Chapter 4
~Connecting the Wires~
Question 1. Who founded the F-Zero races? When? And to what end?
Right off the bat, the test cheated Rainbow Dash. It claimed to be only one question, but it demanded three answers. Three! Rainbow Dash held her groan in an attempt to not annoy the other test applicants.
She thought as hard as she could, wracking her brain to recall what she knew regarding F-Zero’s history. There was only so much space under the question to write, so she’d have to write it really small. And if the graders couldn’t read it, then it was their own fault for asking for three answers to one question.
Rainbow Dash looked at the touch screen, stylus in her mouth. She wrote down whatever she could think of: founded by Stinkin' Rich, 225X, entertainment. As she continued, Rainbow Dash could barely recollect a few of the answers to the questions, while forgetting others outright. She inhaled and read the next question on the test, already bored. Wasn’t F-Zero supposed to be exciting?
Well, the events that put her here certainly were. The last two weeks had ripped on by. Rainbow Dash could only recall her training in frozen moments, or scenes like from a movie.
Scene: Rainbow Dash parking the Blue Falcon in Twilight’s secret lair. Scootaloo bitched her out because they’d gotten lost in the secret passage here. Rainbow Dash still doesn’t quite recall what got her to be quiet—she only remembers talking about a cheese wheel.
Scene: Twilight going through list after list after list of things relevant to Rainbow Dash’s training—and the list seemed to just spiral on forever. There was a little baby dragon with her. Rainbow Dash pitied him.
Scene: Rainbow Dash driving the Blue Falcon on Twilight’s awesome racetrack. This one happened the most.
Scene: Twilight trying to get Rainbow Dash to read the histories and intricacies of F-Zero. Not happening.
Current scene: Rainbow Dash seated at a desk in a seemingly endless room full of them, each one occupied by a fellow applicant. Dull droning could be heard outside this testing room, with security guards standing resolute by the two doorways and others walking up and down the rows—most likely to make sure nopony’d try to cheat.
She sighed quietly and returned to the test. More F-Zero history. Rainbow Dash wished she’d studied like Twilight told her to. But then again, Rainbow Dash hated having to sit in one place for hours, doing something static like reading.
It took close to forty minutes before she reached the end of the test. She sighed with a contented smile. The pain was over. Her smile faded the moment she saw the words on the bottom of the holo-screen:
Please wait until it is time to start the second half of the written test. If you reached this part before the other applicants, please use this time to review your answers.
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and sighed. She looked up at the clock. Twenty minutes left. Might as well make that twenty hours, or twenty days. Rainbow Dash hated waiting. It was one thing to wait for a bounty to enter a bar so she could take him out, but it was a totally different thing to wait at a desk for a test. At least with the former situation, she could have a beer.
She took the test’s advice and reviewed her answers, but she wasn’t totally sure what the answers were in the first place so it turned out to be a waste of time. Rainbow Dash leaned back in her seat and looked about her fellow applicants. She cut that out the moment one of the guards raised an eyebrow at her, as if he thought she might be trying to cheat by looking at somepony else’s answers.
Rainbow Dash sat quietly. Fidgeted. Yawned. Lazily slid her hoof on the desk in front of her. She glanced up at the clock.
Nineteen minutes left.
She bit down another groan.
The music chewed through the radio in the Blue Falcon as Scootaloo operated on it in Twilight's garage. That’s what the Captain always called it—“operating” on the Blue Falcon. Never “fixing up”, never “upgrading”, never “modifying”: “operating.” Yet another hint that Rainbow Dash saw the Blue Falcon as if it were a living thing. In many ways, Scootaloo envied the Blue Falcon. It probably saw the most of Rainbow Dash’s softer side.
Scootaloo lifted her head out of the Blue Falcon’s innards. Next to the Falcon rested the Golden Fox, Twilight’s machine.
She caught sight of the little dragon at work fixing up the Fox, humming along to the music as he connected wires and greased parts. His purple scales were accented well by his green eyes and mohawk-spikes, with blue coveralls clothing an adorably chubby body and a fat little tail swishing left and right to the beat of the music.
“So,” Scootaloo said, after watching him work for a few seconds.
The dragon stopped humming to the music, but continued to work. “…So.”
Scootaloo resumed her operation. “So, uh… my name’s Scootaloo. What’s yours?”
“…Spike.”
