//------------------------------//
// Road Runner - Desertus Gottagofastimus 
// Story: Speed Demon 
// by Boltstrike58 
//------------------------------//

"TWILIGHT SPARKLE!"

Twilight leaped out of her chair with a panicked shriek as her horn sparked and fired off a few bolts of loose magic. The scroll she'd been writing on launched into the air, along with her quill, her ink pot, and Spike, who was unfortunate enough to be standing nearby. Twilight herself landed on her back with a thump and coughed as the air fled from her lungs. Beside her, Spike fell into a similar state of affairs.

Dazed and painful, the unicorn got back onto her hooves, reaching up to rub her head. She turned around to find the source of her freak-out. Namely, one sky-blue pegasus who'd entered the library from one of the open windows and was currently hovering above her.

"Rainbow," she started, gritting her teeth, "is it really too much trouble for you to knock on the door like any other pony?!"

Rainbow Dash opened her mouth, possibly to say some sort of snarky retort. However, as she looked around at the mess she was responsible for, remorse slowly dawned on her face.

"Uh...sorry, Twilight," she finally settled on. "I guess I shouldn't have done that."

"No, you shouldn't have," responded the unicorn, still annoyed but cooling down. "Now can you help us clean this up?" She gestured to the various writing supplies strewn about the room.

"Yeah!" chimed in Spike. "Don't make us fix all this by ourselves!"

"Sure, don't worry."

After the three of them had picked up the mess, Rainbow settled back onto the floor. She turned around to face Twilight.  

"Okay," she began, "now that we've gotten that out of the way, I have to ask: WHAT THE HAY?!"

Twilight covered her ears. "Rainbow! Have you learned nothing?!"

"Sorry, sorry. It's just...how could you do this to me, Twilight?!"

"Do what?" Twilight demanded. "I have no idea what you're talking about! I Pinkie Promise!"

"Oh really?!" Rainbow snapped back. "You don't remember this?!"  

She reached into her saddlebags, pulling out a copy of Ponyville's local newspaper. On the front page was an article, written about Twilight Sparkle, titled, "Princess Celestia's Student Discovers Fastest Creature in All of Equestria."

"Seriously, Rainbow?" Twilight responded, dryly. "You take issue with my research project?"

"Come on, Twilight. We both know I'm the fastest living thing in Equestria. I admit, there are non-living things faster than me, but that's it!"

"Actually, Rainbow, if you'd bothered to read the actual article, you'd have discovered that I measured that creature's speed and compared it to your fastest feats, including the Sonic Rainboom, and I found that it exceeds your own." She put a hoof to her chin, thinking. "Now that I come back to it, perhaps I should've asked you to come along so I could more clearly compare you two."

"So you could—you're missing the point!" Rainbow snapped. "There is no way that this...thing...is faster than me! I'm the fastest in all of Equestria!"

"Rainbow, I know it's a big blow to your ego, but according to my calculations, the creature is, in fact, faster than you." Twilight's horn lit up, levitating up a piece of parchment covered with equations. "You can read these, if you don't believe me."

"You know I don't understand this egghead stuff," Rainbow protested, pushing the paper aside. "Come on, this isn't gonna prove some random creature is faster than Rainbow Dash!"

"Okay, if that's the way you want it," said Twilight. She levitated over a set of saddlebags. "If you want to prove you're faster, we can go to that creature's habitat right now. In fact, let's bring Fluttershy with us, too. If she's available."

Rainbow blinked. "Really? Just like that?"

"Hey, that research project isn't fully completed. With you around to help me get data, and Fluttershy to help me classify it, we could forward the cause of Equestrian science!"

Rainbow groaned. "Of course you would turn this into an egghead project."

"Do you want to prove you're faster than this creature, or not?"

"Alright, I'm coming."

"Great! Spike, grab my research notes!"

"Already on it, Twilight!" replied Spike.





The two ponies and one dragon made a quick stop by Fluttershy's cottage. However, the timid pegasus was busy taking care of a sick badger and thus couldn't join them. She did promise to look over Twilight's notes on this strange creature when she was no longer busy and help to identify (or possibly classify) it. Twilight, Rainbow, and Spike then headed out, borrowing Pinkie's hot air balloon and heading southwest, towards the San Palomino Desert.

On the way, Twilight told Rainbow more about the research project, while stressing that all this information was contained in the article she hadn't read. Twilight had been tasked by Princess Celestia with speaking to some diplomats in Saddle Arabia, which required her to travel through the desert. During her time there, she'd been passed by a strange animal moving at incredible speeds. A quick spell had given her a rough estimate of how fast it was going, and she'd asked Princess Celestia for (and been granted) the chance to study this new species nopony had ever seen before. Unfortunately, during an interview with a Ponyville reporter, she'd accidentally let that information slip, resulting in the article.

"HA! You admit it! You don't know if it's faster than me!" Rainbow gloated.

"Well, more like I don't know how much speed it has over you, but whatever makes you happy, Rainbow," Twilight replied. "I suppose I should thank you for coming over, since it'll give me more data for the research project." 

"More like it'll give me a chance to put my name in the record books again!" said Rainbow. "'Rainbow Dash, fastest thing in all Equestria! Even faster than the...the, uh...'"

"We don't have a name for it yet, remember?" said Spike.

"Yeah, whatever. Maybe you could call it the 'Slowerthanrainbowdashimus.'"

