//------------------------------// // Exposed // Story: Spits Fire // by CommanderApplejack //------------------------------// The sun was shining down on the Wonderbolt headquarters in Cloudsdale as Spitfire, Rainbow, and Soarin arrived at the complex. Circling like vultures outside of the perimeter were press ponies who dove onto them in an attempt to get an interview. All of their shouted questions were ignored by the captain as she barged inside. The hallways of the headquarters were completely empty as they made their way through the building, something that rarely happened. “Where is everypony? There should be at least some staff members walking around…” Spitfire muttered as they checked a few offices. “I think I can hear ponies in the cafeteria, Cap,” Soarin called out from up ahead. Rainbow remained close to her marefriend as they headed for the cafeteria. As they approached the definite sound of ponies talking to each other reached their ears, and they entered to find everypony with various papers in their hooves, all huddled up around two of the cafeteria’s tables arguing with each other. Great, just how many papers have this on their front page? A wing was placed on her back as Dash stepped beside her. “Don’t worry Spits. I’m sure they just want answers.” Spitfire sighed and nuzzled Rainbow. “Yeah, I guess so…” The captain stepped forward and sat down on a bench at one of the empty tables, resting her forelegs on the metal surface while observing the other ponies and listening to them. Some of them were arguing that the picture with the headlines were fake while others disputed the claims made within the articles themselves. In a bid to gain attention Spitfire cleared her throat, but nopony seemed to hear the captain. Oh for the love of Celestia… Clang! The metal table dented inwards as Spitfire smashed her hoof into it, the loud noise abruptly stopping all of the chatter. Everyone stared at the captain who returned to calmly sitting at the table, though internally she was having a fierce battle to keep that facade up. “Hey, Cap, this stuff about being a changeling… It’s a hoax right?” Misty Fly stepped forward and threw a copy of the Gawking Unicorn in front of Spitfire. “I mean, that picture is obviously doctored.” The captain glanced to the side where Rainbow was silently trying to give her encouragement to continue before looking back at Misty. “No, I’m not a changeling…” A murmur went through the attending staff, some of the ponies looking relieved while others still looked skeptical. “…Nor is the image doctored.” The murmurs stopped as abruptly as they had started. “Then what in Celestia’s name is going on? If it’s real, where did the fire come from then?!” Fleetfoot exclaimed as she stepped forward. Spitfire’s heart was beating in her throat as she prepared to spill the beans of her secret to the ponies she’d worked with for years. They deserve to know. I’ve worked closely with all of these ponies and trust some of them with my life… I should have told them a long time ago, shouldn’t I? “The fire is mine, Fleetfoot. I breathed it out. I’m not a changeling but part dragon.” Spitfire watched as her fellow bolt rapidly went through a set of emotions and tried stuttering a reply. She eventually settled with an indignant huff and barged to the exit, Rainbow tried stopping her to talk but was shoved out of the way. “I’m not sure if I should hear you out further or follow her.” Misty pointed at the still swinging door Fleetfoot had left through. “Seriously, how could you? Everything we’ve been through over the years, and you didn’t give a peep… Why?” Spitfire’s eyes teared a bit, her calm composure cracking under Misty’s accusing glare. “Because I was afraid.” A tear fell onto the metal surface of the table followed by another one as they rolled into the hoof-shaped dent. Rainbow couldn’t bear to see Spitfire on the verge of breaking down and slid onto the bench next to the captain, pulling her close. “I-I’m sorry, Cap. I need some time by myself to wrap my head around this,” Misty said. Her tone had softened, but it was clear that she needed the space as she exited the room the same way Fleetfoot had left. “Alright everypony, back to work! We won’t have heard the end of this for a good while yet, and sitting here isn’t going to help in any way,” Soarin exclaimed as he broke up the gathering of pegasi who slowly trickled out of the cafeteria. The lieutenant took a seat across from the two mares and sighed. “I’m going to figure out how many newspapers have this as their headline. I’ve got a bad feeling that we can’t ignore this one and are going to have to do a press release.” “Yeah, thanks Soarin,” Spitfire sniffed, wiping away her tears. “I-I need to de-stress.” The captain broke away from Rainbow and made her way through the hallways in the direction of the gym section of the HQ, entering the dojo in particular. The room had a ring in the center for sparring fights and was surrounded by punching bags. Dash followed her into the room, taking a seat in a corner where she was out of the way while observing the captain putting on some protective padding. “Don’t you have better things to do than watch me, Dash?” “Not really,” Rainbow casually answered. “I’m pretty sure I’m right where I’m supposed