Something happened during the accident, something that changed her forever. Her life was now becoming normal again, or as normal as it would ever be for her from now on. She had been taken in by Thunderstreak, one of her father’s friends from the factory. He and his wife, Lily Blossom, had a young filly about Dash’s age. Her name was Fluttershy. At first, they hadn’t gotten along very well. Dash was depressed from her father’s passing, and Fluttershy was, well…. shy. However, one day, that all changed.
Dash soared through the sky. A multicoloured spectrum flashed across the azure sky behind her. She was no longer the young, awkward flyer she was in junior flight school, but was now at the top of her class. Suddenly, she saw a familiar yellow filly, surrounded by other ponies. Something was wrong. Fluttershy was cowering. She zoomed down to a perch on a lower cloud to check it out. She heard what was going on.
Fluttershy! Fluttershy! Fluttershy can hardly fly!
The group of hecklers consisted of other school kids, mostly older ponies. Fluttershy was lying in a fetal position, crying. Dash went into a steep dive, and landed right between them, kicking up a puff of water vapor. Some of the younger ponies flinched.
“Hey! Leave her alone!” she shouted, her tiny voice cracking. “It’s not her fault that she’s not a great flyer!” The oldest one among them, a large brown colt named Dumbbell, laughed at her.
“Whatever, Rainbow Crash!”. He nodded sideways, and the whole group flew away, still laughing. Fluttershy turned around to see what had happened. Dash held out a hoof, and she stood up.
“Th-thank y-you. I just d-don’t know what I would’ve done if y-you hadn’t been here” she said, wiping tears from her turquoise eyes.
“No problem,” said Dash, nonchalantly, “Nopony deserves to be treated like that.” The way she had been treated when she was a bad flyer, before the accident.
After that, they had gotten along like two birds of a feather. She protected Fluttershy because she reminded Dash of herself at a young age, awkward, innocent, and lonely. Before Dash was there, her only friends were her parents and her teachers, but they couldn’t protect her everywhere. A few months later, Thunderstreak burst into the house mid-afternoon, excited, with a mysterious brown envelope tucked under his wing. He brought thrilling news.
They were going to see the Wonderbolts.
He quickly presented three silver tickets from the envelope. Dash’s eyes became the size of dinner plates. “The Wonderbolts‽ Like, the best most super amazing undeniably undoubtably awesome Wonderbolts‽ The–” Thunderstreak almost had to put his hoof in her mouth to stop her. He explained further. Sunburst, one of the factory workers, had caught the pony pox, and couldn’t go with his family. He, Fluttershy, and Dash would go to the airshow at the Cloudsdale Coliseum on Saturday.
The stadium was packed. The Wonderbolts trained in Clousdale during the off-season, but they stayed in Canterlot for most of the year. The only times they returned were for the Best Young Flyer competition (won this year by a promising mare named Surprise), and for one show. Tickets were selling for hundreds of bits. Dash was skipping happily above the crowd, while Fluttershy cowered near her father. They had excellent seats, in the top section. There were many vendors selling souvenirs, and Dash prodded Thunderstreak until he bought her a pair of replica goggles. And then, it began.
She had never seen such flying. They were the fastest ponies she had ever seen, zooming in all directions with perfect agility. One of them zoomed right by the balcony, almost hitting the coliseum floor before recovering. It continued for two hours, but to Dash, it might as well have lasted forever.
She couldn’t talk about anything else for an entire week. She wore the goggles constantly, even sleeping with them on. Posters of the team wallpapered her side of their room. Every day in flight school she tried to copy their manoeuvres, usually spinning out of control but sometimes making a loop-de-loop or a barrel roll. Many of the other school ponies were in awe, some jealous. When she finally returned to the ground, they stomped their hooves in approval. “Wow, Dash, that was awesome!” they would say. They were, confused, though, when she shook her head.
“From now on, you can call me Rainbow Dash.”