What makes one machine better than another? What makes one faster, stronger, more powerful or better looking?
What makes one car better than another? Horsepower? Torque? Efficiency?
Speed?
Rainbow Dash galloped through the narrow dirt trail that snaked its way through White Tail woods. The path was the very same one that she and Applejack had had their competition on during last years running of the leaves, yet it was no where near Fall yet.
Despite this, Rainbow still decided it would be a good idea to get some early practice in. Unfortunately, the route changed each year, so she had no idea what path this years running would follow.
So of course, she decided to run them all.
Todays course, led her along the border between the peaceful, White tail woods, and the far more sinister Everfree forest. The athletic pegasus wasn’t even remotely worried though. After battling four big baddies for Equestria’s safety, the Everfree forest hardly compared.
So when the pretty oaks and light punctured canopy of White Tail woods gave way to the darker, gnarly branch trees of the infamous forest, Rainbow Dash only put on extra speed.
Compared to flying, running was hardly a strenuous task. The only reason that many pegasi had trouble running, was that living on clouds gave them very soft, sensitive hooves.
Good for sensing air currents and walking on soft clouds. Bad for storming along an unpaved, dirt trail, with alot of sticks, stones and other such ground scatter that could get jammed into them.
While Rainbow wasn’t completely safe from this either, she fared better than most pegasi. Though Fluttershy’s near constant down-time still had her beat.
Feeling the first onset of sweat seap from under her fringe, she decided to peel off, into a deeper part of the forest to where their was more shade.
The path she now found herself on, was far steeper, and much narrower that the other. It only continued to shrink as she ran further, as if she had run from a vein into a capillary.
Felled logs and looser dirt, forced her to slow, less she end up with a mouthful of dirt. Eventually, the path vanished into little more than a small groove, more so for water to run downhill than for somepony to be running along.
With a humpf, she sat down on her haunches. Crossing her forelegs over her chest and growling angrily at herself that she could get sidetracked so easily.
At this rate, she was never going to learn the trails well enough to get an edge over other competitors. This wasn’t the first time she had gotten lost, and it surely wouldn’t be the last.
Brushing the dust off herself, she was about to call it quits and make her way to Sweet Apple Acres to snag an apple or two, when she noticed something in the corner of her eye.
A glint of sunlight was bouncing off of something, shining straight into her eye. Turning her head to look, she saw that whatever it was reflecting off was in a gully, behind a row of trees that were in between it and her.
Curious as to what could be reflecting in the middle of nowhere, she blasted through the trees. Reaching the edge of the slope, she jumped, allowing the wind to catch under her wings and let her gracefully glide into the ditch.
The dried, wispy grass bent under her hooves as she landed. Now that there was nothing to obstruct her view, she was able to get a good view of what had caught her eye.
A sad, sorry looking lump of mangled steel sat wrecked in a small clearing. Bits and pieces scattered around the main body, which was slowly losing itself to time.
Taking a few steps forward to investigate, she stumbled when her hoof hit a hidden metal panel that was hidden within the grass, with a loud ‘dong’.
Looking down, she saw a fairly large, square piece of rusted metal. There was nothing particularly amazing about it, apart from the strange symbols along one edge that said BUICK in bold, once shining letters.
Of course, Dash had no idea what it said, but it was plain to see that it had at one point been attached to the strange object. Stepping over it, she moved to large object that dominated the clearing.
Despite never having seen anything like it before, one look at it easily told her that it was beyond her time. She recalled seeing a metal sign hanging over a shop corner back in Cloudsdale when she was a filly. Every day, she passed that sign, watching it grow rustier in the humid summers, yet even after all those years it had never reached the level of rust that had overtaken this poor machine.
Looking at what appeared to be the front, the noted that the four glass circles seemed to stare at her sadly, as if they were weeping at their fate. The slitted bars that spanned between the two pairs of circles were bent and crooked, almost into a permanent frown.
If Rainbow didn’t know that it was just some odd contraption, she would have felt sorry for it. If there was one thing she hated more than anything, it was being all alone. Being left alone and forgotten out here like this would have been torture.
She almost felt glad that, whatever it was, couldn’t feel emotions. Being forgotten was more terrifying to her than death itself.
Jumping up onto the roof, the large metal covering made a strange popping clunk, as even the pegasus mares miniscule weight dented the metal.
The groove she made almost looked comfortable, if it wasn’t chock full of rotting leaves and sticks. Rainbow may not have minded getting dirty, but that didn’t mean she would enjoy sleeping in filth.
Looking around, she noted that despite being inside the Everfree, the clearing was peaceful, serene almost. It was as if, whatever she was stood upon was keeping both the twisted trees and nasty creatures at the borders.
It would be a shame to let such an isolated spot to remain unused. Rainbow may have disliked being alone, but being able to nap peacefully without the interruption of either Pinkie Pie or Scootaloo was always an appealing prospect.
Making her decision, Rainbow looked around briefly, before spotting a cloud in the distance, that looked sufficiently fluffy.
With a confident smirk, her wings opened with a snap, before she launched herself towards the unsuspecting cloud. Wings beating, weight shifting, she continued to do what she loved.
To go fast.
The quadruple headlights of a young teenage boy’s fathers car, shone down the deserted tarmac. The young man was just learning to drive, and was forbidden from driving his fathers ride, yet that didn’t stop him pinching the keys when he was asleep.
“Come on man, there’s no one around. This thing should do zero to sixty in no time at all,” one of the boy’s friends egged him on. The rebellious teen had gathered his friends to go joyriding, one of his more gear headed friends suggested a quarter mile drag, to really put it through its paces.
“What if the cops show up? I’ve heard they like to patrol this stretch,” the son argued, though what came next easily made him forget his worry.
“Come on. You’re not scared are ya?”
The boy clenched his first around the wheel, looking dead ahead as he weighed his options. After a few moments, he looked back over to his friend beside him, who was awaiting an answer eagerly.
The roar of the big block in front of them was the only answer they got.
“All right!” the other friends who had remained silent till now chorused as they began to grin stupidly at what was about to go down.
Taking one last glance over the hood to the road that spanned out far in front of him, he grasped the gear stick, and jammed it into first.
Stomping on the accelerator, the car bellowed loudly as it took off, wind whipping by as it continued to speed.
The speedometer climbed as the boy pushed the pedal to the floor, changing the gears as the engine demanded.
Faster still, the car hurtled down the barren highway, catching air after clearing a small rise, much to the joy of those inside.
The noise could be heard for miles in the silence of the night, the exhaust pipe echoing a roaring opera.
Finally topping out in top gear, the car belted down the road, its cargo full of laughing boys and one nervous, yet excited son whom would get the beating of his life if he was ever found out.
The fun was short lived however, when the sound all speed freaks dreaded invaded their ears.
The blaring of a police siren.
Rainbow Dash soon returned, setting a new record for ‘fastest time to retrieve a cloud and return it to strange machine wreck in the middle of a forest’.
Placing the cloud into a comfortable position about a foot above the roof of the BUICK, she settled down on the plush, white pegasus bed. Intent of catching some decent shut eye.
Before nodding off completely however, she looked over the edge of the cloud one last time, at the blue and brown wreck below her.
“Just you and me huh?” she asked, idling stroking the roof of the strange machine.
“To bad, whatever you are, you weren’t built for speed,” she commented absently.
“It’d be nice to have some real competition for once.”