to be actually.” Spitfire huffed but didn’t argue against the other pegasus being there as she started her warmup. Not that it took long for Rainbow to start fidgeting out of boredom anyway, so the mare decided that if she was going to be here, she might as well join in. Putting on some padding herself she joined Spitfire in the warmup. The two eventually started a sparring exercise. “Fleetfoot didn’t take it well, and Blaze will probably follow her in that opinion,” Spitfire sniffed, hitting Dash on her padding as swiftly as possible after the rainbow pegasus had presented an opening. “I’m sure they’ll come around, Spits. We both know how those two are,” Dash responded, dancing around the ring to keep the captain on the tips of her hooves. “Yeah, two complete hardheads that have minds that are really hard to change,” Spitfire sarcastically answered, the impact of her next punch pushed Dash back as the captain fueled it with some of her underlying rage and pain. “Not everypony was going to just accept and move on. We knew that from the start.” The sparring fight slowly but surely turned into sets of fast punches, and Rainbow was no longer just defending but also actively seeking opportunities herself. The two ponies were constantly changing stances, going from all fours to standing on hindlegs only to fall back down to fours again. “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt!” Spitfire shouted, tears now flowing as the fight continued, the intensity of the hits increasing ever so slightly. “No, it doesn’t! But are you just going to mope about it here or are we going to do something about it!?” Rainbow Spotted an opening in the defense of the captain as she shouted back at her, her hoof colliding with the side of Spitfire’s head hard. The firey maned pegasus was knocked dazed to the ground, shaking her head as she focussed on the opponent standing on the edge of the ring. A low growl escaped her maw as she charged and tackled the other pegasus out of the ring and pinned her to the ground. “I TRIED DOING SOMETHING AND HE STILL REJECTED ME!” Spitfire roared into Dash’s face, fangs fully bared and breathing heavily as tears flowed out of her eyes. Rainbow lay completely still under the iron grip her marefriend had over her, Spitfire’s hot breath flowing over her face along with tears dropping from her eyes. “Is that why you have such a hard time telling ponies?” Dash asked as calmly as she could under the dragon hybrid, but couldn’t escape the tremble in her voice. Spitfire immediately looked afraid again as memories long buried came crashing back. “Spits, what happened?” A lump formed in the captain’s throat as she saw the event’s flash in front of her eyes, her legs trembling and collapsing as she broke down crying onto Dash’s chest. “W-We used to b-be best friends. N-Nothing could tear u-us apart… until he f-found out.” Rainbow gently brushed her marefriend’s hair as she sobbed. “Shhh, let it out Spits. Some ponies will be like that, nothing you can do about it, but there will be many more that will want to be your friends… or even lovers.” A smile formed in Spitfire’s face as she shot forward and pressed her lips against Rainbow’s, locking her into a passionate kiss. “Hey, Cap I-” Soarin stopped dead in his tracks as he saw the position his fellow ‘Bolts were in. “Uhm… Okay, I guess this is a thing.” Both Spitfire and Rainbow sheepishly looked over at the Lieutenant. “Yeah, cool. Anyway, I got my hooves on all the newspapers I could and it’s not good… We’re going to have to make a statement.” Soarin threw a stack of newspapers and tabloids onto the floor where the captain could read them, and they all had the same image with different attention-grabbing headlines. Spitfire wiped away the tears from her eyes and allowed Dash to get off of the ground as well. “Horseapples, that’s not good… There’s something else?” The look on the stallion’s face gave away that that wasn’t all. “The Royal Guard is here, Captain… Princess Celestia as well.” The color drained from Spitfire’s face as she heard that news, but before she could panic Dash intervened. “Don’t. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not true,” the rainbow maned pegasus stated resolutely. “I’ve seen Twilight freak so many times about not pleasing the Princess only to find her to be completely relaxed about the situation. The only time she was really pissed was that incident with that doll a year ago… I’ll tell you about it later. We should get going if the princess is here.” Spitfire nodded in agreement, turning to Soarin. “Where is she waiting? I want to get dressed first. She is the commander in chief after all.” “Mission briefing room. I’ll make sure she knows you’re coming,” Soarin said before heading out of the dojo. “I’ll join you. The princess knows me in a non-professional way as well, and it's good for you to have a friendly face with you,” Dash said before the two of them split up to get don proper dress and meet back up at the briefing room in ten minutes. Spitfire for one rushed over to her office where she had her dress suit stored, swiftly putting on the set of clothes and checking if everything was in perfect order. Trust Rainbow, Spits. She’s probably right about the princess. Spitfire made her way towards the