The song on the radio ended, and the DJ began talking. “Spike?” said Scootaloo. “Sounds like something you’d name a dog.”
Spike didn’t respond. The DJ reached a news story about crime rates before Scootaloo realized her mistake. “Hey, I didn’t mean to make fun of your name,” she said quickly.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said glumly.
Scootaloo thought for a few seconds. “I don’t mean to sound rude or anything, but… why is your name Spike? Like, who gave it to you?”
Spike tinkered a bit more on the Golden Fox as he gave an answer. “Twilight hatched me from an egg to pass some test or something. She named me Spike. Said it was a good name for a dragon to have.” The last sentence came out almost spitefully.
A few seconds of silence. “Hey,” said Scootaloo. After some painful silence, Spike looked at her reluctantly. “I’m sorry, all right? I didn’t mean it like that.”
Spike looked at her for a few seconds more before returning to his work.
Scootaloo snorted. Just like her to say something that struck a sore spot. Sighing, she reached into her jacket pocket, pulling out the cigarettes from before. She nipped a cig between her teeth and set the pack on top of the Blue Falcon, then looked over to Spike. “Can I get a light?” she asked.
Spike looked apprehensively at the cigs, then at Scootaloo. “Aren’t you a little young to be smoking?” he asked.
“I’m also a little young to be working on modding a combat vehicle into an F-Zero machine,” Scootaloo countered. “I like to think that alone earns me a few privileges.”
Spike thought about this a second. He’d always been curious about cigarettes—not to mention that alcohol stuff Twilight chugged when she felt especially alienated by the world. And all the hard work he’d put into maintaining the Golden Fox, assisting Twilight when- and wherever she needed, must mean he’d grown up some…
He reached out a claw. “Gimme one, too.” Cigarette in claw, he snorted fire softly into the air, where the two lit their smokes.
Scootaloo didn’t exactly smoke like somepony who knew how to do it: lots of coughing, hacking, inhaling too much at once instead of drawing slowly. Spike snickered at her attempts at smoking—right up until he took his first puff and erupted into a coughing fit. Scootaloo pointed and laughed. “Not so easy, is it?” she asked.
“Guess not,” Spike sputtered. “You’d think someone who breathes fire would be better at this kind of thi—”
“What are you doing?!” screeched a voice from behind them. A quick glance told them both that Twilight had woke up from her nap earlier than they’d expected.
Like children caught doing something naughty, the two children caught doing something naughty hid their sins behind their backs. “N-Nothing,” Spike lied. His cigarette suddenly felt like something invisible was tugging it—then it was ripped from his claw and floated over to Twilight in a magenta glow. The same was done to Scootaloo’s cigarette, then to the pack lying on the Falcon’s dash. Twilight looked over the cigs like they were dead rats, then scowled at the two assistants.
“Do you know what these will do to you?” she asked quietly.
Spike kicked at the ground shyly, casting his eyes elsewhere. “I-I’m sorry, Twilight. I—”
“Where did you get these?” she pressed, getting into Spike’s face.
Spike’s eyes darted about before he gave an answer. “S-Scootaloo gave me one.”
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. It was a well-known, scientifically-proven, well-documented fact that kids hate tattle-tales. It’s also a well-known, scientifically-proven, well-documented fact that kids who hate tattle-tales tend to counter-tattle. “I gave him one because I asked him to light mine, then he suddenly wanted one, too.”
Twilight scoffed in surprise. “What’s a kid like you doing with cigarettes?”
Scootaloo’s eyes glazed over. “Well, what’s a kid like me doing modifying a military-level combat vehicle into an F-Zero machine?” Her facial features became something Twilight only ever saw in other adults, and the sight of it on the face of a child… scared her.
A few seconds passed. The singular cigarettes were crumpled mid-air, then tossed into a nearby trashcan. “That’s different,” Twilight said, “You’re doing something constructive by fixing up a machine. This?” She shook the pack. “This is destructive. Smoking these cigarettes are going to kill you.”
Before she could go into a lecture on why smoking is bad, Scootaloo interrupted. “Oh, so it’s okay for you to go out to sleazy nightclubs and leave Spike home alone while you drink yourself stupid, but it’s not okay for me to just enjoy a smoke every now and then? Because you’re an adult and I’m just a kid?”
