//------------------------------//
// 32 - Rough on the Inside 
// Story: Bullets of Fire 
// by BlackWater 
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Three ninety!" Soarin' counted aloud before collapsing. 
He was still pushing himself and he was still behind. No amount of dieting and Tartarus-on-Equestria training could catch him up to Spitfire's best and he knew it. But he also knew that, regardless of current strength, the pegasi body had its limits. From the material that he had looked up, it seemed that pegasi couldn't physically build up wing muscle past eight-hundred wing-ups. Though few ever went past two-hundred. It was a large difference in power and the number was probably inaccurate but Soarin' was not going to slow down until he could match Spitfire wing to wing. If the captain was going to have a special power-based group then he would be in it. Period.
But he wasn't alone in his personal training. A certain other pegasus had caught onto his renewed resolve and had made a scary amount of progress in catching up to him. That pegasus was beside him now, practically passed out on the gym floor. However, the two were otherwise alone since the gym was reserved for Wonderbolt use during the current hour.
"You still want to be one of Spitfire's honor students?" Soarin' asked with a huff. He was as winded as the other 'Bolt next to him.
"You say that like it's a bad thing but," the stallion paused with a pant for air, "you're going for it too."
"And so is Blaze. But she's too good to train with us," Soarin' spat in contempt. Of all the Wonderbolts, Blaze was the easiest target for contempt. In her defense however, she rarely lacked the talent to back up her self-confidence.	
"Three...fifty," the other 'Bolt continued to pant. "I can't believe...I've gotten this far."
Soarin' wearily got back up off the gym floor and wobbled over to his bottle of water on one of the shelves that lined the front wall. It was cold and refreshing. After the drink, his spirit returned and he was ready to continue his day.
"Training's over for today. Unless you want to rip a muscle," he commented to his companion. "How long are you going to wheeze on the floor, Fire Streak?"
The 'Bolt gave him a deadly glare, closed his open mouth, and shot to his hooves. Even Soarin' knew it was too fast and the stallion nearly fell back to the floor as the blood rushed to his head. He gave a "gah" of mild pain and decided to shoot for conversation to cover up his comparatively lower physical ability.
"You sticking to that diet?" he asked his friend.
"The diet is one of many reasons why I'm ahead of you," the blue pegasus sniped right at the spot that Fire Streak was trying to cover. "It's why I was racing close second against Spitfire's dream-team in the last race."
"Pfft," the cream color pony blew off the insult. "You can stick to it all you want. I'm going to keep enjoying life. I've got an ice cream date this afternoon."
Soarin' smirked, insistent on keeping his high ground. Perhaps his personal resolve had ignited his competitive spirit too much.
"You mean a date with ice cream. Not a date involving ice cream."
To that, Fire Streak huffed with annoyance.
"You don't have a mare either, hot stuff," he countered.
The still faster Wonderbolt didn't miss a beat.
"As far as you know. And you don't know a lot," Soarin' kept smirking as he turned to the gym's front door.
Fire Streak nearly erupted into a flame that would have done his name justice. Soarin' was worse than Lightning Streak had ever been. Who was this half-bit to snipe at him? It looked like a visit to Silver Lining was in order. That stallion was better at listening than the others. Maybe he would be willing to listen to a little venting.









It started with a spark and then evolved into a tiny flare. Eventually it grew to a repeatable burst of flame but, at that point, Spitfire could no longer stand. Her legs were tired and her wings were sore. Celestia had tried to get her to break and continue later but the mare wouldn't listen. She was determined and had thus sufficiently learned the ignition move. It wasn't until later, when she was resting in her castle guest room, that she began to realize that something was off. Very off.
She wasn't an expert on science but something was not quite right with the numbers. Spitfire calculated the number of days she had been training along with the day count for her teammates and the numbers remained skewed. It had been about seven weeks since she had been approached by Princess Celestia concerning the Bullet. In that time, Spitfire had trained her body nearly to the point where she could pull off the maneuver. Surprise had also trained but by slightly less time. Silver Lining and Misty had trained for even less and some of the other Wonderbolts had made remarkable progress in their own personal trainings. 
Basically, it did not make sense that some of her team members had made such giant leaps in physical strength and ability. The captain doubted even herself. She was the strongest of any Wonderbolt but even she doubted that it was possible to get to four-hundred fifty wing-ups in just seven weeks. It made less sense for some of the other 'Bolts.
Hence the orange pegasus approached and knocked on Princess Celestia's bedroom door.
"Spitfire?" the white alicorn cocked her head sideways as she opened the door. "I thought you were off to rest..."
"I was going to, but something came up," Spitfire answered with just the slightest tone of annoyance in her voice.
Interested and too patient to be annoyed as the other pony was, Celestia let Spitfire into her room. She moved to her bed and rested on it as the pegasus sat stoically on the carpeted floor.
"Well," the royal prompted.
"You've tampered with me and my team," Spitfire bluntly accused. She suspected that the princess was aware of her own actions and didn't need further explanation. And she also decided to put aside her own feelings for the only question that really mattered. "Why?"
