//------------------------------// // 13 Sleepover, a trip to remember // Story: Crushed: The Beginnings // by Silent Wing //------------------------------// Celestia's sun was already high in the sky, when we arrived in Cloudsdale. The long flight had taken its toll on us and all of us were panting after this long flight. It takes a while for me to recover from it, since I have never flown anywhere as long as now. “Come on girls, let’s get some breakfast.” Raindrops says, pointing to a nearby cafe, before she leads our small group over to it.   While the others talk about what we should do first, I have trouble to keep my eyes open. Having trouble sleeping is something I am used to, but normally it isn’t that much of a problem, when I have somepony to snuggle with. Sadly, it didn’t help this night and when I finally fell asleep, it was already past midnight. That Rainys dad woke us very early, didn’t help either and so I have trouble staying awake, not even mentioning flying.    How I made it this far is still a mystery to me and I am about to doze off again, when somepony starts talking to me. “Wingy, you there?” Raindrops basically shouts into my ear, catching my attention.   “Hm, did I miss anything?” I ask tired, wondering if I missed anything important.   “We just wanted to know, what you would like for breakfast.” Raindrops explains, politely gesturing to the waitress.    “Oh, some apple pie and a hot Chocolate would be nice, if that’s okay.” I reply, after I took a quick look at the menu.    “It sure is.” The waitress replies cheerful, before she walks back into the kitchen, returning immediately with our drinks and assuring us, that our food will be along shortly.   “So is anypony for the first time in Cloudsdale?” Wave Chill asks and I hesitantly raise my hoof, not feeling very well, since it looks like I am the only Pony. The others look slightly shocked at me, not really expecting this, but this doesn’t hold long, when they start to teach me about all the amazing thinks you could do up here. From then on, it only gets better and I even managed to overcome my sleepiness, curtsy to the hot Chocolate.   We really enjoy breakfast, before we leave the coffee, making our way to the weather factory. While till now Wave Chill was in charge of the group, this changes as soon as we reach the factory, since this is where Raindrops often works and so it comes to noponies surprise, when she insists to shows us everything, there is to know.   We get our safety gear and Raindrops leads us into the first room, where snowflakes for the winter are created. She explains to us how they are made and why it is important to make them only this way, before we follow her to an empty workbench. “Does anypony want to try and make her own snowflakes?”   Excited screams come from all of us, before we focus the next half hour on the task at hoof. Raindrops occasionally checking on everypony, giving tips whenever they are needed. We enjoy this as long as we can, before we get interrupted by the head of the department, who is surprised that somepony decided to visit the factory today. She talks a bit with Raindrops and before she has to leave us again, she takes a good look at our work. “Sorry girls, but even if they are good for your first time, they aren't good enough to be used in the next winter.”   She asks one of the other workers to get something and we wait for a moment until what she wanted is delivered. “These Cases are specially enchanted, so whatever is in them, stays like it is for the next twenty years." She explains to use, showing us four small glass boxes. “So why don’t you choose the snowflake you think of as the best and take it with home.”   We do as asked and carefully put them into the boxes, before we have to say goodbye to the nice mare and Raindrops leads us to the next two departments.    In the first one we aren’t allowed to stay long, since Lightning production is really dangerous and so we march straight through it, entering the next room. “WOOOOW.” Is all I am able to say, by the amazing sight in front of me. Large ponds of Rainbow are on the lower floor, while one floor up I see some Pegasi mixing in stuff in really large pots.   “I don’t think that I have to explain what is made in here.” Raindrops says and we all nod in agreement.   A nearby mare with a light turquoise coat and amber mane notice that I suppress yet another yawn, which I could hide from the others till now, before she comes over to us. “You look a bit tired. I have something that could help you with this, if you are interested.” She addresses me and without even thinking, I accept the small flask she is offering me, drinking all of its content in one go.   It doesn’t take long for me to regret my actions, when a warm feeling begins to spread through me, focusing mostly in my mouth. At first, I don’t think anything of it, but the intensity of this feeling begins to increase with a freighting speed. Soon it feels like my entire muzzle is on fire and I just realize that it must be some kind of hot sauce she offered to me.   I look from the unlabelled flask back to the mare, only now spotting that vicious grin on her face, before the heat becomes to much for me. I don’t really know what’s happening, but I feel something cold on my coat, before I lose my consciousness.       