briefing room where the princess was seated. Rainbow met up with her at exactly the ten-minute mark. Spitfire swiftly straightened the tie on the other mare’s suit. “Ready?” Dash asked, getting a nervous chuckle from Spitfire. “No, but it’s not like I’m going to get out of this anyway.” Two royal guards were stationed at the entrance to the room and only stepped aside when Dash and Spitfire made their way for the door. The briefing room was a relatively small chamber compared to other rooms, it had a table in the center with seats around it and maps hanging on the surrounding walls. Though what drew her eyes was the solar princess regally sitting at the head of the table with a pot of what looked to be tea. The captain snapped to attention, Rainbow doing the same next to her. “Captain Spitfire, your Highness.” “Senior Airpony Dash, your Highness.” “At ease, Wonderbolts, please take a seat,” Princess Celestia told them, very calmly taking a sip from her cup. “Do either of you two want a cup of tea?” Celestia levitated two additional cups up as she offered. “Y-Yes please, your Highness,” Spitfire politely accepted, followed by Rainbow’s decline. “Don’t worry, Captain, you are not in trouble. The first thing that I got after reading the newspaper this morning was a scroll sent by Princess Twilight vouching for your character,” Celestia chuckled as it wasn’t hard to sense that Spitfire was tense, a cup of tea levitated into place in front of her. “Not that it was required of course, but it gave me some insights on what happened last night.” Rainbow shot Spitfire a look of ‘I told you so’ as some of the tension left the captain’s body. “Could you elaborate on that please, Princess?” Spitfire asked Celestia. “I’ve been around for a good while, Captain. You’re not the first pony I’ve met who’s had draconic traits. It’s rare to find one for obvious reasons, but usually it happens about every century or so,” Celestia smiled as Spitfire’s eyes widened in shock. “But one of the defining things about each and every one of them is that they were all extraordinary in their own right.” The princess turned to Rainbow while the captain let this information sink in. “So why are you accompanying the captain, Rainbow Dash?” “Well, you know,” Rainbow scratched the back of her head, “Spits was a bit nervous, and I thought it best to go with her.” Celestia grinned and leaned forward, “Was that a pet name there, Rainbow? Be careful with that around Cadance or she’s going to interrogate you for hours.” Spitfire immediately choked on a sip of tea, her eyes going wide. Celestia took this as confirmation of her hunch. “I must say that I hadn’t expected this when I came here, Captain.” “She’s a total softy once you get through the outer shell.” Rainbow had a massive grin plastered on her face as she shot back the line Spitfire had used on her with Soarin the previous night. “And yeah, I’m pretty sure we’re going to have our hooves full with Rarity and Pinkie already,” Dash snickered, Spitfire meanwhile had her face go completely red with a furious blush. “Oh definitely. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re immediately going to claim the right to organize the wedding and design the dresses respectively,” the princess smirked, looking over at the captain who was desperately trying to destroy the integrity of the clouds that made up the floor so that she could sink into them. “Don’t forget AJ with the catering!” Dash exclaimed, holding back laughter at the sight of her embarrassed marefriend. “Oh come on Spitty, can’t handle some banter with the Princess? Me and the girls spent an entire night exchanging gossip with her at Donut Joe’s after that botched Grand Galloping Gala.” The captain tried sputtering a reply, but her entire train of thought derailed and came screeching to a halt. Donut Joe… They what!? “I think we broke the dear captain, Rainbow,” the Princess snickered. “We should return to the matter at hoof before we derail further anyway, leave the gossip for the next time I find the time to visit my fellow princess in Ponyville.” “Yes ma‘am!” Rainbow snapped a quick salute to the princess. “Good. Now captain, concerning the press outside, the crown will support you, but I cannot guarantee that for the noble houses. When I get back I’ll be meeting with Fancy, Fleur, and Blueblood to discuss our strategy,” Celestia explained. Spitfire straightened up a bit and tried to wipe the red from her face. “Just know that I personally cannot control the press while some noble houses can.” “So the smears aren’t going away any time soon… great,” Spitfire grumbled. She was used to the press trying to get dirt on her or any of the other bolts but never something as targeted as this. “I’m afraid not, but you’ll get through this. I have to go again captain. I’m sure we’ll meet again, but both of us will be plenty busy over the next couple of days.” The princess stood up from the table, lighting her horn which made the tea set disappear, and headed for the door where she and her guard left for Canterlot again. Soarin, who was waiting outside while the princess was still there, came trotting in. “You look like you’ve got more bad news,” Rainbow commented as she saw the pale look on the stallion’s face. “Captain, your mom is here.”