The alicorn sighed. She was caught red-hoofed. 
"I was bored," Celestia admitted. "Do you remember what I told you before about making things fun?"
It did not come to Spitfire immediately but she struggled with her memory and managed to call up that small bit.
"Because you're too old for things to just happen to be fun?" the orange pony guessed.
"Yes. I wanted to teach you the Bullet because I thought it would be interesting. I know this sounds ridiculous from your point of view but I just couldn't wait for you to work up to it. I wanted you to get through training as fast as possible so that I could see you perform it."
Spitfire's face soured. Her suspicion had been right.
"So you used magic on us to increase the rate of our muscular growth. That's illegal and no self-respecting athlete would even think of it," the captain practically growled.
"It would have taken you years to get through training, Spitfire," the alicorn argued. 
"And you couldn't wait that long? How old are you again?"
"That's what I'm trying to tell you. My age is just a number. Nothing more."
"And your patience? I thought you were supposed to have unlimited patience," Spitfire continued.
Celestia's lips tightened against each other until she finally let out another long and deep sigh. She was collecting herself.
"I'm not perfect, Spitfire. I'm not who most ponies think that I am. But I do have some patience. That should be obvious considering how long it's still taken you to get trained. Seven weeks does not pass by overnight. It was still a long pay-off for me. And if you are completely against using anything that you've obtained by magical assistance then I can perform a reverse spell to return you to your original state."
Spitfire was going to keep up the accusatory tone but held back when Celestia made her offer. Should she accept? It wouldn't be fair to the others. Magic or no magic, they had been working as hard as herself to train. Furthermore, her own attitude was becoming far too negative. She had failed to calm herself over the magic tampering before approaching the princess on the matter. Even ignoring Celestia's royal position, it was simply not nice for her to use such snippy tones with another pony.
"No, I'm sorry if I sounded ungrateful," the captain decided with a small bow. "And it's not right for me to treat you like you're not a normal pony."
Princess Celestia opened her mouth but no words came out. She hadn't recalled those words being spoken to her in many long years. Spitfire breathed deeply in the silence before continuing.
"My words got ahead of me, as an old trainer of mine used to say."
The white mare's smile returned and she finally found some words.
"Captains can't accuse others. If somepony isn't doing their job then you must train them to do it. If somepony fails then the blame is your own," Celestia stated to Spitfire's surprise. 
"He used to say that all the time too," the pegasus whispered in amazement.
"Tracker was one of my better guard captains. He decided to go into acrobatics after he retired because he didn't care for any of the sleepy retirement communities. I'm really not surprised that he decided to train you. He always had a soft spot for ponies who knew what they wanted," the princess laughed.
"Small world. How many ponies do you know, anyways?"
"Oh..." Celestia wondered aloud as she laid back on the bed and gazed up towards the ceiling. "I stopped counting a long long time ago..."









"Love birds, dropouts, and egomaniacs," Blaze complained as was not unusual. "The team is rife with them."
"Rife meaning that there are a grand total of two love birds, one dropout, and one egomaniac - which is you by the way," Fleetfoot kidded as she ran alongside the other mare on the Canterlot track.
The currently annoyed pegasus decided not to comment. She needed to focus. It wasn't easy keeping up with Fleetfoot while on the ground, after all. Even when she had been racing through a balanced but firm training schedule. She was almost as powerful as Soarin' by her latest guesstimation, but she was way more flexible than any of the others.
"Well I suppose there might be four love birds rather than two," Fleetfoot tempted for conversation again.
The flippant manner in which the mare was trying to talk to Blaze only worsened the orange mare's mood. Fleetfoot didn't look like she was even breaking a sweat. Maybe she was really an Earth pony inside and had been born a pegasus by complete mistake. Her legs were just way too powerful.
"A saucy romance between the worst of rivals," the light-hoofed mare tried for the third time.
"That doesn't even make sense! And who uses the word 'saucy' these days?" 
"Ah!" Fleetfoot exclaimed in victory. "You're so interested! So you want to hear the scoop, huh? Huh?!"
Blaze wanted to roll her eyes but knew she would crash if she did. The bait had been taken and it was too late to be saved from Fleetfoot's stupid droning.
"So I was totally not thinking of Rapidfire in that way, right? I mean, he's like the super villain to my super hero you know? We're totally from different worlds. I don't even know how he can run so darned fast. And then High Winds went and implied something like maybe he's interested..."
Blaze tuned out at that point even though the mare running alongside her wouldn't stop going on for the next half-hour. Fleetfoot's way of talking tended to get messy and hard to understand when she got too excited so Blaze wouldn't be able to tell what the mare was saying one way or another. The first ten minutes of Fleetfoot's rambling were spent running on the track. The next twenty, in which Blaze was exhausted and Fleetfoot was jumping around like a little filly, were spent on the grass of the outer track.
Celestia, thought Blaze. Please just take me to the afterlife.