I awake some time later, laying on something soft, by the feeling of another Pony nuzzling my check. For a moment I am unsure, if I really should open my eyes, but since I want to find out why my mouth and throat feels like I swallowed a Vulcan, it would be better to find somepony able to answer this question.    I open my eyes, groaning in discomfort as I get blinded by a bright light, which force me to close them again immediately. “Hey, I think she is waking up.” I hear an excited voice coming from above me, followed by more voices talking nearby. I try once more to open my eyes, only with the difference that I do it slowly this time, so that my eyes can get used to the bright light.   I look around, finding myself in a room that looks oddly similar to a break room, from one of the companies I worked for years ago. Expect I see three familiar Ponies sitting on some chairs close to me, before a certain grey snout enters my field of view again, obviously to nuzzle me again. “Hey Rumble.” I great him the moment his snout touches my check again, sounding a bit tired and hoarse.   Everypony turns their head in my direction, the moment I speak up, before I see two yellow blurs rushing to me, before I get the feeling that all of my bones get crushed, so forceful is the group hug, I find myself in. “Girls, calm down. Don’t you see that Wingy is turning blue already?” The Pony I instantly recognize as Wave Chill speaks up, clearly worried about the fact that I have trouble breathing. “Sorry Wingy.” Rori and Rainy apologize after letting go of me.   I take a few deep breaths, before I focus my attention on them. “It’s okay girls. I doubt that I would have acted differently, would I have been in your horseshoes.” I take a short break, before I ask the question that’s plaguing my mind since I woke up. “So, can anypony please tell me what happened?”   “You don’t know?” Wave Chill asks shocked and I can only reply by shaking my head in denial, since for some unknown reason, I have trouble to speak without feeling pain. “Okay then, what is the last thing you remember Wingy?”   I think for a moment about it, before I give my answer. “I know for sure that we were making snowflakes, before the doors to the next room opened, but after that…..”  I trail off at the end, a bit scared about what I forgot and suddenly I am not so sure if I really want to know what happened.   “That’s good, I feared you lost much more of your memories, but it looks like you only miss a few minutes.”  Wave Chill replies with a sigh, sounding kind of reliefed. I for my part not and I am unsure if it’s really good, after all these are my memories he is speaking of. What if this is only the beginning and I start to lose more of my memories. I think a bit about more about this possibility and the more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion, that losing the memories of my previous life wouldn’t be so bad.   “Wingy you there?” Rumble asks me, giving me once again a soft nuzzle and rips me out of my thoughts.   “Sorry, I kind of zoned out, when you mentioned my memories.” I reply in earnest, which earns me more then one confused look. “So, what exactly happened?” I ask again, trying to distract them, so they don’t think too much about what I just said.   “A Pony tricked you into drinking liquid Rainbow and you passed out only a few moments later.” He tells me as this would explain everything, but I don’t get what Rainbows could possibly have to do with me passing out. A few moments pass until he realizes that I don’t know, where he is going with that before he starts explaining it to me.   “Liquid Rainbow is what we use to paint the Rainbows in the sky or we use them as decorations. But if you want you can also drink it, but you have to keep in mind that it is extremely hot and so most ponies only use it to give there drink a special touch.”    “So, you are telling me, that this mare made me drink hot sauce?” I want to know from him, not really appealed by this kind of news.   “Basically yes, only that liquid Rainbow is much stronger than any known hot sauce.”   “At least that explains, why I feel as if Princess Celestia tried to shove her bucking sun down my throat.”    Silence. I expected many reactions about my outburst but not that everypony falls dead silent. Shocked gasps, scolding for my bad choice of words, outrageous cries of shock. These are all things I expected and I could live with, but not this dreading silence. A while passes before the first pony recovers and I hear Rumbles voice asking me, “Wingy, I know you prefer Princess Luna, but don’t you think that this is a bit much?”   I think for a moment about Rumbles words, who for a Pony that prefers Princess Celestia is very understanding, before I admit that he could be right. “Maybe, but I really don’t know how to say it better.”   “Then at least no cursing, okay?”   I sigh in defeat, knowing that he is right and since he doesn’t ask for too much, I agree to it without second thoughts. “Okay Rumble.”    We all wait for a moment till everypony has recovered from my outburst, before Rumble asks. “Now with Wingy back in the land of the living, what are we going to do now?” This is a question I would like to have the answer to.   “How about some ice cream?” Wave Chill offers, bringing everyponies smile back, before we leave the weather factory behind us. We don’t walk far, since Raindrops still isn’t back, but that changes right after we made ourselves comfortable, only a few meters away from an ice cream shop.   She lands right next to us, looks around and focus her gaze on her husband. “Wave, where in Tartarus is my ice cream?” He hoofs her his own ice, before going back to the shop to get himself a new one.    “How did it go?” He asks Raindrops, directly after he is back. Curious about what he is talking, I also focus on them.   “At first, he wanted to fire her, but I could convince him otherwise, instead he just demoted and reassigned her.” She waits a moment for our reaction and an evil grin begins to form on her face, before she tells us just what this mare has to do from now. “From monday on, this mare will be a simple Ponyville weather pony.”    Everypony, expect Wave Chill breaks out in laughter and I almost feel pity for that mare, wouldn’t it be for the cruel joke she pulled on me. “Would anypony mind to explain, what is so funny about this? I think she got off way too easy.”   “I only can imagine what mama D will do to her, once I tell her about this.” I think out loud, ignoring his question, which makes everypony break out into uncontrolled laughter once more. It takes us several minutes to calm down from our laughing fit again and when I feel Wave Chills confused look on me, I explain to him, why we take it so good. “Well mama D is the Captain of the weather team and she can be very protective.”   “Oh, that’s mean.” He tells us his own opinion. We enjoy the rest of our ice cream, while all the time discussing what Rainbow Dash will do to her, before Wave Chill gets up. He reminds us that we have more planned for today and that we should go to our next destination soon, if we want to make  it on time.   After a short argument, if we couldn’t have more ice cream, we get up and follow him. Instead of walking, like we did earlier, we fly this time. Even if we fly to the other side of the city, it isn’t a very long flight and after only a few minutes the shape of the Cloudsdale Colosseum is clearly visible. “Dad aren’t we a bit early, it still is a while before the show starts.” Rainy asks, after she realizes just what our destination is.   “Who said that we are only here for the show?” He replies smiling, before he lands at a side entrance. he leads us through several small corridors, before we find ourselves in the locker room, where already a few of the Wonderbolts are preparing for their show. “Hey guys.”   When hearing Wave Chills greetings, everypony turns their head around and I immediately spot a very familiar Pony, which I haven’t seen in a while now. Our eyes meet and it only takes a moment for her to recognize me from our last meeting at home. She wants to say something, but is interrupted by the arrival of Captain Spitfire, who takes a short look at us. “Wave Chill, are these all your daughters? I thought you only have two.” She asks as surprised as I, since the news that Rainy has a sister is something I didn’t knew yet.   “Yeah turns out that you miss quite a few things, when you spend three weeks at the academy. Like for example your daughter having a sleepover, the weekend you planned for her to meet your teammates.” He actual informs Captain Spitfire and I get the feeling, as if she would be responsible for his long absence from home.    “So instead of just taking her with you, you decided to bring all of them?” She replies annoyed, sounding very unhappy about the fact to be in the company of more foals than expected.   “What else should I have done Captain?” He asks her for other options, not getting any reply from the brilliant golden mare.    The silence holds for a few moments before the mare sighs in defeat, admitting that there wasn’t any good option available. “Urgh, fine, change of plan. Soarin, Fleetfoot, Misty Fly, I need your help with this.”   “Sure Cap, what can we do?” Misty Fly is the first to ask and I think they are as curios about what Captain Spitfire has in mind, as we are.   “Each of you trains with one of those three.” She informs them, while pointing at Rori, Rumble and me. “And in two hours, we meet up here again.”   “And what about Rainy?” I want to know from her, curios why Spitfire didn’t say anything about her.   “You mean my personal student?” She explains with a smirk on her face, causing Rainy to gasps in shock, not having expected this answer. We quickly split up and while Rumble ends up with Misty Fly, Soarin teams up with Rori, leaving me with Fleetfoot.   She waits for the others to leave, till we two are alone in the locker room, before she comes over and gives me a quick nuzzle. “Hey Wingy, how are Flitter and Cloudchaser doing?”   “Oh, mommy is fine, but aunt Cloudy still tries to go on a date with Thunderlane.” I answer her question, not very happy about this before I change the topic. “You come to the Party next week?”   “Of course, I'll come.” She exclaims shocked, that I thought she would possibility skip out of that. “I never would miss the birthday of my favourite twins.” Hearing this makes me happy and now, for the first time in over ten years, I actually begin looking forward to a Party.   I wait for a few moments, before I focus back on what was said earlier. “What is it that Spitfire wants us to train for?” “I have a good guess, but for this to work, we should join the others now.”  She answers my question, without telling me, what I really want to know from her. Slightly upset about this, I follow her out into the Arena, where everypony is practicing multiple different stunts for the time, till we met up in the locker room again.   