The next few seconds of silence were heavy and intense. Scootaloo realized only then that she might have overstepped a boundary: she and Rainbow Dash were staying in Twilight’s underground lair, after all. Host’s house, host’s rules. Scootaloo had learned that back when they were still staying with Blueblood and he’d threatened to throw them out when she started giving him lip.
Twilight walked over to Scootaloo quietly as the radio DJ droned on about Griffin sightings. Her steps were slow, her face grim. There was an element of consternation in Twilight’s face—one that made it difficult for Scootaloo to maintain eye contact with her. She stopped just in front of Scootaloo. Another few of those heavy, intense seconds.
Twilight nodded.
Scootaloo found the cigarette pack deposited back in her denim jacket pocket. Twilight sighed and walked away, exiting the garage. Scootaloo looked after her for a while, then turned to Spike, who after witnessing this scene looked rather uncomfortable.
“Hey,” he said, “Um, I-I’m gonna go take a break and, uh… get a snack or something. You want anything?”
Scootaloo shook her head. “No, thanks. Not hungry.”
Spike left for the kitchen. The DJ on the radio had run through the top news stories by now, and started playing some Whitesnake. Scootaloo sighed sadly as she returned to work—excuse me, operation—under the garage lights.
Question 1. Who can sponsor an F-Zero pilot, and who cannot? Why?
Again with this three-answers-for-one-question bull. Ah, well. Rainbow Dash was confident she knew the answers anyway. Legitimate businesses can, political parties can’t. She scratched her chin in thought, then threw in the third answer: Businesses offer merchandising deals, while showing political interest looks bad on the part of the F-Ze…
Shoot, the answer box was too small. Rainbow Dash deleted what was in the box and started over again, remembering to once again write everything really small.
Question 2. How many sponsors can one F-Zero pilot represent? How many sponsors does an F-Zero pilot need in order to qualify for the races?
As many as needed. One.
Question 3. What qualities or devices must an F-Zero machine possess in order to be allowed to race?
Rainbow Dash scratched her chin. That sounded like something Scootaloo would know; she’s the one operating on the Blue Falcon. But if she recalled correctly, Scootaloo did mention…
Up-to-date shock absorbers and G-Diffuser systems...
Rainbow Dash pursed her lips around the stylus between her teeth. Then, she added, Industrial-level combat armor…
She thought a little more deeply, this time recollecting a conversation between herself and Twilight Sparkle. Twilight was the kind of mentor one needed—foregoing being nice in favor of being helpful. She reminded Rainbow Dash quite a bit of those no-nonsense mentors who’d take Fuji Apple’s character as their pupil.
One of the things Twilight had gotten onto Rainbow Dash about—besides, y’know, everything—was about how accidents happen very easily on the F-Zero tracks. Rainbow Dash had even seen on TV how common it was for F-Zero pilots to attack each other. “You need to check your ETD, before every race, after every race,” she had said with a stern frown.
Rainbow Dash asked more about it. Sounded important.
At that, Twilight had rolled her eyes. (Okay, so she was helpful, but she was also rather condescending.) “When an F-Zero machine gets wiped out, the ETD—that’s Emergency Teleportation Device, by the way—will warp the pilot to safety.” She began to pace around Rainbow Dash as she continued her lecture, going into maximum detail about what it is and what may happen if it malfunctions.
Twilight Sparkle was serious regarding almost everything, but the level of seriousness during that particular lecture was near-terrifying.
But anyway, ETD. Emergency Teleportation Dev…
Dammit! Not enough space!
The waiting room. Rainbow Dash even hated the name—waiting room. There’s one in every building: the dentist's, the doctor's, the garage, the Guild, and now? Now Rainbow Dash found herself in the F-Zero Registration Office Waiting Room.
She took a number from the receptionist and sat on an empty chair in an ocean of filled seats. Looking around, there must have been a billion or so entrants. Of course, a billion was a random number her bored mind plucked from nowhere—although to be realistic, there were probably close to one… maybe two hundred people.
There were quite a few ponies there: unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies. A few Zebras dotted the room. Some Diamond Dogs spoke to a mare wearing a cowboy hat over by the corner, a Minotaur chatting it up with a pretty-faced jenny. One butter-yellow pegasus stood up on her hind legs, waving her forelegs around before fluttering her wings and flying over. Even with the purple flower stuck in it right now, Rainbow Dash could recognize that long pink mane anywhere.
“Fluttershy?” she asked.
“Hey,” Fluttershy greeted softly. “How’s your daughter doing?”
