, away from the forefront of the storm, and over to its side. At this proximity, the storm was turning the pegasus-created weather for the worse. Rain splashed against Dash, but it and the howling wind were still manageable if Dash concentrated. She could see that inside the storm, the gales whipped the rain in all directions. There were also chunks of dirt and pieces of trees that had gotten pulled all the way up to this height. The storm threw it all around with the ease a foal chucking her toys across the floor.
“You’re probably wondering why we’re not going to the front, I’m betting,” Shadowbolt said over the wind. His voice was so deep and commanding, and Dash had learned how to pinpoint it no matter the weather conditions that he did not need to yell. “See, this is the difference experience and being at the top make. Those at the front are only dealing with the symptoms. We’re gonna handle the real trouble.”
Shadowbolt reached into his suit and chucked a pair of goggles at Dash. Dash caught them and hastily strapped them on, not even taking time to admire the new tool she had been given. Her heart was racing, but she recalled her training, centered her breathing, and kept the air around her manageable for optimum flight.
“This is the real deal,” Shadowbolt cautioned. They no longer flew around the storm and instead turned towards it. “I’ll focus on disrupting part of it. Your job will be keeping an eye out for debris and lightning. Got it?”
Dash gulped but kept her face stern. “Yes, sir.”
“Showtime then.” Shadowbolt surged forward. His superb flight capability and the ease he could glide through any air current made his charge into the storm look like a glide on a sunny day.
Shadowbolt
Talent- Peregrine Shift: He has the ability to subtlety shift his feather structure, musculature, and bone density to suit his needs. While initially very energy consuming, Shadowbolt has trained for years to stay in a near constant peak flight form that maximizes his speed and power.
Dash took a deep breath and followed him into the storm. Almost immediately, the gales whipped her in one direction and then another. If it were not for the goggles, the deluge of rain would have blinded her. Gritting her teeth, Dash spread her wings and summoned forth all the weather manipulation she could muster. It took all her strength just to stay aloft and the gales still shoved her around.
Then, she saw the flash in her peripheral vision. She spun back and slashed her wing through the air. Had her reaction been a fraction of a second off, the lightning bolt would have blasted her right in the head. Even with the skills Shadowbolt had taught her, that would have been fatal.
“Good work! Keep it up!” came Shadowbolt’s voice from somewhere in the maelstrom.
Dash took his words as encouragement and spurned herself onward. Her breathing quickly grew labored, but adrenaline and her training kicked in. The world slowed around her. Shadowbolt was a few meters above her two-o-clock. He was already at work delivering a barrage of kicks with his hooves and slashes with his wings. His efforts earned a torrent of lightning washing over him. Dash stared in awe as the bolts bent around him and crashed down into the rain below.
Another flash came at Dash from the left. This time, she caught the bolt with a leg. For a split-second, the electricity coursed through her, spiking her mane and tail, but she forced the lightning to wind through her leg, down across her abdomen, and into her right hind leg. It burst out of her leg and went flying off.
“Excellent!” Shadowbolt exclaimed.
Dash did not have time to soak up his praise. A tree was hurtling towards them. With the same leg she had shot the bolt out of, Dash lashed out at the tree while directing the air current around her to send the tree spiraling back into the rain.
Taking breaths stung now, but the rush of being pushed to her limits kept Dash at a level of awareness even most pros lacked. It hurt like Tartarus, but Dash had never felt so alive. She kicked more debris out of the way and she redirected more lightning. She was on top of her game. At some point, she stopped hearing Shadowbolt’s compliments, even they were lost in the heat of the moment.
When she spotted the dot of orange and cerise, her elation stopped dead in its tracks. The gales whipped her to the right. She spun out of the tumble immediately. Her heart caught in her throat. The orange and cerise dot was still there, getting thrown in all directions.
“Shadowbolt!” she called out. There was no reply. She scanned the area for him, but everything just came up as a blur of wind and rain.
With Shadowbolt unresponsive and her eyes constantly focusing on the dot, Dash no longer saw herself as the future star pegasus hero. All the other heroes’ warnings came back to her. She was just a filly caught in a storm even pros were struggling just to slow down. Fight finally gave way to flight and Dash took off with no clue which way the edge of the storm was but knowing she had to confirm what the dot was. She prayed she was not right.
