//------------------------------// // 2 // Story: Moonspire Run // by titanrising //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash plowed straight through the cloud instead of bothering to go around. On the other side, she flared her wings to a stop, pulled them tight against her sides, and fell with her back to the soft, springy surface. She lay supported by her sky pony magic, panting and waiting for the snug, comforting feeling that lying on a cloud always brought. It didn’t come. The bubbling brew of fuddled feelings roiling inside her only worsened. “This is all stupid Rarity’s fault and her stupid pillows,” she said to the sky. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and groaned; it wasn’t Rarity’s fault. Nor was she stupid. Neither was Twilight Sparkle for that matter. Rainbow Dash had asked them to help her train… but train for what? An invasion of giant parasprites? She groaned again. Ever since winning the Young Fliers Competition by doing the Sonic… that trick, she didn’t know what to do with herself anymore. She was afraid to even try it again because… because…. Well, she didn’t know why she was afraid, she just was. But everypony had to keep bringing it up when they watched her train. She used to bask in the attention whenever ponies came to watch. She used to train right smack in the middle of Ponyville. Now she felt nervous with even a one-pony audience. She opened her eyes to address the empty blue above. “What is wrong with me?” She groaned again, louder and longer. It wasn’t enough. She rolled over, mashed her face into the cloud, and unleashed a wordless scream of anguish. When she was done, she lay for nearly a minute breathing in the fresh, rainy smell. “It’s not easy, is it?” a voice asked. Rainbow Dash yelped in surprise and bounced to her rear legs, punching her hooves out in front of her like a boxer. “Who’s there? Show yourself! Come on, I’m ready for ya!” “Easy there Rainboom girl,” the voice said with a sarcastic edge. Whoever it was sounded friendly and confident, as if they were ready to tell a joke at any moment and expected laughter to follow. Rainbow Dash dropped to all four hooves and raised an eyebrow. The voice also sounded very familiar. “Who is that?” The cloud was divided by a giant heap of cumulus, hiding the other from view. “Always having to be the best,” the voice said. “It’s not easy, is it?” Rainbow Dash climbed to the top of the dividing heap and peered over. She sucked in a gasp; the cloud was on fire! After her initial fright, she gave her head a quick shake and looked again. Where she had thought a fire was burning, a bright yellow pegasus with amber eyes and a fire-orange mane stood blinking back at her through a pair of very old, blue goggles. The wind ruffling the long, spiky hair of her mane and tail had created the illusion of flickering flames. Rainbow Dash frowned. She had never seen this pegasus before, why did she recognize her voice? The yellow pegasus pushed the goggles up to her forehead and grinned. “I don’t live in my Wonderbolt uniform, you know. I do have to take it off to wash it.” Something clicked in Rainbow Dash’s head. And then shattered. Her mouth fell open as her lungs drew in every cubic inch of breath they could hold. It took every iota of control to squeak out, “Sp… Spitfire?” Spitfire lifted a hoof to her chest and beamed. “The one and only!” And the one and only team captain of the normally blue-clad Wonderbolts; the elite aerial flying team Rainbow Dash had been trying her entire life to get noticed by. She felt her wings struggling to rise. Her back quivered with the effort of holding them down. Twilight Sparkle claimed that unconscious wing rise was a literal expression of the ‘fight or flight’ response all creatures had. Rainbow Dash couldn’t care less why it happened, she just knew that it was really annoying when one was trying to play it cool. Like when a pony was standing on a cloud talking to their absolute greatest hero in all Equestria. Thankfully, her wings obeyed. “Ohmygosh… Spitfire!” Rainbow Dash said, fighting back her overwhelming giddiness. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “Umm… what are you doing here?” Spitfire looked disappointed. “Only one ‘ohmygosh’ this time?” She smiled and tapped her chin with a hoof. “Well, since it’s kind of pointless to pretend otherwise… I guess I was spying on you. You weren’t supposed to know,” she gestured to the cloudless sky, “but there weren’t many hiding spots.” Rainbow Dash felt light-headed. She took a few steps to steady her balance. “Why are… what are… me? You’re spying on me?” Her voice quivered with each word. “Why?” “After your little stunt at the Young Flier’s Competition, we all agreed we should keep an eye on you.” “What does…? Does that mean…? You want me to be… a… a… a Wonderbolt?” Spitfire shook her head with a laugh. “Hold your horses there, Rainboom girl. There’s about fifty or so pegasi we regularly keep an eye on. What it means is we think you might have potential.” The humming in Rainbow Dash’s body quieted. “Fifty? I’m only in the top fifty?” “Yes. And it’s my day off, so I thought I’d see what you were up to.” She trotted to the edge of the cloud and looked down. “And you put on quite the show, yelling at your friends like that.” All elation flooded from Rainbow Dash like water from a broken trough. “Oh. Yeah.” “You sure let that little pegasus have it.” Rainbow Dash’s ears drooped. “Yeah.” “What did she do to deserve such a tirade?” Rainbow Dash groaned and rolled her eyes. “Scootaloo? Ugh. She’s always following me around, trying to get my attention and give her tips on flying. She’s like a little… total… lunatic!” Spitfire looked at her sideways. “Does she spout ‘ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh’ every time she sees