Rainbow Dash couldn’t tell if she was joking. “Well, she isn’t my daughter, but Scootaloo’s doin’ all right for herself. What’re you doing here, anyway?”
Fluttershy took the seat next to her. There was timidity in her voice, as if she were greatly relieved to see a face she recognized in this desert of strangers. “Well, um, the internship I have over at the Guild doesn’t really pay my bills.”
Rainbow Dash nodded as she reclined in her chair, folding her forelegs around the back of her head. “So you’re gonna become an F-Zero pilot? That's some pretty high aspirations.”
Fluttershy shrugged and blushed. “Well, maybe—if I pass the test, that is. And even then, it’s still really hard to get into the races. I’m actually here for a job interview. Heard they needed somepony to scrub the toilets, and I could use the money.”
Rainbow Dash smiled and suppressed a laugh at the mental image of soft, demure, girly little Fluttershy cringing at the sight of a neglected stallions’ room. “Well, it’s a living, I guess.” She looked more closely at the flower in Fluttershy's mane. "Nice flower, by the way. Never took you for the hippie type."
Fluttershy giggled softly and looked away. "Well, my parents are hippies. They're the reason I came to the city."
"They send you to a nice college here?"
Fluttershy sighed and shook her head. "I wish they did, but no. I just got tired of them trying to run my life. Controlling what I ate. Controlling what I did." She sighed as she felt the small flower, how beautiful it was. "But there are a lot of things they gave me that I'll always keep."
Rainbow Dash smiled. "Their love for nature?"
Fluttershy nodded. "You learn to appreciate nature in a place as plastic like Mute City."
Rainbow Dash sighed. "Finally!" she said. "Here I was, thinking I was the only one who noticed. We should start a club!"
The loudspeaker squealed, breaking their conversation. “Attention, all F-Zero applicants,” said a bored, nasally voice over the loudspeaker. “The tests have all been graded. Please report to the License Office on the second floor if your number is called.”
As the bored voice began rattling off numbers, Rainbow Dash looked down at hers. Twenty-seven. The perfect number. Only two digits long. Easy to remember, hard to forget. Twenty-seven.
Come ooonnnn, Twenty-seven, Rainbow Dash thought. Momma’s got herself a race to win.
“171… 94… 96…71…”
As the numbers rolled, people began to leave the waiting room to go pick up their license. Rainbow Dash’s eyes flicked to Fluttershy, who held onto her ticket hopefully, looking at it like it was glowing.
“44… 135… 27… “
Rainbow Dash smiled and gave Fluttershy a friendly pat on the back. “See ya ’round, Fluttershy,” she said as she got up. “Good luck with everything.”
Above them, the bored voice claimed that all the passing applicants had been called, have a nice day. Fluttershy frowned sadly at her “losing” ticket, remembering the long nights she'd spent studying the history of F-Zero, all those hours sunk into learning driving. She looked back to Rainbow Dash as she went on her merry way.
“Good luck to you… too,” she called. But by then, Rainbow Dash had rounded the corner and was out of earshot over the murmuring of applicants who were disappointed their numbers weren’t called.
Fluttershy sighed and looked back down at the number on her ticket. Twenty-one.
Oh, well. There was still the job interview, and after that, toilets to scrub.
The line in front of the reception desk was not as long as it could have been, thankfully. Rainbow Dash became rather suspicious: how could that many people take a written test, but only this many passed? Still, it was better to be thankful she’d passed the first time anyway.
The mare behind her was an earth pony, orange pelt, blonde mane, cowboy hat. She wore a snow-white jacket, the sleeves rolled up to above her elbow. Boots as white as the jacket she wore clenched about her hind legs, her dark-green shirt bringing the whole ensemble together. Dogtags hung from around her neck, a set of shades separating her eyes from the rest of the world.
“Military?” asked Rainbow Dash.
She lifted her shades to reveal a pair of emerald eyes on a freckled face as she gave a warm smile. “Ex-military,” she said. “Quit to be with my family.” Her voice had a deep, maternal pitch to it, as well as a country accent.
“Name’s Rainbow Dash. What’s yours?”
“Name’s Applejack,” she said. “Friends call me AJ.” She held out a hoof and shook Rainbow Dash’s so hard, she thought her foreleg would winch off. “So, you passed the written test, huh?”
Rainbow Dash nodded as the line moved forward, one by one. “Yeah.”
