Both of Ratchet's parents stared down at the mare's flank, baffled by her cutie mark. They didn't even know what it meant, they always knew that Ratchet was good at making other ponies laugh, but as she got older she stopped spreading her joy to anypony else other than her friends. So, they assumed that her talent was something else. Judging from her cutie mark, it had something to do with laughing.
Ratchet sat down as she smiled up happily at her parents, who smiled back sheepishly. After a while, the two older pegasi looked at each other and nodded.
"Ratchet... What IS your cutie mark?" Rainbow Flash asked hesitantly but also in a soft tone.
"It shows my talent of spreading happiness to my friends! I may not have many.... But still! Also I think it shows my talent of coming up with insults." Ratchet giggled nervously as she grinned, waiting for her parents answer.
"I always knew your talent had to do with spreading happiness. Com'ere you!" Crimson grabbed the mare and embraced her. Rainbow Flash giggled and joined the embrace. Affection was usually a vexation to the mare, but she didn't care at the moment. After a while she looked at her mom in the eye.
"So...... Did Ratchet Earn Her Wings mom?" Ratchet asked with pleading eyes as she begged.
"Yes... Ratchet has earned her wings. Go, talk to Zealous." Rainbow smiled down at her mare, the white pegasus smiled back before she bolted out the door. Flash ran as fast as she could so the wind would go past her ears and she would be able to hear it. When the white mare finally got up to speed, she started to flap her wings to gain even more speed. A corner was coming up ahead. She grinned and jumped up. With a strong beat of her other wise useless wings, she made a sharp turn and continued to sprint down the straight away. Ratchet knew her wing's wouldn't get her airborne so she continued to buzz them. Ratchet laughed, she just couldn't wait to have wings. Flash saw Sugar Cube Corner come into view and she got ready to take her last sharp turn. She jumped up and flapped her wings as she reached the corner, making a sharp turn and galloped to the house at the end of the street and knocked. A white unicorn with a blue mane came to the door, his cutie mark was a sword.
"Hello Mr. Spike! Is Zealous around! I have some news for him!"
"Yeah. ZEALOUS! RATCHET IS HERE!" The unicorn yelled.
"Coming!" A crimson earth pony came running down, it was indeed Zealous, who only had one wing on as he ran up to the door.
"Zealous. My mom said I can get wings!!!" The pegasus jumped up and down as she buzzed her wings.
"About time! Come on Ratchet! I gotta measure your wings." Zealous pulled the mare inside and then into a different room next to the living room, that served as a storage room for all of Zealous's stuff. He pushed her up onto a platform and looked for a measuring tape.
"DAD! CAN YOU GET MY MEASURING TAPE?" The crimson pony yelled as the unicorn came into the room and within his magic grasp was a measuring tape. He walked up to Ratchet and started to measure all along her wings.
"The base of her wings is six inches.... She lacks proper primary feathers so I can't measure that." He told his son, who was jotting things down on a paper with a pen in his mouth. After doing some math he nodded.
"If the base of her wings is 6 inches, that is normal by the way, then her wings will have to be 5 feet long to be able to get her off the ground. Dad, numb her wings, we have to pluck her feathers. Pegasi feathers are not exactly easy to come by."
"Wait... What?" Ratchet asked. "You are plucking my feathers?"
"Yes. I mean, we will end up cutting off your wings so, what does it matter?" Ratchet pondered for a while until she shrugged.
"They are useless anyway!" Right when she finished away, the unicorn plunged the numbing fluid into the base of her wing. He waited a few moments before he started to pluck her feathers. The numbing hadn't worked on Ratchet. The pegasus had to hold back any form of pain in her expression as the pain of each of her feathers being plucked, one by one, the sting ran through her bones. She looked back as parts on her wings started to bleed. The unicorn finished plucking all of Ratchet's feathers and started to wrap her wings up in bandages. The liquid that he put on her bleeding wings stung like nothing else. For some reason, the numbing solution that Zealous had gotten from Nurse Redheart didn't work on Flash, but the pony just ignored her.
"Good news and bad news. The base I already have a perfect, but it is useless without working primary feathers." Zealous spoke up and he held up on of the wing bases. It had all the same joints that a real wing had and the metal was pure black. Ratchet grinned to herself as relief washed over her body.
"My dad could get a bunch from the royal guard. All of them have at least one feather to spare." Flash smiled as she spoke, happiness flowing through the veins just like the pegasus blood in her system. The happiness pumped through her heart as she sat on her flank and started to day dream...
The wind whispered sweet nothings in her ears. It teased her mane and pulled at it. Her wings beat up and down quickly as she flew behind a rainbow streak. She soon caught up with a cyan pegasus who grinned at her,
"I bet you can't break the sound barrier!" The rainbow maned mare spoke with the same amount of cockiness and rasp in her voice. Flash grinned back.
"You are on." The white mare grinned as she flapped her wings, leaving a brown zig zag streak in a light brown trail from the back of her body. The cyan mare chuckled to herself and caught up with the snowy mare. They looked at each other and both boosted up to full speed. Their manes being pushed back. Tears in the corners of their eyes. Speed Tears as Dash had called them. The barrier started to form around both of them. Rainbow pulled it off first, creating a Sonic Rainboom. Ratchet broke the barrier, a snow white ring going out, it was called a Sonic Iceboom, named by Dash herself.
"Ratchet! Ratchet! Ratchet!" A floating crimson pony head came into vision.
"Huh? Oh.. What?" Flash muttered as she was so rudely interrupted in the middle of her day dreaming.
"Heeey! Welcome back to the real world! You have been spacing out for ten minutes. " the earth pony spoke in a exasperated tone.
"Oh. Okay! Uh, can I go home now?"
"No. Home came to you." A white pegasus stallion said from the doorway, he was grinning as he looked at the pair of unfinished wings that would be on his youngest filly in a few hours. "I heard that you needed some primary feathers for these wings, yeah?" Zealous and Ratchet nodded as the stallion tapped his hoof on the side of the door just as a bag of primary feathers floated into the room, carried by a purple alicorn. Ratchet's eyes went wide as her whole body froze. Was the princess of friendship standing in front of her?
"Hello Ratchet Flash." Twilight spoke as she ruffled her feathers. "I heard about your wish to fly, and all you needed was a few primary feathers. So I have brought them, as requested by Crimson." She advanced in her speech as Ratchet remained there with her mouth agape. Twilight Sparkle chuckled. "I see my visit has taken you by surprise. I will continue with my studies. I wish you the best of luck in your yearn for flight." The princess turned and walked away as Zealous, Crimson and Zealous' Father continued to work on her wings.
"Just a few more tweaks to the feathers...." Zealous mumbled as he moved the primary feathers around and Ratchet knocked her hoof on the ground. "Done!" Zealous turned around and held up the wings. Ratchet's mouth fell agape. They were.... Awesome! For lack a a cooler word. "Go the hospital in three days, and these will be on your body."