With her heart beating faster again, the gales blasted her, but she managed to keep flying and got closer to the dot. Behind the goggles, her eyes widened. Legs came into view. She could not hear her through the storm’s roar, but she saw a filly crying for help. She saw useless wings flapping to no avail.
Dash once more attained a heightened awareness. Her world narrowed down on one thing and one thing only: Scootaloo. It did not matter how she was here. All that mattered was that Dash had to get her out. Her wings tore apart the air around her. Her legs almost moved on reflex to bat away debris and lightning. Every fiber of her muscles worked in unison to dive closer to Scootaloo.
The air bent around Dash. When it pressed against her into a conical shape, she pushed back. Nothing would stop her.
Then came a great boom. Suddenly, Dash was flying even faster. Wind and rain no longer touched her. Scootaloo was just a few feet away now. The new speed was unfamiliar to her, but all the mattered was that it got her closer to Scootaloo, even while the rest of the world vanished around her. That included the flash to her left.
The bolt rammed into her side, but whatever newfound speed she had attained instantly channeled the electricity away from Dash’s heart and out of her limbs. It fully faded as did her speed just as she caught Scootaloo.
The momentum still propelled her forward, and a wave of pain over her side brought her out of her heightened state and back into the normal world. Somehow, with that legendary burst of speed, she had already carried Scootaloo out of the storm. The small bit of relief she felt was what the rest of her body needed to allow self-preservation to kick in again.
A horrid burning smell assaulted Dash’s nose. She saw smoke from somewhere around her only to realize it was coming from her hooves. The pain flooding from her side nearly made her black out, but she held Scootaloo tight and retained consciousness. When she tried to straighten out, her left wing refused to flap and her right could barely move. All this combined to send Dash into a nosedive.
The ground got closer and closer. Dash’s concentration and iron will to save Scootaloo returned for just one moment. It was enough time to rake her right wing through the air and summon up a gust strong enough to slow Dash’s decent. She glided on in and crashed into the dirt. With the last of her strength, she rolled onto her back. She could not even move her legs any more to unleash Scootaloo. Instead, they just flopped to her sides.
“Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo cried, her voice growing distant. “Get up! Please get up! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! He threw me! I co…”
♦♦♦
“I woke up three days later in the hospital,” Dash explained. By this point, Twilight was shaking. “Five broken ribs, a nearly clipped and burnt wing, a cracked eye socket, a broken leg, and multiple muscles tears and burns across my body. It was miracle the guts on my left side were untouched. Between having encouraged me throughout the training, having their hooves bound by contracts and nondisclosure agreements, and seeing the state I was in, my parents were a wreck. Fluttershy was even worse. All I wanted was to know where Scootaloo was.
“That question was the one thing that kept me sane while I was confined to that bed for a month. The books Fluttershy brought help, and my parents assured me they would never let this happen again. They wouldn’t say more than that, only that Shadowbolt was being dealt with. When I could stand again, I decided to find the answer for myself…”
♦♦♦
Dash barged into the office. The bandages around her legs and cast were stained with dirt while the rest of her wrappings were damp with sweat. The ones along her left side had red splotches on them. A receptionist tried to pull Dash back, but a well-placed kick to the chest sent her flying. Dash glared at Shadowbolt with her uncovered eye.
He was at his desk with another pony with a slicked-back mane and wearing a fine suit. Dash had only met Top Rate a couple of times, but every encounter left her feeling like she needed a shower afterwards. The look of surprise and discomfort on his face was the first time she had seen him wear anything other than a well-polished smile.
Shadowbolt grinned. “Like I said, Rainbow Dash is no quitter, so we can move along with the merchandi—”
“Where is she?” Dash growled.
“In the hospital,” Shadowbolt calmly replied. “Didn’t the doctors tell you?”
“Yeah, they told me what you paid them to tell me,” Dash spat. “I made sure to check before I came here. Where is she?”