“Well, that’s about the only easy part of becomin’ an F-Zero pilot,” AJ said. “The next steps include things like acquiring new sponsors. It’s a hassle ’n a half.”
Rainbow Dash smirked. “You talk like you’ve done this before.”
“I have,” AJ said with a grin. “Just had to renew my license. Gotta do it like every four years—and that includes havin’ to get picked up by new sponsors.” She went on a bit about what to expect next, about sponsors and passing a driving exam, and so on. At some point, Rainbow Dash began to only half-listen.
Finally, it was Rainbow Dash’s turn at the reception desk. Behind it was a withered little tree-branch of a jenny, her eyes half-lidded with a kind of lethargy that, frankly, worried Rainbow Dash. Her makeup made her look like some kind of mental patient grandma, and reminded Rainbow Dash of the creepy old lady who lived next to her house when she was little.
“…Who’re you?” asked the Jenny vacantly. Now that she heard her, Rainbow Dash concluded she must have been the bored voice from the waiting room speakers. Unsurprising.
“Number 27, in the flesh,” Rainbow Dash smiled.
The jenny blinked slowly. “...How nice,” she droned. Rainbow Dash didn’t quite understand the context of her statement: was it nice to be Number 27, or nice to be in the flesh, or…?
Either way, the aging donkey took a small data card, putting it into what looked almost like a pager. After doing that, the pager-thingy came alive with a beep. “This is your registration. Please take this over to Building B for the remainder of the licensing process.”
Rainbow Dash kept her smile on her face, but screamed on the inside. Was this thing going to take all day? She took the registration pager-thingy and began walking to the nearest building map.
The receptionist yawned. Stretched. Farted. Finally done with all those stupid tests. She and her team of graders were glad their role was finally over. She supposed they should be thankful for their boring jobs—if the F-Zero committee had passed that ruling in which grading was done via computer (like nearly everything else these days), they’d be on the street.
But still, sitting at a desk all damn day was surprisingly tiring, and unsurprisingly stifling. It didn't help that some jerk today decided they'd write all their answers really small.
She took a drink from her coffee mug, only to find it empty. She shook her head and got up to go get some more, like she’d been doing the past couple of days she’d been working without sleep. From the corner of her eye, she saw the small list of passing grades on her desk. “Oh, right,” she mumbled. How silly of her to forget. She sent the small list to the filing bin for later.
If she’d been more awake and alert, she’d have noticed that "Number 27" was supposed to have been Number 21.
The rest of the process was ludicrously long. Rainbow Dash was pretty sure the passion of most would-be pilots was killed by the miles of bureaucratic red tape. Go to Building B—register with the people there—please wait—take a photo—sign this—sign that—please wait—let’s see your pilot license kid—please wait—got any info on your machine? It was worse and even more invasive than when she got her Bounty Hunting License.
She was done by dinner time, but by that point, the process had left her stomach in a knot. The bus ride back to the Lair was largely uneventful—except for that one creepy pony who kept making goo-goo eyes at her. The moment she arrived at Twilight’s hotelthere was this sudden, refreshing sense of relief, almost like she had taken an especially painful crap.
But the moment she saw the blazing glare on Twilight’s face in the break room, that feeling of relief ran away screaming. The beer Rainbow Dash fished from the fridge was set on the countertop. “…There a problem?” she asked, hoping she hadn’t forgotten to do something before leaving.
Twilight closed her eyes, and sighed through her nose. “We need to talk.” She sat at the table, waiting for Rainbow Dash to do the same. Rainbow Dash took a seat.
“So, uh… what about?” Rainbow Dash asked, hoping she didn’t sound as intimidated as she felt. Her knobs twitched.
“Scootaloo,” Twilight said.
Rainbow Dash sighed and ran a hoof through her mane. “What’d she say?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I know she has the tendency to shoot her mouth off, but…”
Twilight shook her head. “No, not about that. She’s actually really smart. But she’s…” Twilight looked as if she didn’t know how to put her next words together. She licked her lips and tried again, this time really scrutinizing Rainbow Dash’s face. “Does Scootaloo’s behavior… trouble you?”
Rainbow Dash shrugged. “She’s growing up. It’s only natural she’d—”
Twilight interrupted her with a wave of her hoof. “No, I mean,” she began before falling into a groan. “Look, I don’t like sounding like I’m trying to tell you how to parent, but kids her age shouldn’t be acting like that.”
