“Okay everypony, let’s finish for now” called the Wonderbolts leader, Sprit Fire. “I think we’re ready”
“We were ready ages ago” ironized their newest member, Rainbow Dash. “Come on, Sprit Fire, don’t you think your exaggerating things?”
Sprit Fire glared to Rainbow. “Shall I remember you than our reputation as the best flyers in Equestria is in danger? “
Soarin shook his head. “Rainbow Dash is right, captain. There’s no way the Shadow Bolts can beat us, compared with us they’re just amateurs. Relax and let the best performance win; and I mean ours.
Sprit Fire rolled her eyes but she had to smile, they were right, there was no way they could be defeated by a group of exhibitioners who thought they were special because they had Princess Luna’s support. At the end they moved to Cloudsdale great stadium just in time for the opening act of the annual Cloudsdale Festival.
The acts started; starting by a speech by Princess Celestia, a school play about the foundation of Cluosdale; and the best flyers competition. Rainbow took her chance and went to talk with her friends who came to cheer her.
“Ey girls, what’s up?” greeted the pegasus.
“Oh, hello darling, are you ready to your great competition” asked Rarity politely.
“Guess what?” said Pinkie Pie happily “I just made the most perfect, exciting and catchy ovation ever; if you feel nervous during your performance, my ovation will make you forget all about it”
Rainbow Dash laughed.
“Thank you for the effort Pinkie Pie, but I don’t need any help. Those Shadow Bolts doesn’t have a single chance against us. I don’t know why Princess Celestia agreed to this foolish competition if she knows there’s nopony who can beat the Wonderbolts!!”
“I don’t know Rainbow” said Twilight smiling. “I’ve seeing what this Shadow Bolts before and I can tell you their style is amazing and unique. You better duplicate your efforts because this competition isn’t going to be easy for any of you”
Rainbow Dash petted Twilight’s head. “Yeah, yeah, whatever you say Twi. Like I said, there isn’t a chance for the Shadow Bolts”
“EY RAINBOW!!” Soarin called. “It’s time!!”
“Coming!” said Rainbow. “Well girls, see you later; and try to cheer the Shadow Bolts a little; for defying us the less they deserve is a prize, even if is consolation prize”
Fluttershy saw her friend flying away. “Girls, shall we warn her?”
“No, Twilight already tried” mumbled Applejack. “A’ just gonna sit here and enjoy the Wonderbolt’s failure against him and his group”
…
In the center of the Stadium, Princess Luna was ready to announce the main event:
“MARES AND GENTLECOLTS” shouted Luna with her Canterlot voice. “WELCOME TO THE MAIN EVENT OF THIS CLOUSDALE FESTIVAL!! THE PERFORMANCE OF THE BEST FLYERS IN EQUESTRIA, THE WONDERBOLTS”
The ponies started to cheer up and scream in excitement. When the crowd finally calmed a little, Luna continued.
“BUT THIS YEAR IS GOING TO BE A LITTLE DIFFERENT THAN THE REST. TODAY WE ALL ARE GOING TO WITNESS A UNIQUE KIND OF COMPETITION BETWEEN THE WONDERBOLTS AND MY OWN GROUP OF PRAISED FLYERS, THE SHADOW BOLTS”
The crowd started to mumble in confusion. In her personal box seat, Celestia smiled to herself; this was going to be fun.
“THE TWO GROUPS WILL MAKE THEIR PERFORMANCE; AND ONCE THEY FINISH, YOU WILL CHOOSE THE BEST GROUP OF FLYERS IN ALL EQUESTRIA!!” Continued Luna. “AND THE WINNER SHALL MAKE THEIR BEST PERFORMANCE IN THE NEXT GREAT GALLOPING GALA”
Sprit Fire groaned. “Okay, you heard the Princess, if we lose, we won’t make the performance in Equestria’s greatest event. I need you to focus and do your best. Understood?”
The Wonderbolts nodded.
“ENOUGH BLA, BLA, BLA, MY LITTLE PONIES. NOW I’LL LEAVE YOU WITH THE GREATES GROUP OF FLYERS IN ALL EQUESTRIA!! THEY HAVE WHAT THEY NEED TO DEFEND THEIR TITLE? LET’S FIND IT OUT! GO WONDERBOLTS!!”
“Okay, let’s go!” said their leader flying to the scenario at the Princess’ sign.
