Fluttershy led the two boys down the trail to her cottage, pleased by the visible changes in their demeanors. Rainbow Blitz looked at the woods in astonishment, taking in every visual detail he could get. Capricorn had stopped moping, but had started fidgeting and appeared to be impatient for something. Fluttershy didn’t think much of it; her son usually acted out one way or another. She looked back to Rainbow Blitz with a soft smile.
“Is there something on your mind, Rainbow Blitz?”
“I’ve never seen so many trees and animals up close. I mean, I’ve flown over them lots, and sometimes I see them in parks, but I didn’t know they were so…” he paused, swallowing the lump in his throat. “…wild.”
Fluttershy gaped at him in mute shock. Clearing her throat, she smiled apologetically and found her voice.
“Oh, um. Yes, it is very wild. Well not so wild, my animal friends love me, and I love them! The wild wild animals live deeper in the Everfree Forest.” She paused, considering the information Blitz revealed. “How is it even possible that you haven’t seen the woods up close? I mean, you’re such a strong flier, you can go wherever you want.”
“Oh, well I, um you see, uh I don’t really leave the house ‘cuz of the paparazzi. Not unless I practice flying or go to school.” He flashed a sheepish grin at Capricorn. “Or sneak away to Ponyville sometimes, and when I do that I just fly right over them. We all usually meet at Sugarcube Corner. I mean it’s not all that bad. There’s birds and stuff to watch, and I can always try to play with Tank, even if he can’t really do much.”
“Oh… my. Well, um, it sounds… peaceful?” Fluttershy flashed a hopeful grin.
“Sounds lonely to me,” Capricorn mumbled. His mother shot him a venomous look that promised him punishment for a later time. Rainbow Blitz didn’t pay much attention to their exchange; his attention had been grabbed by multiple fuzzy lumps littering the forest floor.
“Uuuum, Fluttershy, what the hay are those?”
“Oh, why those are beavers, Rainbow Blitz.”
Blitz furrowed his brow, scrunching his eyes to get a better look.
“They’re not moving. Are you sure?”
Fluttershy nodded confidently with a small smile.
“Absolutely! They were all scheduled for their physicals this morning. You see, beavers have very sharp teeth; they cut down trees with them, you know.” Her smile widened as Rainbow Blitz’s eyes bulged in surprise. “Their teeth are always growing, so they cut down trees to wear them down. It’s a completely natural and painless process. The problem is, we don’t have enough rivers and streams for all of them to make dams. So, it’s up to me to file their teeth, and to make things safer for myself, I give them all a nice little edible tranquilizer.”
Rainbow Blitz tilted his head in confusion.
“Tranka what now?”
“Tran-qui-liz-er,” Capricorn drawled. He rolled his eyes. “Don’t they teach you anything in school?”
Fluttershy gave her son a sharp swat on the back of his head.
“Not everypony has the privilege to study under the Princess herself, Capricorn! You really need to think about what you say before you hurt somepony’s feelings.”
He turned his head toward Rainbow Blitz and gave him a quick wink. Blitz returned the gesture with a short-lived smirk, quickly changing his expression to false sadness.
“I-I’m sorry, Rainbow Blitz,” Capricorn feigned. “I wasn’t being a nice pony, or a good friend. Can you ever, ever forgive me?!”
“Y-yeah, of course I do, Cappy,” Blitz said, failing to hold back his snickering. He composed himself, giving the most sincere look he could manage. “How could I not forgive my best friend?”
“Oh how wonderful,” Fluttershy happily sighed. “You two are being so nice that I think I’ll make us some tea before we start the day.”
“I’ll do it!” Capricorn bellowed, rushing for the porch. The green glow from his horn radiated the doorknob, swinging the door open.
“Out of my way, Angelo!”
His telekinetic magic tossed aside a brown, feisty, and very angry rabbit. The small, flustered mammal shook his fist in a manner that would have made his grandfather proud before hopping off into the woods to cool off.
Rainbow Blitz flinched as the sound of crashing pots and pans met his ears. Fluttershy trotted casually up to the open door, muttering under her breath.
“At least he’s starting a fire to help somepony this time…”
“Green tea with milk and two sugars! Just the way you like it, Mom.”
Fluttershy sat on her couch with Rainbow Blitz on one side, his scarf resting on the furniture’s arm. She took the cup, blowing on the liquid’s surface. Steam billowed off the edge, fading into the air as it left a spicy scent. She took a sip, enjoying the strong taste and looked down at her son, eyes glowing for her approval.