“I’ll ask again, then,” Rainbow Dash said, “What. Did. She. Do?”
“...I caught her smoking.”
Rainbow Dash shrugged nonchalantly before taking a chug from her beer. “So? I smoked when I was her age. I quit a few years back; she’ll quit when she’s ready.”
Twilight’s mouth fell open with a grunt. “That’s your attitude? She’s like… how old?!”
"Fourteen."
Twilight's eyes widened. "She's fourteen?" Her eyes twitched as though she were reading a book only she could see. "But... if that's true, then Scootaloo's... puny for a pegasus her age. And she can't fly, either."
Rainbow Dash's knobs twitched again. "Neither can I," she said thinly with a cold look in her eyes.
"Well, your case is obviously different," Twilight said softly. "But Scootaloo's still growing up. She's still a child, and... and she smokes, and acts like an adult, but looks underdeveloped?"
Rainbow Dash was able to draw quite a few parallels to Blueblood, who’d asked the same questions years before. She analyzed Twilight more closely—really inspecting her this time—before asking her own question. “How were you raised, Twilight?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It has everything to do with this, actually,” said Rainbow Dash as she set the soda back down. “First, I notice you were born into a wealthy family. You got everything you could ever want at your hooves.” Silence. Rainbow Dash leaned forward. “You deny this?”
Twilight pursed her lips. “Well, no.”
“I’m also guessing you grew up in an area where there wasn’t much crime or ‘bad’ influences, right?”
“No.”
Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Well, there you go. It’s as simple as that: you were just raised differently. You grew up in a completely different world than the one Scootaloo lived in.”
Some more silence as Rainbow Dash sipped from her beer. Her eyes became strangely wistful. Nostalgic. “When I found her, Scootaloo was only seven years old, but she acted way more mature than most adults. She was already earning money by fixing up vehicles for ponies three times her age. When I asked her how she could do that, you know what she told me?”
“What?” Twilight asked.
“She told me, ‘You learn a lot when you got nopony you can depend on.’”
Rainbow Dash released a sigh she didn’t know she was holding. “And she knew a lot. She knew her way around machines and guns. Scootaloo was growing up in a Port Town slum, all by herself. Her own survival was the reason she kept giving it her all, every day she woke up. She grew up too fast… but it was only because she had to if she wanted to survive.”
Once again, Rainbow Dash had surprised Twilight. She felt her heart begin to break, little by little at every word that came from Rainbow Dash’s mouth. “Is... that why you adopted her?” she asked, her voice a quiet whisper.
Rainbow Dash returned Twilight a wry smile and chuckled. “No. I didn’t adopt her out of pity or some desire to protect her. I adopted her so that I could give myself a reason to keep going.” She finished her beer, crushed the can, and tossed it into a nearby recycle bin. “My reason for adopting Scootaloo was completely, totally selfish. But I don’t regret it.”
Twilight released a sigh. “You’re both so complicated,” she said wearily.
“Been called worse,” Rainbow Dash laughed. “Don’t worry about it, Twi. I promise Scoots and I are gonna be outta your mane by the time the sponsor's race rolls around.” She blinked. “By the way, when is the sponsor's race?”
“Next Friday.”
Rainbow Dash nodded. “Better get some more practice in, then.” She got up from her chair and patted Twilight on the shoulder as she walked by. “Thanks for the talk.”
“Yeah,” Twilight said weakly. “No problem.”
Rainbow Dash left the room, leaving Twilight to herself. She leaned over the table, resting her chin on her folded forelegs, digesting what she’d been told as a sad frown slowly spread across her lips.
Scootaloo sat up sharply in her bed, surrounded by the dark of her room. She quickly stuffed both her hooves into her mouth, silencing herself before she could break into hysterics over her night terror. She bent in half, curled into a ball, hooves still in her mouth, biting down on them now. Counting backwards from a hundred. Keep calm. Ninety-nine, ninety-eight, breathe, ninety-seven, ninety-six, breathe, doing good. Doing good. Just wait for the bad dream to go away.
What was the bad dream about? She could only vaguely recall certain details. Rain in the Red Canyon. That was certain. Rare, maybe illogical, but she remembered. Rain and… blood?
Blood. Yes. She remembered the blood.