“Rainbow Dash,” Shadowbolt sighed, “You’re still recovering, so your head isn’t clear. What I can tell you is that Scootaloo made a foolish mistake and tried to fo—”
“Stop lying to me!” Dash slammed the ground, dissipating a bit of the cloud structure and sending bolts racing across the floor. The outburst forced her to cough, but she never took her blistering glare off of Shadowbolt. “We both know she could never get up there on her own! Where is she?”
Shadowbolt got up. “Brat. You’re not seeing the full picture. You don’t even realize what you did. I apologize for the injuries and have already agreed to pay in full for your medical expenses, but that is just part of the job. Now stop asking questions about a useless foal and get back to the hospital.”
“Not until you tell me where she is!” Dash shouted. She charged forward, but Shadowbolt raced in front of her and pinned her to the ground. She still glared up at him. “I’m not leaving until you tell me!”
“Who cares? She’ll be with her mother from now on anyway. Good riddance.” Shadowbolt pressed down hard on one of Dash’s legs. “Rainbow Dash, you and your parents are testing my limits, but I am understanding. So, when you are in a better state of mind and I’m finished telling your parents this was all just a tragic accident, we’ll be right back on track. That’s what you want, right? The gate to heroism and fame is at the tips of your hooves. You’re not going to give that up over a foalish recovery-induced tantrum, are you?”
Due to Dash’s stomp and her tussle with Shadowbolt, a few materials from his desk had fallen onto the floor. She saw there were shirts, buttons, and pens with her cutie mark emblazoned on it, of far higher quality than the hoof-made stuff her parents had fashioned. Dash stopped glaring at Shadowbolt and unclenched her muscles. Shadowbolt removed his hoof.
“Good.” Shadowbolt walked away and back behind his desk. “Now, Mr. Rate and I have some business to discuss about your future and I—”
A bolt of lightning struck the top of the desk and ignited the merchandise on it. Shadowbolt slashed a wing to dissipate the flames, but another bolt crashed into his wing. His eyes bulged as he clutched his crackling wing and his face darkened. “You foal! What in Tartarus are you doing!?”
Dash responded by taking a hoof to her flank and zapping it until the electricity burnt through the bandages and seared the skin underneath, forever obscuring Dash’s cutie mark on that side. The act stunned even Shadowbolt long enough for Dash to do the same to her other cutie mark. Through clenched teeth, Dash snarled, “I’m leaving, that’s what I’m doing. I’m done. You’re no hero, you’re a monster.”
“Fine!” Shadowbolt exploded. “You go! You stupid foal! After everything I’ve done, you get into one accident and call it quits!? Get out! And don’t ever expect to see Scootaloo again either!”
“I will find her!” Dash shouted back. “And we will team up and surpass you!”
With just one wing, Dash launched into the air and tore through the wall to escape.
♦♦♦
“That was the last I saw of Shadowbolt,” said Dash. “I’ve been looking for Scootaloo ever since, but Manehattan is a big city and because of her ties to Shadowbolt, Scootaloo’s mom isn’t in any public listings. She’s retired from her work too, so I can’t find her in directories either. I’ll find Scootaloo one day though.”
Dash turned and walked toward an intersection in the hall. She gazed up at the ceiling with her back to Twilight. “Until that day comes, and even after, I’ll rely solely on my physical abilities to show Scootaloo, wherever she is, that I need her as my partner. It’s also to show that bastard that I’m forging ahead on my own. If I don’t use his style, nopony will ever know I trained under him. I will deny him everything.”
Dash glanced back at Twilight. “Keep your connection to Princess Celestia to yourself if you want, I get that, but I will rise above you with without relying on weather manipulation.”
Twilight remained silent until Dash started to walk away. She gulped and took a step forward. “I… I’ve always had help. My teachers and my friends, including you, Rainbow Dash, are the only reason I’ve come so far. For all of them, for you, I’ll become a hero like Princess Celestia that always smiles when she saves ponies in order to repay the help you’ve given me.
“It’s a weak motivation compared to yours…” Twilight bowed her head. Taking a breath, she raised a leg and jabbed it at Dash, “…but I’m not going to lose. So, let me say it to you the same way you said it to me. I’m going to beat you!”
Twilight’s echo rang down the hall and reached Sunset’s ears. She pressed up closer against the corner and let the declaration sink in.