"I don't think that would go over very well with Equestria's biologists," said Twilight. "Oh, look! We're here!"

She carefully manipulated the balloon so that they descended into the middle of the desert itself. The basket landed without incident and Twilight used her magic to weigh it down.  

"So now what?" asked Rainbow Dash. "Do we have any way of finding this thing?"

"Well, when I originally saw it, it just sort of zoomed past me," answered Twilight. "I suppose the best thing we can do is search for tracks, see if we can figure out which routes this thing takes."

Spike groaned. "Great. More walking around in the hot, dry desert."

"Calm down, Spike. We brought enough water to last us a couple of days."

It only took a few minutes of searching for Twilight to find the footprints she was looking for. The prints were long and thin, in the shape of a letter Y, with two toes pointing forward.  

"Looks kind of like a bird foot," said Rainbow.

"I agree," said Twilight, making a quick sketch of the footprint. "Perhaps this is some kind of flightless desert bird."

"HA! You admit it's gotta be slower than me if it can't fly!"

Twilight gave her a look. "Come on, Rainbow, we've got to start following these tracks."

"Uh, girls?" said Spike. "I don't think that'll be necessary."

He pointed behind them. Twilight and Rainbow turned to discover that, in the distance, something was rushing across the sand, kicking up a massive dust cloud behind it as it went. It was too far away for them to discern any features, but they could tell it definitely wasn't a pony. Upon closer observation, they realized it was turning in their direction.

"Twilight..." Spike began, "do you have any idea if this thing is dangerous or not?"

Twilight opened her mouth to respond, only for a glob of sand to be tossed inside it from the creature's approach. As the unicorn sputtered and tried to spit the sand out, Spike hid behind Rainbow Dash, who took up a defensive position. She crouched low, and flared her wings outwards to look bigger. The animal got closer and closer to them, until it finally stopped a short distance away.

Now that it wasn't just a speeding blur, the ponies could get a good look at the creature. It appeared Twilight's initial assessment had been correct, as the thing certainly looked like a bird. Its feathers were a light shade of blue, except for the wings and on its head, which were darker in color. It had a large, plumed tail and another plume on its head. The beak was yellow and the top curved upwards. The way the beak was structured, it almost looked like it was smiling. The eyes were white, with simple black pupils. The legs were orange and ended in y-shaped talons.  

For the next few seconds, no one moved. The bird merely stared at the three creatures before it and they stared back, unsure of how to react. Spike poked his head out from behind Rainbow, still nervous, but the bird made no move to attack.

"Um, hello?" Twilight ventured. "Can you speak?"

The bird blinked a couple of times, then its tongue poked out from its beak. Then the beak opened and it made a vocalization unlike any other bird.

"Meep meep!"

With that, the bird jumped into the air, turned around, and rushed away, spraying Twilight, Rainbow, and Spike with sand.  

"Well," said Twilight, "that was...something."

"Something?!" yelled Rainbow Dash. "Did you see that?! It's taunting me! It stuck its tongue out at me!"

"Rainbow, I'm pretty sure it's just a wild animal. It's not sapient enough to be taunting—"

But Rainbow wasn't listening. With a single flap of her wings, she shook off her coating of sand and flew into the air, then took off after the bird.

Twilight groaned again. "Maybe letting her come on this expedition was a bad idea."

"Too late for that," added Spike. "Should we follow her?"

"Probably. She'll definitely get into trouble if we don't."





Rainbow beat her wings furiously as she chased after the bird. It certainly was faster than she'd expected, but she was gaining on it nonetheless. She kept herself a good distance above it so the sand it was kicking up didn't get into her eyes. In another few seconds, she was flying neck and neck with the bird.

"Hey you!" she called out, causing the bird to turn its head towards her. "How does it feel to be the second fastest thing in Equestria?! Because you ain't faster than me!"

The bird merely blinked at her a couple of times, then said, "Meep meep!" again, before abruptly making a sharp turn to the right and charging off into the distance.

"What the heck?! What are you doing?!" demanded Rainbow. "You're not supposed to—!"

The rest of her complaint would go unheard, as she slammed head-first into a spire of rock jutting up towards the sky. Rainbow's entire body flattened against the rock surface, before peeling off like a sticker and falling to the sand. She landed on her back, as her eyes rolled around in their sockets. Rainbow swore she could see tiny versions of Derpy Hooves flying in circles around her head.

She wasn't sure how long she was dazed for, but her head eventually stopped rattling and she pushed herself back up. She started looking around, even as her skull continued to throb in pain.	

"Hey, Rainbow Dash!" called out Twilight. Rainbow turned to discover the purple unicorn trotting up to her, carrying Spike on her back. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," the pegasus snorted back. Twilight had the biggest grin on her face and it was driving Rainbow crazy.

"How'd the race go?" asked Twilight, her smirk somehow growing wider.	

"That was just a warm-up!" snapped Rainbow. "I'm going to train harder than I've ever trained before! And I'll show that stupid bird who's the fastest thing in Equestria!"

While Twilight rolled her eyes, Spike looked a little concerned. "Uh, Rainbow? You know it's not intelligent, right?" he said. "It doesn't understand—"

But Rainbow wasn't listening. She jumped into the air and flew away once more, leaving a multicolored trail that slowly faded away.

"Is she gonna be alright?" asked Spike.

"I hope so," answered Twilight. "Though this may be a hard lesson to learn."