"Augh, how does this keep happening!?"
Chaos was a strange maestro; playing with the environment like an insane musician on a hundred instruments, strumming or beating each one as his fancy shifted from the bass to the cello, to the trumpet, to the accordian, his flow of music dynamic and flowing. The sounds produced were both beautiful and unbearable, wonderful and horrible, creative and destructive. This orchestral play reached into the hearts and souls of all in Equestria, and played their strings with both amateurish attitude and masterful skill.
Sadly, that masterful skill was usually put toward frustrating ponies to every possible extent, sometimes even impossible. Soarin' was the first to experience this; who knew the Captain's mane and tail really could move like fire when she was mad?
"Chaos does make it kinda hard to fly, huh Cap?"
"Hard doesn't begin to describe it! And how can you be so lax about this, Soarin'!?" Spitfire spun around, smacking her sweat-covered flying suit to the floor of the locker room. It immediately hopped back up onto its sleeves, made a motion of adjusting a tie, then went back to sleep on the bench. Steam was spraying from her ears as her mane moved like a purple-and-green inferno.
"Well, Cap, if training taught me anything, it's to stay cool in a hot situation. Right now, I could probably roast marshmallows with your mane!" Soarin' smiled; humor fixes everything! Everypony loves a good laugh!
"Roast marshmallows with my mane!? Soarin', my head's on fire, and you're cracking jokes!?"
Maybe not everypony...
"Uh... " Soarin' rubbed the back of his neck. Come to think of it, maybe jokes weren't right for this. It had been, what, eight weeks since the Wonderbolts had a proper practice session? It was a string of problems stopping them in their tracks; sudden thunderheads appearing in the Cloudsdale Stadium, Spitfire suddenly deciding forwards was backwards, wings disappearing mid-flight. They were lucky nopony was injured during the last session...
"Shut it, Soarin'! This situation is outright ludicrous! We can't even fly in formation anymore thanks to Discord and his stupid chaos!" Spitfire stomped the floor in frustration, white tile splattering up like paint from under her. The inferno on her head only grew from this insult made by the guilty tiling, and she stomped it more, wanting to hear it scream apologies to her.
"Cap, really, the rest of us are just as mad about it. The point is we need to keep our heads here. You're kinda flying off the handle," Soarin' winced slightly as he spoke. Tartarus hath no fury like a Spitfire scorned, and as Fleetfoot learned a while back when he joined, she had a really good pair of hindlegs...
Another Wonderbolt - well, ponies started calling them the 'Blunderbolts' ever since that attempted demonstration in Fillydelphia - stumbled in through the locker room door.
"Flying off the handle!? I... rrrgh!" Spitfire stomped the ground a last time before walking over to one of the open lockers. She started slamming it, maybe to let off some steam, though the door kept making the strangest sounds; first a dog barking, then a cat screeching, then some pony somewhere gigglesnorting like it'd save her life. Spitfire's eye twitched, apparently not satisfied with how the locker door didn't just start screaming in agony, and she moved over to a bench.
"Got another thunderhead out in the stadium, Captain," Rapidfire hacked a cough, blue clouds of smoke coming out. Poor guy got hit with lightning again, huh? Couldn't have seen his yellow coat through the charred suit with a magnifying glass; that Trottingham accent and gravelly tone were probably the only things Soarin' could use to identify his team mate at that point.
"You feelin' alright, Rap'?" Soarin' raised an eyebrow, thankful for the break from Madfire. At least she wouldn't try and prove his theory about the marshmallows by cooking him over her mane.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Felt like ice going down my spine, but everything's still working, boss," Rapidfire rubbed his foreleg, grimacing, "Things really haven't gone right for us, have they?"
"You're tellin' me. We've been having practice after practice, and things've never gone right."
"How's the Captain?" Rapidfire looked over to Spitfire, her mane now changed into a mudslide on her head. Is that red in her eye?
"You need to ask?"
"Veeeery true. The team's coming back in from the storm outside. What's the plan?"
"Same thing we do every day, Rap. Try and take over the skies!" Soarin' made a heroic gesture of raising his hoof with squinted eyes.
"But how're we gonna do that, Soarin'?" Rapidfire tapped his chin in thought.
"Are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Well, yeah, but where're we gonna find two hundred feet of cable and an elephant at this hour?"
"Not quite what I meant, but that's a good question," Soarin' looked back over at his Captain, seeing an eye glaring back him behind a wall of mud. "Um... Cap?"
The glare fell to a sigh of defeat, Spitfire hanging her head, "Let's just go home."
The brown wall ceased its landslide, and her mane came back. She hopped off the bench onto the tiled floor, it rippling outwards like a pond as strawberry pudding dripped from her tail. Soarin' snagged her slumbering uniform and tossed it over to her, it frantically flailing through its wake-up flight. Turning to the door, he felt his own outfit rippling against his legs with each step. Creepy.
"I just wanna crash down in my appartment and have a nice pie... maybe a cold one with it. What're you all gonna do?" Soarin' asked as he opened the door, three more Wonderbolts standing outside in a torrential rain. An unlucky pony was promptly hit in the face with the door, the silent storm doing nothing to cover her grunt of discomfort, "Sorry!"
