About half an hour outside of Ponyville, just along the edge of a heavily wooded area, Twilight, Spike, Applejack, and Rarity had finally made it to Ghastly Gorge, a mile wide fissure lined with patches of thick forest of pine and open pasture, rocky cliff side, and small streams of water down on the floor of the canyon. Wildfire had already started his practice run, weaving in and out of the gorge, making himself a path through all the dark dank tunnels, thick patches of the bramble bushes, and even daring to take a couple passes through the nesting area of the giant, red, slimy Quarray Eels. The giant eels usually lunged from their nests, which were dug into the side of the canyon wall, when anything they could use as food wandered by. But, they seemed strangely inactive at the moment, especially with Wildfire making them their target repeatedly so.
The girls and Spike all caught their breath as they watched Wildfire round the canyon again, making another loop around to what must have been his umpteenth time of trailing the course. His eyes followed the course as he passed all obstacles by, fixing his angry out of focus glare on the course. He rolled and juked about wildly, maneuvering the inside of the stone fissure and kicking up dust and moisture from its floor.
“Well, it looks like he’s hard at work, doesn’t it?” said Rarity.
“Yeah, doesn’t look like he’s enjoying his self too much neither.” said AJ.
“Well hopefully it doesn’t get too out of hand.” said Twilight. “If it does continue… well, I just hope this will be the end of it.” Spike nodded in agreement.
“Hey!” shouted a far off voice, scratchy in tone.
Rainbow Dash approached them, followed promptly by Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie who was worn out from pedaling her machine forward so tirelessly.
Rainbow was just able to catch the sight of Wildfire rounding the corner and flying out of view. She charged for him without haste, hugging the ground low and making her way to the opening of the gorge.
“Rainbow! Stop!” shouted Applejack, stepping into Dash’s path.
Rainbow’s hooves hit the ground and dug into the grass, leaving two long parallel lines of unearthed soil as she skidded to a stop, wings spread out wide to catch the air to slow herself faster.
“Don’t tell me that the orange wonder is already out there.” she scoffed, trying to side step Applejack.
“Dash, please try and calm down.” Applejack stepped forward.
“Calm down? That jerk is out there on my turf! Why should I calm down?”
“Rainbow! Please? Just for a sec?” asked Applejack, calming her tone as she took off her hat, her blonde locks shining in the sun.
Rainbow Dash scowled, glaring at Applejack who was looking at her pleadingly to hear her out. Rainbow huffed, plopping her haunches on the ground before her friends and sitting up like a dog.
“What?” pouted Dash.
Applejack sat down like Rainbow did. “Now, we know that you have a grudge with this guy, but you gotta calm down sugar cube. We’re all worried about ya’.” Dash looked to one side, not letting herself show any shame for her actions.
Rounding the opposite corner of the exposed grey stone came Wildfire, shooting out of the dark cavern at the bottom of the ravine. He climbed and gained some altitude again, centering his path along the middle of the ravine, allowing his eyes to readjust to the blinding sun. The blurriness of all the colors eventually came back to him; the grey of the canyon walls, the greens and yellows of the plants, the blue of the water, and the rainbow hue of a far off pony in the distance, which his eyes were immediately drawn to.
Dash stuck out quite plainly to Wildfire, her rainbow hair gleaming in the sun. His concentration now turned towards her, he immediately pulled up out of the canyon and straight into the air, ascending rapidly into the sky.
Dash’s attention turned from Applejack as her eye caught Wildfire rocketing out of the ravine, pulling back and diving out of the sky towards her and everyone else. Applejack didn’t seem to notice, she was too busy trying to talk down Rainbow.
“Now if you two were to just talk things over, I’m sure you two could come to some sort of settlement. Y’all are acting like two pigs fighting-”
A strong gust of air took Rainbow in a blink, vanishing quickly out of Applejack’s sight as her hat was blown off of the top of her head and into her face.
“…Over the last bucket of oats…” finished Applejack, her voice muffled by her leather cowgirl cap.
She lifted her hat out of her face, finding the two malicious pegasi going at it again, hovering just above the ground as they circled around each other. She and all the others stood by and watched, not daring to interrupt either of them.
“And just what are you doing here!?” Wildfire demanded to know.
“What are you doing here?” asked Dash, deflecting his question.
“I’m here to get familiar with this course. If this is going to be a fair race, then it’s going to be all around fair; same practice and same familiarity with the course, and considering you’ve already flown this thing, you don’t need much practice.” said Wildfire, pointing at Dash.
Dash shoved Wildfire’s hoof away from her. “The course can change!” said Rainbow, pulling her goggles off and flinging them to the ground. “Especially Ghastly Gorge! No telling how much this place has changed since the last time anypony has been here.”
“It’s a solid landscape, not a newly paved road.” argued Wildfire.
“It’s an unstable, flooded, overgrown, infested landscape! Who knows how much all the crud down there has taken over? Who knows!? The course could be somewhat different!”
Both the ponies stomped to the ground, each of them stood commanding over each other in order to intimidate one another. Either personality wouldn’t have allowed backing down though, getting close and in each other’s faces, threatening to break into a scrap. All the others were becoming more anxious of the situation as it continued to spiral out of control, watching on as the two ponies went back and forth.
