Soarin fell to his knees, his emotions finally getting the better of him. His whole body was shaking, still shocked by the loss of his Captain. Rainbow Dash didn't react to the collapsed Soarin, she just stared ahead where he had previously stood, her eyes unfocused, but her mind was whirring.
"Spitfire? Dead?" Rainbow couldn't comprehend what she had just been told. Spitfire, the untouchable and unbeatable Captain of the Wonderbolts, was dead? Rainbow wouldn't believe it, she had to see it for herself.
"Take me there" She ordered the bawling Soarin.
Soarin looked up at Rainbow Dash with red and teary eyes,
"sure, I guess you deserve to know." He managed to say through sobs.
"Where are you taking me?" Rainbow Dash asked.
Soarin had started to compose himself,
"Ghastly Gorge, that's were...it happened."
Rainbow herself had flown through Ghastly Gorge several times in her past, blasting through the canyon at rocket speeds, but she'd never been in a situation on her own where she could have died, and with Soarin alongside her, the second most capable Wonderbolt, how did Spitfire perish there?
Rainbow gasped as she realised what may have happened.
"Oh no. Was it...the eel?" She quietly asked Soarin.
Soarin peered across to her, and he simply nodded.
The two Pegasi arrived at the gorge, it was abandoned apart from one other Wonderbolt who had come to see what had happened. Fleetfoot flew slowly out of the gorge to the edge of the cliff and sat down on the grass, she was holding her head in her hoofs, weeping quietly in memory of her Captain. Rainbow Dash and Soarin went to speak to her, she rose her head and tried to speak, but her words stuck in her throat and she continued to cry. Soarin sat down next to the Wonderbolt, trying to comfort her.
"I'm sorry, Fleetfoot, but there's nothing we can do."
Soarin wrapped a hoof around Fleetfoot's shoulder, and he held her tight, he rested his head upon hers, crying again
"At least she went out the way she will have wanted to."
Rainbow Dash looked at the two weeping Wonderbolts, and a tear trickled down her face. Two of her heroes were sat right in front of her, crying into each others' arms, this wasn't the way to see your heroes.
"It was just a routine session." Soarin whimpered, "just an ordinary fly through the gorge. And the eel left took her."
The Quarray Eels had started to die out due to the lack of food in the Gorge, only one remained, and that single Eel had taken the spirit of the Wonderbolts to her untimely death.
"Is the Eel still down there?" Rainbow asked anxiously.
"No, I wouldn't let that thing survive after eating her. If Spitfire was going down, so was the Eel." Soarin muttered angrily, his anger rising.
"I'm gonna go down and check it out." Rainbow Dash mumbled, leaving the two Wonderbolts to remember their beloved Captain.
Rainbow could hardly believe what was happening. Only this morning she was angry about having dreams about Spitfire, and now she was dead, eaten by a Quarray Eel, taken down in her prime. Even though Rainbow knew there were no Eels left, she still advanced cautiously, always ready for danger. But her fears of danger disappeared when she arrived at the holes in the Gorge wall that the Eels lived in.
Studying each hole from a distance, Rainbow saw something that made her heart skip a beat. She rapidly soared down towards the object she had seen.
Rainbow Dash stopped and lowered herself towards the base of the hole, and she trotted towards the goggles on the ground.
These were the Wonderbolt regulation goggles handed out to all inductees.
They had belonged to Spitfire.
A few yellow feathers lay dotted around the goggles, some spattered with the blood of the Captain of the Wonderbolts.
Rainbow collapsed onto the ground, wailing uncontrollably. Her heart had been torn in two, her number one idol, the pony she aspired to be, was gone. And a few bloody feathers were all that remained to remember her legacy by. Rainbow continued to sob, unable to stop herself, too overcome by anguish to cease the river of tears.
Still sobbing, she stood back up and picked up the goggles, she wasn't leaving these here, they belonged to the most wonderful Pegasi who had ever lived, and Rainbow refused to leave them in a dark cave away from civilisation.
Rainbow carried the goggles out of the dank cave and returned to Soarin. Fleetfoot had left, and Soarin had stopped crying, but his eyes still remained red, it looked like he could break down at any moment. Rainbow handed over the goggles,
"I think you should have these." She muttered sadly.
Soarin held out a hoof and took them,
"I'll take these back to the barracks. Thanks for coming, Rainbow. You deserved to know, she really thought highly of you."
And with that, he started to trot away, his head held low.
Rainbow watched the once majestic Wonderbolt take off staggering, and then slowly rose into the afternoon sky.
She sadly sighed and started to wander back towards home, overcome with grief.