“Wow, I did not expect that as the final conclusion for Applejack’s challenge. Lie detectors, changelings, and a bushel of apples. And all credit to Princess Celestia for scoring the best in the final round. She really knows how to tell the good apples from the bad, am I right?” Spike said, speaking both to his co-announcer, Baritone, as well as to all the ponies below that could hear his voice, despite their cheering.
“Yep, and after two rounds it's still anyone’s contest,” Baritone said, injecting enthusiasm and excitement into each word. “Princess Celestia and Princess Twilight are the front runners, tied at eighteen points. Princess Celestia managed another nine points in the last round, and Twilight managed eight after her perfect ten in the first round. Cadance comes in next at seventeen points and Princess Luna brings up the rear with sixteen points.
“Princess Luna may be in the back, but I wouldn’t count her out yet, especially as we go into our third challenge: Rainbow Dash’s challenge of Loyalty! Let’s head down to the field to hear the rules straight from one of the fastest mares in all of Equestria.”
“All right, every… princess, my challenge is going to be a race!”
Cadance chuckled to herself and could see Twilight rolling her eyes. Rainbow Dash’s challenge being a race wasn’t any surprise. On top of the fact they all knew the pegasus’s need for speed, they were standing on a starting line and there was a flight course clearly visible in the clouds above them.
“But it isn’t going to be just any old race,” Rainbow said as she hovered in front of the princesses, a whistle dangling from her neck. “I mean, I have to give Twilight at least a chance at winning.”
“Hey!” Twilight barked.
Cadance had to chuckle again and could hear Luna and Celestia doing the same. Yes, it wasn’t very fair. Twilight was the least experienced when it came to flight, and it was good of Rainbow Dash to try and think of her friend in that regard. But still, not just a traditional race. Cadance was now curious just what Rainbow Dash had come up with.
“We’re going to be doing this as a time trial. Every princess will make one lap around the course on your own. But, for once, it isn’t all about speed,” Rainbow said as she motioned toward Starlight Glimmer, who was standing just off to the side. Starlight levitated into place a chalkboard map, which seemed to depict Ponyville and how the racetrack wound around the town.
“Yes, your time is going to matter. The princess with the fastest time is going to get the best points for completing the race, but a lesson I’ve learned is that you can’t be so focused on yourself that you fail to help your friends, or in your case, the citizens of Equestria you rule.” Rainbow slapped her hoof against the board. “At several places around the course, there are going to be ponies in peril. You’ll need to help some of them if you’re hoping to get full points in this challenge, but not all of them.”
“And why would we not help all those ponies we see in danger?” Celestia asked, though she used a tone of voice that Cadance knew all too well. It was Celestia’s rhetorical question voice. Celestia used it when she felt the answer to a question was rather obvious, at least to her, and she was asking for those who didn't have the same realization.
“Because not all of them need your help. Some ponies in peril are the real deal or as real as we can make it for the challenge. But there are… are… red bearings…”
“Red herrings,” Starlight corrected from the sideline.
Rainbow blushed a little and rubbed the back of her head. “Right, red herrings along the course as well. There will be ponies who look like they're in trouble, but they can either help themselves or have someone nearby that can. That’s why you’re each running the course solo.
“For every pony you help that actually needs your help, you’ll have that portion of your time forgiven. If, however, you help a red herring, you’re burning seconds off the clock. So, take it slow and steady,” Rainbow said, crossing her forehooves before she chuckled. “Though not too slow. It is still a race after all.”
Cadance had a feeling Rainbow got help from one of her other friends with this challenge, but… it certainly made things more interesting. Yes, it was still a race. The time it took you to complete the single lap would be a big factor in whether you won or lost. Part of Cadance’s mind turned over the rules, and she realized a small gap in the ruleset. She put a hoof into the air. “What happens if we fail to help somepony that does need our assistance?”
“For that, we’re doing something Applejack calls Rodeo Rules. You make a mistake like that, you take a time penalty.”
Cadance nodded. That both answered her real question and also told her who helped Rainbow plan her challenge. If you asked Cadance’s opinion, the loyalty challenge had some undercurrents of honesty to it. Still, no one was asking, and as the other princesses began to step away from the starting line, Cadance had to refocus herself. For this challenge, the rotation had gotten to her.