“Yeah. Somewhat, just like you’re acting somewhat crazy.” Wildfire stepped in some more.
“And just like you’re somewhat less stallion that all the others.” Dash stepped in closer.
“Hey! This isn’t a cutie mark thing alright? This is a racing thing!”
“I wasn’t talking about your cutie mark you scrawny bag of bones!” said Dash, eyeing Wildfire up and down insultingly. “Or lack thereof!”
“This “scrawny bag of bones” already handed your own tail to you once.” deflected Wildfire.
“You only got lucky and caught me off guard!” said Dash, brushing off the sting of Wildfire’s leg over her. “But now that it’s on fair grounds, I’m going to prove myself to be faster, more agile… better!”
“This fiasco is getting out of control.” said Rarity, whispering to Twilight.
“I know!” said Twilight, reluctantly stepping forward. “I’ll see if I can butt in.”
“Yeah right! You still couldn’t keep up!” said Wildfire, spitting some as he said it, catching another shot of Dash’s cutie mark. “Not with your thunder fl-”
Wildfire’s speech was broken by a loud crack; the sound of Dash’s lightning fast hoof striking Wildfire’s face and following all the way through in one swift motion. His head jostled to the left, Wildfire’s eyes widened, the pain of his cheek cut open by Dash’s sharp edged hooves and his jowl smashed with sheer brute force quickly set in. His hoof slowly came to his face, finding the warm, wet sensation of his blood dripping down his face out of a cut that spanned the length of his cheek. He looked over at her with his head still turned aside, the face of Rainbow sneering back at him, deathly almost, blushing slightly out of embarrassment of Wildfire’s vulgar nickname for her.
Twilight stopped dead in her tracks just feet from the feuding ponies when Dash made contact with Wildfire, her eyes, too, were widened in surprise of the sudden escalation of the abuse that Dash and Wildfire were dishing out on each other. All the others stood, petrified, jaws hanging open, covering their mouths and their eyes, frightened by what may happen next.
“Holy guacamole!” said Spike, quietly to himself.
Wildfire’s eyes pinned themselves wide open, and his hoof fell back to the ground, still stained with blood, as he recomposed himself entirely. He did not blink once, which let the foggy hue in his eyes flicker wildly with repressed rage, glaring blankly at the blue pegasus as his head slowly turned straight, not once breaking eye contact with her. It was almost scary, how calm he appeared. Dash shivered slightly at the sight, looking into the shadowy glare cast over the stallion’s face, his grey blue eye looking back at her. He straightened his posture giving him a much higher vantage over Dash in his proper stance.
“I wonder what he did to himself to get that?” Dash gulped as that thought crossed her mind. “Whatever it was… it couldn’t have been pretty.”
Seconds turned to minutes as the two ponies stared each other down, neither one interrupting themselves, not even with a flinch or the flick of the tail. They just stood their silently, both of them drawing out their breath as the blacks of their eyes locked in an electricity that filled the air, a thick tension that would not budge.
“So.” spoke Wildfire, Dash pausing mid breath as his calm tone cut the silence at a head pounding volume.
“I’ve gotten in enough practice today. The gorge is all yours. See you in a couple of days.” said Wildfire, turning and flying off slowly back to Ponyville.
Twilight ran after him up to the point where he gained too much altitude to be able to reach him. She stopped, helplessly watching Wildfire glide off as everyone else did.
Applejack turned to Rainbow, glaring at her angrily. “I think y’all should apologize for that. What in the heck was that for anyway?”
“What is all of this brutish nonsense going to accomplish?” added Rarity, becoming huffy as Applejack was.
Dash was surprised; her friends were beginning to gang up on her?
“He looked hurt!” said Fluttershy.
“Yeah! In more than one way!” said Pinkie Pie.
Twilight turned around, turning the entirety of her frustration towards Rainbow Dash, who was frightened that her friends had turned against her so quickly.
“When are you two going to drop this hostility?” asked Twilight.
Rainbow was struck speechless, unable to even get a word out. Her confused gaze bounced around, seeing the disapproving faces of her loyal friends. Even Spike looked disappointed in her. Rainbow was almost saddened by it; not one of them was in support of her. Still off in the distance, she could see Wildfire disappearing under the tree line. She watched him fade out of sight, hanging low as he glided along.
Rainbow’s ears drooped, thinking about what she had just done. She knew she wasn’t right to do it, but he had just pushed her so hard. She’d been pushing him hard too, returning him with the same malevolence he had given her. At this point, she could hardly remember who actually start the entire fight. She just couldn’t help but think;
“Am I the bad guy in this?”
Rainbow’s sorrow quickly turned to frustration, her melancholy expression being replaced by a teeth bearing scowl. She turned back to her friends, shooting them back a fiercer look than she was receiving.
“How am I the bad guy in this?” she shouted, arms thrown up in the air in disbelief.
She received no answer back, only dark scowls from her friends.
Rainbow hardly had the will to be mad at them though. Her hotheadedness quickly cooled again, leaving a lingering hint of frustration.
Shamefully, she turned to her friends, averting her eyes, not able to keep contact with any one of her friends for too long. She knew she wanted to say she was sorry, she knew what she did was wrong, but she also knew that she had already committed herself to the race. Half-heartedly, she left them, taking to the air and beginning her practice runs.