“It’s a wonderful cup of tea. Thank you Capricorn.”
Beaming with pride, Capricorn took his seat next to her.
“Now then,” Fluttershy began. “The restaurant we’ll be going to serves some very yummy pasta. They have a lot of-“
She yawned. Blinking rapidly, she shook her head and took another sip of the lukewarm tea.
“Please excuse me. I guess I didn’t sleep that well last night. I’m sure the caffeine will help me keep awake and alert. As I was saying, the restaurant has a lot of different pasta and-“
She yawned again, louder than the last time. Fluttershy shakily put her tea down onto the coffee table. Her vision blurred, and the world around her began to spiral into peaceful darkness.
Capricorn caught his mother with his magic as she fell, gently placing the fainted pegasus back on the couch. Rainbow Blitz jumped up and hovered in surprise, gawking at scene.
“Holy horseapples! Cappy, call the hospital! I’m faster, I’ll go get help!”
He felt the strong tug of Capricorn’s magic pull him down the ground.
“Calm down, Blitzy. She’s going to be fine,” he assured. “She was just tired.”
“How do you know?!” Blitz shrieked. “You’re not a doctor! She could be sick, or hurt or-“
He paused mid-panic, eyes shrinking to pinpricks as his mind connected imaginary dots. Rainbow Blitz looked at Capricorn with wide eyes.
“You didn’t.”
His friend’s small smirk was all the answer he needed. Blitz sped off to the kitchen, coming back shortly with an opened pill bottle.
“You gave your mom beaver tranquilizer?!” he howled. “You drugged your mom?!”
“Drug is such a harsh word,” Capricorn said calmly. “I like the sound of medicated better.”
Rainbow Blitz grabbed Capricorn by the shoulders and shook him roughly.
“Why would you do something like this, Cappy?!”
“Be-yee-cause child proo-oof bottles do-on’t work o-on unico-orns,” he said, his speech choppy from the rocking motions. Releasing himself from his friend’s grip, Capricorn continued. “Well, technically alicorns in my case. My mom really should have known better than-“
He paused, giving Blitz a brief look. Eyes bloodshot and watery, the pegasus colt was certainly a sad sight.
“Oh stop your worrying, Blitz! I’m the one who is gonna get in trouble, not you! I could already tell Mom was gonna ground me as soon as you left today, so I really didn’t have much to lose.”
Rainbow Blitz scrunched his brow with a forehoof in frustration.
“That doesn’t mean you-“
Capricorn silenced him with a hoof pressed against his muzzle.
“It’s for your own good.”
Blitz tilted his head in bewilderment.
“My own good?”
“Yeah, dude. How else are we gonna train you to do the Sonic Rainboom? Mom sure as hay wasn’t gonna let you do it.”
“The Sonic Rainboom?!” he cried. “You actually think I’m gonna try something like that?!
“What’s the matter, Blitzy?” Capricorn cooed. “Your old man starting to rub off on you? Are you a… chicken?”
“No!” he huffed. “I… I just haven’t tried it is all.”
“No time like the present,” Capricorn smirked. “There’s plenty of airspace above the fields nearby. Let’s go, we’ve only got one day to get this down.”
“B-but I… I,” Rainbow Blitz stammered.
Capricorn trotted to the door and looked back with determined, half-lidded eyes. Gesturing with a nod towards the door, he opened it and took off into the air. Blitz released an audible sigh and spread his wings.
“It’s going to be a long day.”
“This should be more than enough room to reach supersonic speeds, even if I did my math wrong!”
The two colts perched themselves on thin, icy cirrus clouds a considerable distance above the ground. Rainbow Blitz walked to the edge and looked down. The ground had become accurate grids of green and brown, testimony to the design put into earth pony agriculture. He shuddered, the combination of frigid air and his nerves taking control. Despite being accustomed to a life in the higher altitudes, Rainbow Blitz had never been so high up; Soarin’ had made sure of that personally. He looked back at Capricorn, happily sitting on the frosty cloud as he admired the scenery the high altitudes of the troposphere had to offer. His attitude was contagious; Blitz felt himself smiling and relaxed as his confidence swelled. He called out to get his friend’s attention.
“Hey, Cappy! How do I even do the Sonic Rainboom?”
Capricorn stared at him in disbelief.
“Your mom never told you?!”
Blitz shook his head glumly.
“No, she said she didn’t wanna tell me until I was maybe old enough to do it myself. Something about not wanting me to get hurt… “
He paused, frowning at a sudden revelation.
“You know what? I bet Dad had something to do with that,” he added bitterly.