After a few seconds of letting reality welcome her back to where she was safe and sound, Scootaloo slowly drew her hooves out of her mouth. That had been something she’d done since she could remember—stuffing her front hooves into her mouth and counting backwards when she felt scared. Long before she’d met Rainbow Dash, in fact.
The times Rainbow Dash had heard her wake up from a nightmare were ironically some of Scootaloo’s favorite memories. Not even pausing, just rising from her hammock in the Flyer, shooting to Scootaloo and scooping her into a hug.
She rested her hooves on the bedsheets, only to find them wet. The dampness was warm, the smell it emitted salty and acidic. Scootaloo groaned as she realized she’d pissed the bed. Again.
She got out of bed, walking across the red carpet into her private bathroom. (A private bathroom! Scootaloo was still getting over that.) Her nightshirt was just as soaked as the bedsheets, so off it went as she stepped into the shower.
With a squeak, the shower became alive. It replaced the thick stink of urine with the scent of lilac and coconut, courtesy of Scootaloo’s new best friends, soap and shampoo. Scootaloo began scrubbing herself down as the rain...
The rain.
That was the only time she’d ever seen rain in the Red Canyon. Rain. Rain and…
She turned off the shower, and stood there. Shivering. It took her a moment to realize she was crying, too.
The low hum of electricity pulsing through the walls was joined by the sound of Scootaloo’s little hooves pitter-pattering across the hard floor. A cleaning bot rolled by her, shining the floor while its owners slept. Without really knowing why, Scootaloo gave it a pat on the head. Keep up the good work.
As the cleaning bot slid down the hall, Scootaloo looked around. She’d forgotten which direction the laundry room was. In her half-asleep state, she’d been dragging her smelly sheets in the wrong direction. She breathed a tired groan. Suddenly, there came a soft noise. Sniffling.
Scootaloo’s ears perked. Sniffling? Setting down the dirty laundry for now, she tip-hoofed nearer to the source of the sound: Twilight’s room. The door—one of those old-fashioned doors that still worked on hinges instead of automatic opening—was slightly ajar. Curiously, Scootaloo peeked in.
Twilight was sitting up in her bed, holding her red scarf against her naked chest. Her eyes focused on the scarf as if it was something sacred, her face streaked with tears. She shook as she sobbed, burying her face into the scarf.
Scootaloo backed away from the scene slowly and, rather worriedly, resumed her quest for the laundry room. After this turn, that turn, and another turn, she found the laundry room and stuffed her sheets into the washer. It was a bit different from the model on the Flyer, so it took her a little time to figure out how it worked.
A smile threatened to break into a laugh. The more she thought about it, the more Scootaloo realized the Falcon Flyer was essentially a flying house. She’d never actually lived in real houses—or in apartments—or in motel rooms. She could only ever sleep in the Flyer, live in the Flyer, eat in the Flyer.
As she watched her bedsheets go round and round, Scootaloo’s mind returned to Twilight. The red scarf. Something about it, something so sacred and untouchable. The tears streaming down her face.
Scootaloo thought harder. There had to be some connection between Twilight’s breakdown just now and why she’s so mean to everypony.
Rainbow Dash had explained to Scootaloo that Twilight’s just a tough teacher. She’s tough on us because she wants us to become the best we can be—and you can’t make somepony tough by being nice to them. But maybe there was something deeper than that, and Scootaloo had the sneaking suspicion that the scarf was a huge part of the twisted puzzle that was Twilight Sparkle.
…Was the scarf to Twilight how the rain was to Scootaloo?
After the laundry was done getting washed and dried, Scootaloo brought her sheets back to her room, flipped her mattress over, got back on and curled up.
But try as she might, Scootaloo couldn’t go back to sleep that night.
The test track was no Red Canyon, no Devil’s Forest. But it simulated that feeling of freedom Rainbow Dash loved about driving. Nothing but her, the Blue Falcon, and the world ripping by the both of them.
Scootaloo had outdone herself in bringing the Blue Falcon to his current majestic state. While his combat trappings had been removed, he was no less beautiful for it. He was this magnificent bullet screaming from a gun’s barrel. Rainbow Dash could smell the hot smoke and taste the gunpowder.
Beautiful.
A voice crackled over the squawk-box, knocking Rainbow Dash down from her high. “All right, Supergirl,” Twilight said. “You’ve had your warmup. Let’s see what you’re really made of today.”
Obstacles began shooting up from the race-track—white spires that must have stood thrice as tall as any pony, with magenta rings around them. Rainbow Dash felt a sudden lurch and realized the magenta rings must be some kind of magnet. First the smooth floors that messed with the G-Diffuser's traction, then the bomb droids that ambled about the track, now magnets…?
Still, no complaints here. Rainbow Dash licked her lips as she blazed by the magnet-spires, heavily tilting her weight on the left or right control boot to pull the Blue Falcon away from the magnets. As she closed in on the finish line a second time, Twilight came back over the squawk-box. “Good… good. Now here’s the real test.”
Orange lights appeared on the track. “I’m giving you another two laps. Collect all the orange lights and make for the finish line. Then we’ll call your training complete.”
“Is that all?” Rainbow Dash laughed.
Suddenly, the magnetic spires were accompanied by the bomb droids and the smooth floors. Rainbow Dash gulped.
“Any further comments?” Twilight challenged. But before Rainbow Dash could reply, she barked, “Get to it!”
Twilight observed her pupil through the monitor wall of the observation deck, each screen offering different angles of Rainbow Dash’s progress. She was doing surprisingly well for the number of challenges on the test track. The magnets weren’t much of a problem for her. She seemed only just so careful on the smooth floors—only daring enough to grab every orange light she could on her first lap. The bomb droids she was able to avoid completely. The Blue Falcon flew like its namesake, a graceful and menacing raptor tearing effortlessly across the racetrack.
She’d watched Rainbow Dash’s driving multiple times these past few days, and was always impressed. Anything Twilight threw at her would be overcome in a matter of minutes. Twilight often doubted that Rainbow Dash really needed the training, honestly. She was simply naturally talented.
Then there was that sense of satisfaction. In many ways, Twilight was responsible for the birth of who might actually become one of the greatest F-Zero pilots in the entire history of the sport. Just the thought of having the integral role of mentoring a champion was substance enough to be considered its own level of fulfillment.
Of course, none of these thoughts would be brought to Rainbow Dash’s attention. Her ego would eat it up and balloon to an even more monstrous size.
As Twilight continued to silently marvel at Rainbow Dash’s performance, she heard a hiss of an auto-door opening behind her. She turned her head to see Scootaloo carrying a plate of hot food, and cocked an eyebrow as the little filly brought it over and put it on a nearby desk that was already housing several computers. The two shared an awkward silence for a few seconds.
“Thought you might be hungry,” Scootaloo said quickly. “Spike’s working on your machine again and he told me you might have missed lunch, so…”
The plate was enveloped by a magenta glow and brought over to Twilight. Scootaloo watched as she ate—her disciplined table manners reminding Scootaloo of Blueblood. Do all rich ponies eat like that? she wondered.
Twilight looked at Scootaloo, swallowed a bite, then asked, “You cooked this?”
Scootaloo hesitated, then nodded. “…Yeah. I’m usually the cook when Rainbow Dash and I have enough money for something other than ramen noodles.”
There was more silence as Twilight finished off her lunch. Finally, Twilight wiped her mouth (though it was more daubing her mouth with the napkin), and set all the dishes aside. She looked to Scootaloo again.
“…Thanks. You’re actually a—pardon my French—a damn fine chef.”
Scootaloo smiled and shook her head as if she were fighting the urge to laugh. “You swear like a kindergartener.” She began gathering the dishes. “It just doesn’t sound natural.”
Twilight threw her head back and laughed. “I guess not,” she said. “That was actually the first time I’ve sworn in… goodness, has it already been almost ten years?”
“Really?”
Twilight shrugged. “Yeah. Got in a fight with my old boyfriend. And maybe I said things I regret now.”
Scootaloo forgot the dishes for now, simply listening to Twilight ramble with a smile lighting up her face. It was the first time Twilight had actually seen the way Scootaloo smiles, every intricate detail of the way her little lips curve. Her heart melted.
Twilght fell silent. Then she reached over and mussed Scootaloo’s mane. “But never mind any of that! You’d better get yourself situated. Your mom’s gonna be finishing up her last training session here in a bit.”
Scootaloo gathered the dishes and walked back to the observation deck’s exit with a noticeable spring in her step. As the door closed behind her, Twilight smiled, shaking her head as she returned her attention to Rainbow Dash.
Just as the Blue Falcon collected the last orange light, Twilight whispered, “You’re both so complicated. But… thanks.”