They started, the Wonderbolts started to fly all over the place using their special smoke-backpacks forming all kinds of figures in the air; representing every single important moment in equestrian history. Their historic representation ended with the story of how the Elements of Harmony defeated the evil Discord closing with a powerful sonic-rainboom from Rainbow Dash who winked an eye to Sprit Fire and greeted the crowd with a great smile.
Sprit Fire nodded satisfied; there was no way the Shadow Bolts could do anything better.
The crowd started to yell in excitement, throwing roses to the Wonderbolts and cheering them. The team bowed to the crowd and even Rainbow Dash caught some roses and winked an eye to the stallions who threw it. And once again, at Luna’s sign, they moved out of the scenario. If the Shadow Bolts didn’t have anything better than that, there was no chance they could defeat them.
“IMPRESSIVE I MUST SAY” Luna shouted. “BUT IS IMPRESSIVE ENOUGH TO WIN THIS COMPETITION? LET’S FIND IT OUT, MARES AND GENTLECOLTS, NOW I INTRODUCE YOU TO… THE SHADOW BOLTS!”
Three pegasi in black suits flew to the scenario and started to gather clouds at great speed; forming some kind of dragon entirely made of clouds. Then, the pegasi disappeared inside their creation and suddenly, it started to move like a real one. The dragon looked all over the scenario roaring (special effect made by a Shadow member who kicked the cloud from the inside). It even breathed fire; or that’s what it looked like when another member made the clouds that formed the mouth to produce lightings.
“So they’re puppeteers; well, it’s kind of original” mumbled Rainbow Dash.
Sprit Fire nodded. She admitted their rivals had great skills but still they needed a lot of more if they really wanted to defeat them.
And then it happened. A blue pegasus in a black coat jumped from the tribunes with two swords in his front hooves. The dragon-cloud spotted him and tried to get rid of that annoyance with his lighting-breath; but the pegasus had great flying skills and easily dodged every single attack. The dragon roared in frustration and tried to catch the impertinent pegasus with his claw.
The pegasus smiled and attacked the monster with his sword skills sending powerful bows to the claw. The dragon roared in pain and changed its strategy trying to reach him with his tail. Again, that was useless. Not only the pegasus dodged the attack, but he placed himself over the tail and stuck his two swords on it. The dragon shook his tail trying to get rid of that horrible attack. The blue pegasus resisted the movement for a few minutes but he knew he couldn’t resist much more; so he grabbed his swords and flew away from the dragon who was still roaring in pain.
For a few instants, the two opponents stared each other, but they quickly reassumed their fight. It was amazing, the dragon was big and powerful; but there was nothing he could do against the pegasus’ great sword skill. The fight continued by a few minutes but at the end the pegasus threw his swords to the dragon’s neck; making it to roar in agony and finally vanish into mist.
The crowd was astonished; but after a minute of silence, they started to scream in excitement. That wasn’t a real battle, but still felt like it; and was the greatest air performance ever. Then, the group Shadow Bolts bowed to the crowd. They felt so honored to be there and compete than they were happy already; they didn’t care if they failed against the Wonderbolts.
The cheers continued for a very long time, but at the end Princess Luna flew to the center of the stadium.
“Everypony please SILENCE!”
The crowd obeyed.
“Thank you good people of Equestria. Now it’s time to judge which group was the best; so I need the both captains here, please”
Sprit Fire flew to Luna along with the pegasus in the black coat, the ex-criminal and famous warrior known as Kirito the Black Swordsman. They both bowed to Luna and waited for she continues.
“Thank you, now stretch hooves my dear little ponies; both of you did a great job, but the audience here is the one who’ll judge who did better” Luna turned to the audience. “So, who deserves to make a performance at the Great Galloping Gala this year? THE WONDERBOLTS?”
Cheers.
“OR THE SHADOW BOLTS?”
Not only cheers, but also screams of excitement that last ten minutes at least. Sprit Fire mumbled something to herself but lowered her head to Kirito.
“You did a great job, congratulations; now you better do a great show at the gala, Black Swordsman”
Kirito smiled warmly at the mare and offered her his hoof as a good gentlecolt. “I will, don’t worry about it. And, better luck next year, okay? I’ll love to try this again”
Sprit Fire had to smile. “We won’t let you win so easily next year, Black Swordsman, now than we know what we’re really with”
Kirito nodded and Luna raised his hoof.