“Well, lucky for you, my mom was there to see it several times, and she did tell me about it,” Capricorn proudly gloated.
He popped off the cloud with his hind legs and landed with his forelegs, perfectly balanced in a ‘hoofstand’.
“She said your mom would dive straight at the ground, hooves forward like this, and she would get going so fast the sound barrier would show up!”
“What’s a sound barrier?” Blitz asked innocently.
Capricorn lost his balance, falling face-first into the icy cirrus. The frosty body of the cloud muffled his grumbling, censoring him from taking any further stabs at his friend’s self-esteem. Capricorn tilted his head up, annoyed but composed as he spoke.
“The sound barrier is that last bit of resistance anything feels before making a sonic boom, or in your mom’s case a Sonic Rainboom. My mom said your mom would practice the Sonic Rainboom over a hundred times, and each time she would get shot back by the sonic barrier like a rubber band! She couldn’t get it in practice, but when the competition came up, Missus Rarity fell off a cloud or something.”
He tapped his chin, pondering the story for a bit.
“You know, my Mom didn’t really tell me too much about how she fell.”
Smiling again, his enthusiasm returned to his voice as the story reached its climax.
“But then as she was falling to her doom, your mom rushed after her and finally broke through the barrier, making the Sonic Rainboom! She did it again at Cadance’s wedding, and she didn’t even nosedive either!”
“So I just dive straight down and hope I can do it?” Blitz asked.
“You got it!”
Rainbow Blitz looked back down at the ground and took a deep breath. He jumped.
“C’mon Soarin’, you’ve been with us for how long now? You can’t just pause in the middle of a formation like that!”
Spitfire groaned in frustration as the stallion continued to ignore her. He hovered in the airspace, completely still aside from his beating wings, staring off into the distance. Rainbow Dash heard the commotion and broke formation, joining her captain and husband.
“What’s all the hubbub about?”
Spitfire pointed an accusing hoof at Soarin’.
“Ask your deadbeat husband! He stopped in the middle of formation; Rapidfire had to break his formation to get around him!”
She cleared her throat and softened her tone, doing her best to compose herself.
“Look, I told the princess I would think about letting your son come watch us, but I will not tolerate emotional blackmail. If you don’t fly, you get fired.”
“This isn’t about letting Rainbow Blitz watch us practice,” Rainbow Dash said, her voice cracking from worry. She flew up to Soarin’, taking his hoof with hers and patting it with her other hoof. “What is it, Soarin’? What’s he doing?”
Spitfire cocked her head in obvious confusion.
“What the hay are you going on about, Dash?”
She looked at Spitfire, her expression dead serious as she explained.
“This is his ‘Rainbow Blitz is doing something really stupid’ look. Call it weird, call it a father’s intuition, but pluck my feathers if it isn’t usually spot-on. I think we need to go make sure he’s all right.”
“I don’t need your excuses, Rainbow Dash!” Spitfire barked. “I’ve had just about enough of-“
“Remember the Summer Sun Celebration?” Dash said, interrupting her captain’s tantrum.
“Who could forget?” She said dryly. “But I don’t see-“
“The same thing happened, but we couldn’t find Blitz in time.”
Spitfire gawked.
“Go find him. Now.”
The air rushed past his ears, screaming in protest as he continued to fly straight down. Rainbow Blitz could feel his eyes watering, the stinging wind lashing at them. He didn’t care; the adrenaline coursed through his bloodstream, driving him to push on faster, and he loved it. A rainbow trail faded quickly behind him, straining to keep up with his velocity. The speed was exhilarating.
Mom always told me how awesome it was to fly fast, he thought, but I didn’t know it could be so… amazing.
He always loved flying, but this had taken him to a new level of freedom.
As if on cue, the sonic cone formed around his forehooves, bending as he pressed forward. Blitz’s smile stretched as far and wide as it could go.
I’m gonna do it! I’m gonna do it! Sweet Celestia, I’m really going to-
The sudden spike in resistance interrupted his confident thoughts, as well as his momentum. He paused in midair, uttering the only phrase he could think of for the situation.
“Uh-oh.”
The sonic barrier catapulted the colt through the air, his shriek creating a strong Doppler effect.
“YEAAAAHAHAOOOOOOOOOW!”
He launched past Capricorn at an uncontrollable velocity, soaring towards a lush, established apple orchard on the outskirts of Ponyville. Capricorn hopped off the cloud and chased after his friend.
“Hang on Blitz!" He called after him. "Try to crash into the reservoir; if you hurt any trees, Applejack will tan your hide!”