For the Challenge of Loyalty, she had to go first.
The stadium roar began to shift. The sections of the stands that were filled with ponies cheering for her grew louder as others grew quiet, but still, the din of the audience washed over her with relative consistency. Cadance took a glance up to the royal box and saw Flurry, Shining, and Shining’s parents. At some point, Shining had purchased what could only be described as princess merch in Cadance’s colors. He was waving a pink flag with Cadance’s cutie mark on it, and Flurry had something pink as well. It was hard to be sure from a distance, but it looked like one of those foam hooves, though Flurry was currently wearing it like a hat.
Cadance felt her heart flutter just imagining how cute it would be to see up close. They’d have to get a picture once the contest was over.
“You ready, Princess Cadance?” Rainbow landed next to the starting line, her whistle sticking out of one corner of her mouth while her hoof stood on a mechanism that would trigger the race clock.
Cadance took one more moment to look at Flurry and Shining before turning her attention to Rainbow. She gave a nod and then turned her head forward. She dug her hooves into the ground, spread her wings, and got into what was a very common starting position for a flight race.
“On your mark… get set…. TWWEET.”
Cadance took off like a firework, a gust of wind following in her wake as she headed for the first cloud hoop. The first few hoops circled the stadium, creating a long, curving upward climb that would carry her past the crowd and out of the stadium. Cadance tried to get her momentum going during this simple section, gaining speed even as she ascended higher and higher into the air.
After completing three full circles and gaining several hundred feet in altitude, the next hoop of the race broke away from the stadium and headed off towards the center of Ponyville. Cadance tucked her wings a little and went into a dive. She looked ahead, following the line of the hoops to try and optimize her path between them.
She dropped out of the air like a rollercoaster descending from its first hill, the cloud hoops guiding her to the streets of Ponyville. Normally Cadance didn’t fly this fast so low to the ground, but at the very least the chosen streets were wide and empty. She could see that the roads chosen for the flight course had been blocked off.
Yet, as she took a bank and began flying down another straight away, Cadance saw some ponies on the side of the street. One was a mare Cadance recognized from her visits with Twilight’s friends. It was Granny Smith, Applejack’s grandmother.
The elderly mare, with a coat as green as the apple that shared her name, was howling, calling to the heavens. “Stop, thief!”
The pony Granny Smith was shouting at was someone Cadance didn’t immediately recognize. A big, sturdy stallion wearing a mask over their face. In the stallion’s teeth was a purse, jiggling and dangling about.
Cadance pumped her wings and brought her hooves to the ground, skidding across the dirt road as she called on her magic. She levitated up the thief, stopping his escape and making him yelp. A pair of guards came around a cornerback earlier on the course and were running in the direction of the commotion.
Separating the thief from the purse, Cadance dropped the thief on the ground near the officers before taking herself and the purse back over to Granny Smith. “Here you are. I hope you’re alright.”
“Oh… why thank you, dearie. I don’t know what I would have done if that thief got away,” Granny answered, likely a scripted line she was told to say. Though, Cadance was sure she was ad-libbing a bit as well.
“It was no trouble. You have a safe day now,” Cadance said before quickly turning and getting back into the air. Even as Cadance got back on the course, she felt that she had done the right thing. Helping an older mare that had just gotten her purse stolen, that had to be something worth stopping for. That had to be a service even a princess could do for Equestria.
And so the course went. As Cadance flew through the streets of Ponyville and the farms beyond, she spotted a total of ten different emergencies. The first one was, obviously, helping stop a purse thief. The other tests along the course only seemed to escalate upward from that.
There was a cat stuck in a tree, and shortly after Cadance saw a mother who dropped her groceries and was trying to pick them up, only for her baby's carriage to start rolling away. There was a young filly, crying alone in a park. In an intersection, two carts had collided, spilling fruit and what looked like vegetable oil on the street. After that, Cadance passed a building that was “on fire.” In reality, it was just a building with fire-colored streamers flowing out the windows thanks to some well-placed fans. But there was a fire crew on the scene, spraying water at the fake flames.
