Spitfire sat and watched as the man in front of her continued to look at the clock, and his phone. It was 7:20 a.m. and Rainbow Dash had not shown up for practice yet. Spitfire sighed and stood up from her chair. "Soarin, Practice was supposed to start 20 minutes ago, we can't keep waiting for her to show up." She said, anger escaping in her stern tone. Soarin looked at her and sighed.
"I know, I know, it's just not like her to be late like this. I know the drive from Ponyville is an hour, but she's never late." Soarin exclaimed checking his phone again. Spitfire shook her head.
"Soarin, everybody can slip up from time to time, hell even I do sometimes. But whatever excuse she has for being late better be a good one." Soarin could hear how annoyed Spitfire was. Rainbow Dash was supposed to be a key role in their newest routine, and without her, it was hard to practice it. She was supposed to be thrown in several stunts in the routine towards other bolts, and once she was done being thrown she was supposed to use her momentum to break the sound barrier. Soarin was then meant to send a ring of lightning towards it afterward, creating a rainbow lighting effect. And Spitfire was meant to toss a ring of fire right after. After the fire expanded, Dash was meant to fly in a tight spiral upwards to suck the fire back in with a vacuum effect and at the end collect the fire around her wings and outstretch them as hard as she can high above the rest of them, to force the fire off of her before the fire burns her. Needless to say, this routine has led to more than enough times where she has been burned, or they had to put out a fire.
Soarin sighed as he checked his phone again, and saw that he still had no response from Dash. He thought about using some of his protected time off, to go make sure she was ok, but he quickly struck the thought. 'What if she shows up while I'm gone? What if she just overslept? What if she just forgot to plug in her phone and is rushing to get here right now?' Soarin shook his head. 'She's probably fine, and I'm just overreacting. Calm down Soarin, you have to keep a level head if you're going to practice... But what if something came up, or something happened to her on her way here' He blinked as Spitfire cleared her throat. He looked to her and saw she had an exasperated look on her face and was tapping a finger against her arm impatiently.
"I'm just worried Spitfire, am I not allowed to be worried about my girlfriend?" Soarin asked in a flat tone, causing Spitfires' expression to lighten.
Spitfire sighed and uncrossed her arms. She walked over to Soarin and placed her hand over his shoulder. "Soarin, I know you're worried about her, but she's just late, that's all. You're getting worked up over something that's probably nothing. She probably just got a flat tire or something on the way in or hit some traffic." Spitfire tried her best to comfort him, but she also had a responsibility as their captain to keep everyone on her team focused. She didn't have a problem with Soarin and Dash starting their relationship three months after Dash joined their ranks, but she made it clear to both of them that their relationship wasn't to get in the way of their duties.
Soarin sighed and smiled gently at Spitfire, who was eye level with him thanks to his sitting position. "Your right, I'm sure she's fine, let's get to practicing without her then. Any ideas as to how we are going to do this without her?"
***
Rainbow Dash was running about her house, trying to grab all her gear. "Oh man oh man oh man, Spitfire is going to fry my ass for being late, I can't believe I overslept like that!" She rushed around grabbing her goggles and backpack that had all her stuff in it. She searched around for her keys and grabbed them. She wanted to check her phone but it was dead because she had forgotten to plug it in last night. She peered at the clock in her family room, it read 7:30 a.m. on it. "SHIT, I'm already 30 minutes late!" She quickly found her house key and rushed out locking the door, and running to her new, very nice luxury car. She had only recently been able to afford it after working with the Wonderbolts for a year now. She could easily fly to the compound in Cloudsdale, but the flight took about an hour and 30 minutes if she flew fast, and she didn't want to be drained when she got there. She gave no more thought to it as she threw her backpack into the passenger seat and started driving out of her driveway.