you?” Rainbow Dash squinted and cocked her head. “What’s that mean?” Her eyes popped open wide. “Hey! That’s different! You… you’re a Wonderbolt!” “True.” Spitfire looked back down at the ground. “At least you didn’t send all your other friends running away in tears.” Rainbow Dash shoved her face into the cloud and out through the bottom. Scootaloo was nowhere to be seen, but the other four were standing in a circle, talking. “Why would that make her so upset?” Twilight Sparkle asked. Applejack pushed her cowgirl hat back on her head and shrugged. “Don’t know, but she has been a might twitchy ever since that competition.” “I feel so awful,” Rarity said. Her ringleted mane and tail sagged. “I only did what she asked me to. What if she has run away? What if she never comes back?” She raised a hoof to her forehead as if about to swoon. “Oh, I would never forgive myself.” “It ain’t your fault, Rare,” Applejack said, patting her with a hoof. “We need to go find Fluttershy so she can fly up and tell Rainbow we want to apologize fer givin’ her such a ribbin’.” Pinkie Pie inhaled a giant, squealing breath. “I’ve got it! Girls, you know what we should do?” She grinned and blinked her huge, blue eyes at them. “Throw her a party?” Twilight Sparkle asked in a low, sarcastic voice. Pinkie Pie leaned away from Twilight Sparkle so far that it seemed she should topple over. “Whoa. That’s just scary… you didn’t even need a hint!” Rainbow Dash yanked her head back up, smiling. She had just yelled at them, less than five minutes ago, for no apparent reason, and they had already forgiven her. She had the coolest friends ever. Cooler than anyone else’s in all Equestria. At least twenty percent- “So,” Spitfire said, interrupting Rainbow Dash’s thought. “You look like you have some energy you need to burn off, and I don’t have anything else planned for today… so how ‘bout it? Wanna have a race?” Rainbow Dash’s eyes slowly widened along with her incredulous grin. Her wings fluttered. “Me? You? Me race? I mean, race you? I mean-” Spitfire clomped a foot to Rainbow Dash’s mouth. “Yes!” She pulled her hoof back. “So what do you say? You up for it?” Rainbow Dash leaped up from the cloud and flew several quick circles around it before landing again. “You bet I am! Let me go tell my friends, they’re not gonna believe this!” She launched into the air again, but Spitfire chomped the end of her rainbow tail before she made it over the edge. With a loud ‘gack’, she snapped back like a tethered ball hitting the end of its string and fell flat on her stomach. “No,” Spitfire said, letting go of her tail. “Just you and me. No friends, no audience, no distractions. No need to show off.” Rainbow Dash reached back and rubbed her rear end. No matter how many times somepony grabbed her tail like that it never hurt any less. “Okay, fine. You could’ve just said so.” She climbed to her feet. “Well, then, what do I get if I win?” Spitfire slowly turned to her with a look somewhere between incredulous and amused. “A Wonderbolt has just challenged you to a one-on-one race… and you’re worried about what you get if you win?” “Well,” Rainbow Dash said, looking sheepish. “It’s just that if my friends can’t watch, how do I prove that it really happened? No one will believe me! They’ll all just think I’m trying to look cool! They’ll just laugh some more!” Spitfire slapped a hoof to her face. “You are so worried about how others see you.” She lifted her chin and made a slashing motion. “No bets. This will just be….” She trailed off and looked toward the edge of the cloud where she had been spying from earlier. “Unless….” She looked back to Rainbow Dash and smiled. “You know, on second thought, I might be able to do you some good.” She looked up toward the sun and tapped a hoof to her chin as if performing a difficult calculation. After several seconds she looked back to Rainbow Dash and gave her a succinct nod. “Okay, fine. If you win…” She looked up toward her forehead. “I’ll give you my goggles.” Rainbow Dash cocked her head and squinted at the blue-rimmed lenses. She frowned; they looked pretty old and beat-up. If Spitfire had been wearing her Wonderbolt goggles Rainbow Dash would have been ecstatic, but the ones perched above Spitfire’s eyes weren’t even close to those. But still, something was better than nothing. “Okay, I guess,” Rainbow Dash said. Spitfire’s small smile turned into a mischievous grin. “And if I win, then you have to give that little pegasus, Scootaloo, a flying lesson.” Rainbow Dash took two quick steps away. “What? No way! Not gonna happen!” Spitfire shrugged. “That’s the deal.” Rainbow Dash waved a hoof in dismissal. “Forget it. I don’t want your goggles, anyway. Let’s just race.” Spitfire mimicked her dismissive hoof-wave. “Too late. Those are the terms. You wanted stakes, now they’re non-negotiable.” Rainbow Dash glared at her. Spitfire grinned wider and glared back. “You don’t like it? Then don’t lose.” Rainbow Dash glared harder, then straightened with a smug smile, raised a hoof, spit on it, and held it out to Spitfire. “Fine. Let’s do this! You won’t even know what hit you!” Spitfire didn’t hesitate to spit on her own hoof and bump it against Rainbow Dash’s. “The only thing that’s gonna hit me is the confetti when I win.” Rainbow Dash’s skin started tingling as every hair on her body tried to stand. She narrowed her eyes and grinned. “So where we doin’ this? Race around Ponyville?” Spitfire yawned and shook her head. Rainbow Dash blinked and looked up. “Cloudsdale stadium? The ring course?” Spitfire dropped her head and snored. Rainbow Dash scratched her chin and shrugged. “Quarterhorse Canyon?” “Boring, boring, boring,” Spitfire said. “If we’re gonna do this, let’s do it right.” “Then where?” Spitfire winked and beckoned with a flip of her fiery mane. “Follow me.”