Leaving the center of Ponyville behind, the tests grew more serious. Cadance saw one group of ponies being chased by someone in a Timberwolf costume, and literally on the other side of the street, she saw a pony trapped in a deep hole, calling out for help. From there, Cadance began banking back towards the stadium, on the final stretch.
The last test Cadance saw was a group of logger ponies, who were shouting as a pile of logs they had stacked had broken free and was rolling away. The logs… were bouncing oddly, making Cadance think they were just large, inflatable props. Despite the lack of danger, the fake logger ponies were doing a good job shouting like their lives were in true danger.
Yet after all that, having to make quick decisions on the fly, Cadance got back into the stadium, passed through a few final cloud hoops, and crossed the finish line. The crowd roared and the time on the clock stopped. Cadance landed, skipping and skidding before managing to stop herself.
She felt she had done well. Yes, she had been the first one to finish her course. Her time was now the time all the other princesses were going to try and beat, but she felt she had kept a good pace and had done well addressing the different challenges along the way.
She helped the mother with the runaway carriage. She stopped and made sure the crying filly found her parents. She helped the ponies being chased by the Timberwolves as well as the one stuck in the hole. And Cadance helped wrangle the rolling logs. Those all felt like things that deserved a princess’s attention, even if the princess in question was running a race.
Now, it was just a matter of how Twilight, Celestia, and Luna did. They wouldn’t know the results of the test until after every princess had run the course. That way, they could record all the times before making sure all the penalties and bonuses had been accounted for.
Luna drank in the view of Ponyville from the highest point on the course before, like every other princess before her, she dove down into the streets, following the course set out by the cloud hoops.
So far Celestia had the best time, and Luna had her doubts she could beat it. She could get close, she was certain of that, but only if she focused on nothing but racing. She, of course, couldn’t do that without ignoring the tests. She did not know how the other princesses had done. Rainbow had ensured any princesses who had not yet run the race were kept in a quiet room. That way, she could minimize if not eliminate the advantage those that went later would receive.
So she was going into the course blind, not knowing what she would face, but she was the guardian of the dream realm. Of all the princesses, she had the most recent and consistent experience defending ponies. This was her time to shine. She knew how fast she could fly without sacrificing her ability to make good decisions. She just had to keep her pace.
A hard bank and Luna heard the shout of an old mare. She saw a thief galloping away. She began to slow, but her mind was playing back what she had seen on the course earlier. There were two ponies, dressed as guards, just around the corner. She hesitated and waited, watching… but once the thief got close to the end of the street, the guards jumped out and caught him.
Luna smiled, turned, and went back to the course. She, as the princess of dreams, could swoop in and end almost any nightmare with her powers alone, but then the ponies did not learn. They did not come to understand why they were having the nightmare and how to make it stop recurring. To truly defend Equestria, at least in the dreams, was to empower the ponies to help themselves and others.
The next few tests Luna found almost painfully obvious what needed to be done. A filly lost in the park needed to be helped before something could happen, and stopping a baby carriage from rolling away from a mother was equally simple. A cat stuck in a tree, while worrisome to the owner, was not a concern. The tree was healthy and the weather was calm. Any unicorn or pegasus could help the cat down.
The next thing Luna came across was more complicated. The collision of carts in an intersection. No pony appeared hurt, but… Luna took the risk and flew down to the ground, the air around her starting to smell strongly of vegetable oil.
“Is anyone hurt?” she asked, looking at the ponies involved with the crash.
“N-no, you’re highness,” one of the actors answered. “We’re all fine… if a little oily.”
“The oil may be a nuisance, but I feel it is best if I help you clean it. One errant spark and all this oil, the carts, and even you, citizen, could go up in flames.” Luna’s horn lit, the blue hue of her magic surrounding just about everything in the scene. The oil was being picked up and drained away. Luna used her magic to fix the barrels that had leaked and to pour the oil back in. Though there was still some residue here and there, the worst of the spill was cleared and the ponies were properly de-oiled.