"It's fine, it's fine! I've had worse injuries, heh," The one on the left, a rather small, blue mare with a white mane answered, rubbing her muzzle as her mane whited out her vision. A sweep up from her muzzle granted her a few seconds of seeing the world, before it deflated onto her face. Behind her, a quiet lightning strike curled through the air in a spiral, "This storm is only going to mess up our flying more, and Strikewind's started his flying-backwards-and-upside-down problem again."
"Cap, whadya say? Call it a day?" Soarin' turned as he spoke, looking at the mare beside him.
"Yeah, all of you can head home. I've gotta fly down to Canterlot, check in with the Guard," Spitfire rubbed her face and groaned. Any time spent with the Royal Guard wasn't enjoyable in the slightest; Shining Armor was one of the most uptight soldiers she'd ever had the displeasure of working with, even if it was just logistics. The walls turned to sludge when they were in a room together; whether that was because of how much they hated each other, or because the walls just decided to not be solid anymore was a hot topic of debate.
"I'll come with ya. Gotta get my suit replaced before I head back t' my house," Soarin' rubbed his suit, it falling off him like dead hairs. Were they his hairs? He rubbed the suit more, seeing pink flesh under it; great, his suit fused with his coat like some kind of parasite.
Soarin' was a humorous stallion in every respect; he'd always try and lighten the mood with a joke or two, and most of the time he'd be successful. He had his own troubles, sure, but others came before him... but putting another before parastitic suits that fuse with your body? That was crossing the line a bit.
"Anypony hitting the bar? I vill pay," A large, grey stallion on the right rumbled. That Stalliongrad accent always grated a bit in Soarin's mind, but it was nice to have a foreigner in the Wonderbolts; made 'em look like they'd take anypony if they had enough skill.
"I'm in!" The mare in the center bounced, throwing her hoof in the air. A lightning strike from about a mile away came and high-hoofed her, sending a massive electric shock through her. Her mane shot up on end as her uniform exploded into pink spiders, all falling from the clouds of the stadium, "Ow."
Well, at least lightning strikes weren't nearly as bad as they were before Discord settled into that throne of his. That bolt would've put Banshee in the hospital; guess chaos was making at least a few things easier to deal with.
Strikewind and Banshee flew off into the sky with a leap off the cloud, the grey stallion staring back at the group as they flew off. Yep, that'd mess up anypony... Soarin' winced as Strikewind crashed through a cloud-turned-brick wall; he was gonna feel that one in the morning!
"I'm heading home," Rapid walked past Soarin' and Spitfire, catapulting off the walk without much of a goodbye. Fleetfoot saluted the two commanders of the Wonderbolts and flew off as well, typically silent. Was she flying sideways? And flapping her legs instead of her wings?
"That's new," Soarin' blinked, staring up at his awkwardly-flying team mate. "Well, at least she's got a new trick to show off at the next air show, right Cap?"
"There won't be another show until this is all straightened out, Soarin'. You know that," Spitfire sat down by the door, sighing, "We're supposed to be the best flyers in Equestria, right?"
"Of course. And we still are, Spit. Who cares if ponies think it's funny to call us Blunderbolts? We've got one heck of a good track record with our flying; as if one year of chaos is going to mess that up!"
"You sure it hasn't been ten years? I feel like I've aged from all this stress of keeping the team organized in these conditions," Spitfire leaned her head against the wall, eyes drifting off to the left.
"It could've been fifty for all I know, the sun and moon are moving like crazy. I'm surprised the grounded ponies are keeping Equestria fed with this random time thing. Must be some crazy secret they've got, like special manure, or maybe they use plants from the Everfree!" Soarin' gestured dramatically as he spoke, eyes wide as he looked over at Spitfire.
"Are you going off on another conspiracy theory thing?" Spitfire just stared back, raising an eyebrow.
They weren't conspiracy theories if they were true! Sure, Soarin' had yet to prove anything beyond the fact that cherry pie was Celestia's gift to lowly mortals, but he'd find proof! Eventually. He had a lot of free time now at least.
Soarin' smirked, lowering his hooves. "Shall we?"
"Yeah, let's. Hopefully we don't run into any random cotton candy clouds or brick walls," Spitfire grimaced, walking out the door, followed by Soarin'.
"Or your mane turning into mud again. You should get a job at a spa; you'd make a killing with that mane of yours!" Soarin' chuckled.
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, big boy. You've still gotta keep up with your Captain," Spitfire smirked at her second-in-command before spreading her wings.
"I'm getting better at it. On three!" Soarin' spread his own, lowering into a jumping position. Straight through the thunderhead, fast as he can... this was gonna be one awesome light show. He'd earn that pie from Pony Joe's, even if it killed him!
"Three!" Spitfire shouted, and they both launch off into the sky, the door to the locker room slamming shut behind them from the force of their take off. Spitfire deftly weaved around the large black cloud as Soarin' crashed right through it, bricks and poodles spraying out as the cloud exploded. Everything turned back into a weird, grey tar as Soarin' made his exit with a rather disturbed look on his face.
He spat out a stream of grey... stuff, his grimace still sticking. Spitfire flew up next to him, looking him over, "You alright?"
"Yeah. Just um... never fly through a thunderhead with your mouth open."
"'Cause you might get a shock on your tongue?"
"Because thunderheads taste really bad."