A white Pegasus mare with a yellow mane and tail is already waiting there for us, with four small packages waiting on her back. “You got everything Surprise?” Spitfire asks the mare in question, which after a short nod, gives each of us one of the boxes.   I open it and to my surprise in it is a pair of flight goggles and a Wonderbolt flight suit. “They won’t fit perfectly, since I had to guess your sizes, but they should do for now.”    “Now you better put them on, since we still have to train.” She orders us, before she explains to us for what we are actually training. I may not be a huge fan of the Wonderbolts, but I am amazed by her idea and wonder if we really can pull this off.    PoV Flitter, Several hours later:   “I know you are eager to see this show Dashie, but there is no reason to hurry like this.” I scold my marefriend, who is close to lose her patients, since waiting has never been one of her strengths.   “Flits, if this line doesn’t move any faster, we will miss the show.” She replies upset about how slow the line is moving. Sadly, I have to agree with her on this.   “Luckily you don’t have to wait here anymore.” I hear a familiar voice speaking to us and when I look into the direction where it came from, I am surprised by the sight of the mare that just spoke to us.   “Raindrops, shouldn’t you be with the girls?” I ask her, concerned about the wellbeing of my daughter.   “Nah, they are with Rainys dad, so they should be fine.” She shrugs it off, but I don't like the sound of it. The words ‘should be’ are raising many concern in me. “Follow me, your tickets got an upgrade.”   “How do you know about this Dropsi, after all, this are our Tickets you are talking about?” Rainbow asks her surprised, but when she doesn’t get an answer from Raindrops, she falls in line behind the two of us.   “Aren’t these seats reserved for family members of the Wonderbolts only?” I ask her, when we arrive at our destination after a short flight.   “Not exactly.” One of the stallions guarding the entrance explains. “Family members of Wonderbolts are always allowed to bring some friends.” I nod in understanding, while Dashie just blinks confused, since she doesn’t know about Raindrops husband.   Raindrops leads us to some free seats and we have a pleasant conversation with each other, while waiting for the show to begin. Shortly after Princess Luna raised the moon, a single Pegasus flies into the stadium, before she begins to hover in it’s centre. The Pegasus looks around the entire stadium, before raising a microphone to her muzzle. “HELLO CLOUDSDALE.”    She makes her presence known and those that didn’t notice her till now, focus their attention solemnly on her. “I know all of you are eager for the show, but first I have to inform you about some small changes in the program.”    This earns a mixed reaction out of the publicum. A part of the audience is upset about the longer wait for the main show, but the bigger part of it is curious about what this mare with a fiery mane has planned for them. “Now, since I know they are eager to start this, just like I at my first show, let’s welcome THE WONDERBOLT JUNIOR DIVISION.”    Captain Spitfire explains, shouting the last four words into her microphone, pointing into the direction form where 4 small ponies are flying in. “That can’t be.” I hear Rainbow shouting in shock, when the four ponies are coming closer, I begin to make out details and have an idea about what could have shocked her like this.   “Let me introduce you to Rainy Feather, Princess Erroria, Rumble, and Silent Wing.” She confirms what I assumed, before flying out of the stadium and the four foals begin their own show.   Even if it is not a very difficult performance, I know that at least Wingy must have problems, since she isn’t an experienced flyer yet. They are showing off tricks, I had never seen them practicing before and I have to admit, whoever trained them on such short notice must have done an amazing job.    The main show pass for me in a blur and when Raindrops offers us, to met all of the Bolts, I agree even faster than Rainbow to this. She leads us through a few Corridors and within a matter of minutes we find ourselves in the middle of a locker room, where an artic blue mare has trouble to get out of her flight suit, without disturbing the passenger on her back. “Is this the reason, why you did get replaced with Blaze after a while?”    The mare in question turns her head into my direction and begins to smile, when our eyes meet. “No, I got wingcramps after half of the show and it became too dangerous for me to continue. From then on I decided to keep the only filly still awake company.”   “And why did you get wingcramps?” I continue to question her, having a good guess, why Wingy decided to take a nap on her back.   “You know what, let’s go home first.” She offers us, not really comfortable to talk about it just yet.   “I won’t fly all the way to Ponyville now.” I reply tired, since this day took out more of me then I anticipated   “I had my place in mind for this.” She deflects my argument and I agree to it a bit hesitant, knowing that this would be much closer.   We both say our goodbyes to the others and are about to leave when I realize, that Dashie hasn’t moved an inch since we entered the room and is muttering something under her breath. I step closer, trying to find out what she is saying all the while and fall down laughing on the floor, when I understand what she is repeating the entire time.   “My daughter is a Wonderbolt, my daughter is a Wonderbolt, my daughter is a Wonderbolt….”