“I imagine I can leave the rest to you. Be safe,” Luna said before quickly taking off and getting back to the race. Though it wasn’t long before she crossed another situation. A building that looked to be “on fire,” though she would compare the production value to a rather low budget stage play. Still, Luna flew down and entered a hover, moving close to one of the firefighter stallions that was helping to control the hoses of water.
“Good fighter of fires,” Luna said, getting the stallion’s attention. “Do you require assistance?”
“Princess Luna! No, I think we have this fire under control. The building has been emptied, and there’s no risk of it spreading to anything nearby.”
Luna nodded firmly. “Then I must commend you on your excellent work. Carry on your brave duty to our nation. I, unfortunately, have important business I must attend to.”
“Yes, of course, Your Highness,” the firefighter shouted, even as Luna turned to fly away and resume her race.
Outside of Ponyville, where the buildings gave way to country roads, fields, and orchards, Luna happened upon the next set of tests. Some actor, dressed and howling as a timber wolf, was chasing a group of ponies, one of each species. That and nearby, Luna could hear shouts of help coming from what was a very deep hole.
Dispatching the timberwolf actor was almost laughable. A single blast of magic and the actor went running away yipping. Luna landed next to the ponies, who quickly ran up to her with happy expressions.
“Thank you, Your Highness. We don’t know what we would have done!”
Luna lifted a hoof and placed it on the shoulder of the nearest pony she had “rescued.” “Twas nothing. I was glad to help, but now your princess must ask for something from you in return.”
“Yes, Your Highness?” One of the actors asked.
“Over there, across the road, another pony requires aid. They are trapped in a hole. Even from where we’re standing, you can hear the shouts. I have other urgent business I must attend to. Can I trust you three to help that other pony?”
“Of course, Princess Luna! We won’t let you down!”
“Then you do a great service to your country,” Luna said as she unfurled her wings, flapped them once, and got airborne again. “Now I must depart, but thank you for your aid!”
Another flap of her wings and Luna was back on the race track, though she took a moment to glance behind to ensure the three other actors were going to aid the fourth who was stuck in the hole. When she saw them running across the street, the pegasus already hovering above the hole and shouting down to the pony inside, she knew that the matter was addressed and she could focus back on the race.
Cadance stood next to Celestia and Twilight. Since they had all run the race before Luna, they were allowed to watch with the rest of the audience. Luna’s actions were being broadcast to the stadium using a large spell being cast by Starlight Glimmer. Starlight was channeling the vision of various race referees, letting the audience as a whole see what those officials were seeing. This was letting every spectator see every action of the race, even as it stretched far beyond the temporary stadium and into the neighboring town.
And to be honest, Cadance was feeling very uneasy about her own performance as she watched Luna’s. So much of what Luna was doing was making sense that Cadance couldn’t see how the princess of the night wasn’t correct in every judgment call she made. Still, Luna’s pace was giving her one of the slower times. Faster than Twilight’s, but still notably behind Cadance’s own time, which was, in turn, behind Celestia’s time.
But still, this was the last leg. Luna had reentered the stadium and was on the final stretch towards the finish line. Yet, even as Cadance was flicking her eyes between Luna, the clock, and the finish line, she saw Luna suddenly bank away. Luna streaked into the stands, causing some of the audience to yelp in surprise… but then she snatched something out of the air.
A pony, one who was wearing a lot of protective gear, had been leaning too far over a cloud guard rail in one of the floating seating sections, a set of clouds enchanted so that any pony might sit in them. This earth pony had been leaning over the rail and went too far. He lost his balance and began to fall. But the protective gear, and the few pegasi that seemed to come out of nowhere beneath the falling earth pony, sent a cold chill running down Cadance’s spine.
Either Luna had just saved somepony in true danger or there had been a final test inside the stadium itself. A test that, over the roar of the crowd, Cadance hadn’t noticed. A test that had been overlooked by Twilight and Celestia as well. A life and death situation that was similar to the time Rarity fell out of the cloud stadium during the Best Young Flyer’s competition: a classic lesson for Rainbow Dash.
Luna finished with the slowest time because of that last moment rescue, but when all the penalties and bonuses were calculated, Cadance was in no way surprised to hear that Luna had taken top marks and the top score in the Challenge of Loyalty.