“So it’s decided my little ponies! The winner of this year is the team of the Shadow Bolts, my praised group of flyers! And for the Wonderbolts captain, Sprit Fire, I must congratulate her for being such a good loser; and hopefully she’ll improve for the competitions to come giving us the best of shows!”
Again the captains bowed to the cheering crowd and flew back with their respective teams in the dressing rooms.
After a quick shower and carefully pack his famous “midnight coat” Kirito went to the encounter with his family and friends.
“Impressive as always” smiled his wife when she saw Kirito approaching. “So sad I didn’t chose to be a pegasus too when we selected what kind of character we will play”
“Don’t feel bad, mama” said a pre-teenage Yui winking an eye to Asuna. “You are a great unicorn”
“Yui is right, besides, you don’t know how much time this Shadow Bolts thing is taking me. I can barely handle it along with my duties as a lunar guard”
“It seems too much to handle, even for Trixie” said the blue unicorn mare with a grin. After all that time she still was their closest friend in Equestria.
Asuna had to nod. In the past years, Princess Luna made sure Kirito and her have a comfortable life in Equestria. She re-named her personal unicorn guard as the Knights of Blood and named Asuna their captain once she was legally an adult.
And for Kirito, Princess Luna gave him the title of commander of her personal air force because of his great abilities in air combat. But also she proposed the idea to form a new group of flyers that could defy the Wonderbolts for the title of Equestrias’s best flyers.
Kirito agreed happily and after a year of preparation, there they were, in Cloudsdale festival as winners of that challenge.
“Okay, I’m a little hungry” announced Kirito. “Let’s go eat something and…”
He saw the group of six mares approaching; including the one he wished not to see that day. Rainbow Dash quickly flew to confront him face to face.
“Ey, Rainbow. No hard feelings, right?”
“You are going to pay for this humilliation? You and your bunch of exhibitioners. Oh yes, you haven’t heard the last word of the Wonderbolts”
“Let it go darling, they won fairly” said Rarity with a condescending tone. “Their presentation was just marvelous; oh, I almost fait looking at that dragon, it seemed so realistic!
“Yeah, is not a big deal Dashy” said Pinkie bouncing happily. “They were a little more creative than you, thats it”
“But it’s not fair” complained Rainbow. “Kirito didn’t acquire his flying abilities naturally, he just copied his stats from a game to our world!”
“Well, we don’t upgrade automatically anymore, so to preserve my abilities I have to practice constantly, and as a member of the Royal Air Force of the Night, I do practice a lot”
Rainbow Dash glared at him but at the end she just crossed her hooves and said “humpf!” before flying away. Twilight chuckled a little.
“Don’t blame her, she’s just being her”
“Well, changing the subject” said Asuna “Where’s Spike? I thought he would like to see the competition”
“Oh!” said Twilight. “Everypony, I have great news: Spike sent me a letter today. He and Pina had an egg. In a few weeks, I’ll be a grandmother”
The ponies gasped and congratulated Twilight, who blushed lightly.
“Well, I guess Silica would love to hear it when she connects in a few hours” said Yui with a smile.
“Yeah, she’ll be really happy for Pina” chuckled Asuna.
At the end, the groups separated and everypony went back to their homes.
Later that night, in their new home at Canterlot Headquarters, Kirito was looking at the stars in silence. Asuna approached to him.
“Is something on your mind, Kirito?”
He turned to his wife.
“Oh, Asuna. Sorry if I worried you. I was just thinking… well, it doesn’t matter, I’ll go back to bed”
“Come on, you know you can tell me, right?”
Kirito sighed.
“I was just thinking, was it really okay what we did three years ago, giving up to our past lives and start all over again in this world? Leaving behind our friends, families, school, everything”
Asuna kissed him softly. “You don’t have to think too much about it. We never left them completely. Remember they visit us every time they can with the AtmusPhere; and after what happened two years ago in that parallel world Canterlot Hight, the connection between the world only got stronger thanks to Kayaba’s help”
Kirito nodded.
“Besides, you were the one who taught me that we didn’t lose anything in our world; we won a lot in this world” concluded Asuna.
Kirito nodded and hugged his wife. She was right, after they defeated the dark alicorn, everything was going fine and they should be thankful for that. And, in a few weeks, they’ll presence one of the most beautiful miracles of the life: the miracle of birth, a baby dragon birth. So he kissed Asuna and went back to sleep.