***
Soarin landed on the ground panting and grimacing in discomfort and clutching his hand tightly. Spitfire landed next to him, eyebrow already raised. "What was that Soarin? You haven't mishandled lightning like that in ages?" She asked, looking now at the new burn on his hand. His gloves had done their job in protecting him, but his hand wasn't lucky enough to escape being burned a little. Their teammates all landed around them, Fleetfoot landing next to Soarin. She quickly grabbed his hands pulling the other off of his burned hand, examining it.
"It doesn't look too bad but you should go to the trainers and get it checked out, and treated," Fleetfoot said, still examining the burn. Soarin's hand was scorched on the sides and top of his hand, but in his palm, some dark red flesh burned and blistered. It looked like an average fire burn, but if Soarin knew Fleet she wouldn't let him continue without getting this treated. "Now stop getting so distracted. I'm sure Dashie is thinking about banging just as much as you are." Fleetfoot suddenly jabbed, making Soarin flatten his expression.
Soarin suddenly lightened up a bit s they started walking towards the compound doors. Fleetfoot was always making things as fun as possible, if someone needed a good laugh or some cheering up, it was no question as to who they would go to. Soarin looked down at her a sly grin on his face. "Oh, please, we all know you and Dashie have gotten really close over the past year or so. You can't tell me your not a little worried about your new best friend." Soarin gave her a comically fake sad pout as he bent down to match her in height.
Fleetfoot was much shorter than all of them, in fact, she stood at an astounding 5'2 compared to Soarin's freakishly tall 6'7. All the female Wonderbolts were a little over average female height, the only exceptions to this are the two females in his life that made him smile the most. Fleetfoot and Rainbow Dash. It was a hilarious day when the rest of the Bolts found out that Fleet was no longer the shortest Wonderbolt on the team. That spot had been ungracefully claimed as soon as Rainbow Dash walked through the front doors of the HQ. Rainbow Dash was a very short 4'11 but always claimed to be 5'0.
Fleetfoot giggled and nudged Soarin, causing him to lose his balance a bit and stumble, but not fall. Soarin chuckled as he regained his balance, looking down at her again. "Don't get me wrong Soarin, you're always going to be my best friend. Dash and I just share more common traits and interests. I can girl talk with her whenever I feel like it. Spitfire is great to talk to and all, but she is never one to just sit down and have girl talk with me."
It was true while Soarin and Fleetfoot had been best friends since they were toddlers, they didn't meet Spitfire until Cadet camp about four years ago. The two quickly became close with Spitfire, during their training at the camp. And while Spitfire was a close friend to them now, she never really partook in the shenanigans that he and Fleet did most of the time, and never really spoke about her emotions. Spitfire had her husband, Wave Chill for that.
Soarin glanced back forward as they neared the trainer room. The moment the door opened, a unicorn woman greeted them. She had a white coat on and a mint-colored short pixy cut hairstyle. "What can I help you with?" She asked calmly with a soft smile.
Fleetfoot grabbed Soarin's wrist with the hurt hand and pulled it out to reveal the burn on it. "This needs treatment and covering before he can continue today." She giggled and Soarin winced and pulled his hand away quickly. He walked up to a chair next to a medical bed and sat on it holding his hand out as the trainer looked at it. she quickly grabbed some disinfectant spray and gave him a stress ball to squeeze in his other hand.
"HRG," Soarin grunted and gritted his teeth, clutching the ball tightly. 'Holy Celestia that fucking burns'. As soon as the trainer was done spraying the disinfectant on Soarin's hand she placed a cloth on the burn and pressed her hands on each side of his to put pressure on it gently. after a minute had passed Soarin stopped gripping the ball like a vice and relaxed. The trainer then began putting ointments on it and told him to let it sit for a few minutes. Fleetfoot sat down next to Soarin in the other chair and looked at him curiously.
"Why are you so worried about Dash being late? I know you two are like head over heels in love for each other, but like, why?" She asked, resting her head on her wrist while looking towards Soarin. He sighed and shook his head.
"I don't know, I just have this really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach"