Blossomforth's Determination

by Goldenheart


Chapter 3: Phase 3- No Pain, No Gain

Hurricane Blossomforth

Chapter 3

Blossomforth is flying through the skies with her friend Daring, Spitfire, and the rest of the pegasi in the tornado for transporting water to Cloudsdale. Blossomforth looks to her friend for assurance and receives a smile back from her friend. Then a pegasus flies right next to her, and it's Lightning Dust. As Blossomforth tries to wave down Lightning Dust, she gets ignored instead. Then the most unexpected happens. Lightning Dust then back bucks Daring in the face, which then collides her with Spitfire, and then starts a chain reaction as pegasi start flying out of the tornado. Blossomforth starts panicking as to question why Lightning Dust would do this, all the while dodging other pegasi from hitting her. She tries to keep avoiding, but then slams right into her face. All she can see is a blurry mess as the only image she sees last is falling into a deep dark pit with only the laughter of Lightning Dust filling her ringing ears. Then everything goes black.
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Blossomforth then opens her eyes breathing heavily. She notices that she's back in her own room. Her head full of sweat and her pillows covered as well.

She then collects her thoughts and realizes, "It was only a dream. But why did it feel so real?"

She then starts to get some hearing again as she then notices her clock still going off with the alarm set. She notices the time at 6:00. It's about time for the sun to rise, which means that it's dawn. She then shuts off the clock and gets out of bed to get ready to meet up with the flying group for their week long training. Without thinking, she skips breakfast and heads out the door to go to the park to meet up with her team. While on the way, she still has the lingering thought of her nightmare.
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-Manehattan Central Park-

Blossomforth is overhead the park, and spots the whole group together. She even sees Lightning Dust giving instructions from above. Blossomforth descends and lands right near the group. This gains Lightning Dust's attention as she then walks over to Blossomforth.

Lightning Dust has an upset look on her face and shouts, "You're late! I said dawn, not dawn-ish!"

Blossomforth steps back a bit after being taken back by her outburst. Then Lightning Dust winks to her in reassurance that she's only putting on an act. Blossomforth gets the message and winks back. They both then go back to the group. Lightning Dust then goes up to the front to address her group.

"Alright light-weights, here's what's going to happen. Since Spitfire put me in charge of you all, we'll begin our trek through rigorous training. There will be sweating, crying, sore muscles, and most importantly...," she pauses for a few seconds then finishes with an evil smile, "Bruises."

The group then gasps and even one faints from the thought of the training. Blossomforth is starting to get worried from this, but wants to put her trust into Lightning Dust and hope she know what she's doing. Lightning Dust then whistles towards the trees, and then some rustling can be heard coming from them. Then from out of the trees, come four individual ponies, but Blossomforth knows these ponies. The four ponies are Twilight, Auntie Sherbet, Trixie, and Octavia. Lightning Dust is having this confused look on her face asking why these ponies are here, even though she signaled for them.

"These four ponies will help us with our training for the next 5 days. They don't look like the types for working out, but these are under suggestion by Daring Do. I'm not one to deny such generous offers, but I'll follow through with her decision. I'll be overlooking your training though to see your progress, so don't think this will be easy," explains Lightning Dust.

Blossomforth is surprised to hear that Daring asked their friends to help out with the training regimen. Either way, she'll give it her all to help out and get ready for the big job to come.

"Alright everypony, to the Orange Hotel!" shouts Blossomforth.

The whole group cheers and then head off towards the hotel.

Twilight and rest then get the thought, "Did she just forget to bring us?"
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-Orange Hotel-

So for the next 5 days, each friend will train the entire group in a different way to help prepare them for the water raising. Blossomforth didn't know how each friend will help her, but she's being prepared for anything to happen. As the group enters the hotel, they follow Auntie Sherbet to her penthouse suite. They all gather into the apartment one by one and seat themselves in the living room.

"So what are you going to help me with today?" asks Blossomforth.

Auntie goes into the kitchen for a minute or two, and comes back out with a platter of foods. She takes the foods from the plate in her mouth and back, and places them on the living room table. The assortment of foods are from wheat lily sandwiches, to cucumber salads. The other thing she noticed is that all of the foods are in small sizes.

Blossomforth is wondering why they're going to eat, but not doing any physical workout. Lightning Dust especially is confused.

"Why are we eating? This is supposed to be a workout, not breakfast time," questions Lightning Dust.

"I'm not going to eat this, you are," replies Sherbet.

Everypony then looks at the food with hunger. The whole room roars with hungry stomachs, supposedly nopony ate breakfast. Blossomforth has a growling tummy as well. She goes for one of the sandwiches and takes a bite out of it, it's delicious. Blossomforth smiles and continues eating, and then goes for the orange juice on the table.

"I'm no athlete sweet thing, so the best I can do is make a healthy meal to help energize you all, and improve your diet," says Sherbet.

The group starts to drool and everypony starts to go for a sandwich. Then a blur goes over the plate and snatches the sandwiches away. Lightning Dust is holding all of the sandwiches, then goes over to a nearby trashcan and throws them away. Sherbet has a hurtful look on her face.

"Why did you do that? I put my whole love into them," says a hurt Sherbet.

"Love isn't going to help these ponies fit into shape. If you wanted to make a worthy meal for these light-weights, a protein shake will work," explains Lightning Dust.

She then flies off into the kitchen and starts making loud noises in there. What's supposed to be the sound of making food, sounds more like a battlefield going on. The next thing the ponies hear is a whistling sound. Then it starts to get more high pitched until a loud 'BOOM' shakes the whole room. Lightning Dust then comes back from the now smoking kitchen with a tray full of drinks. Instead of drinks though, it is replaced with green bubbling gunk in the glass.

"This is my homemade protein shake. You had some missing ingredients, so I improvised," says Lightning Dust.

"I normally I don't have much food to make. I usually leave that to the staff to get the food," replies Sherbet.

Lightning Dust ignores her and goes over to the group, and giving all 40 members a glass. As one of the glasses is passed to Blossomforth, she happily denies the drink as she is full from eating. Lightning Dust leaves her drink too, betting she ate before coming to practice.

"Alright everypony, drink up!" cheers Lightning Dust.

The whole group then takes a drink from their glasses. Then in a second, half the group's face then turn green and their faces show signs of disgust. Then, the now green faced ponies make a beeline for the bathroom and shut the door behind them. There's hacking and coughing coming from the bathroom, which signals for the rest of the group to carefully put their glasses down. Lightning Dust then carefully pushes her glass to the side with a worried look on her face. Sherbet goes over to a nearby phone and pushes a button.

"Front desk, please call the doctor," then she hears a hurling coming from the bathroom, "And tell him to bring a mop."

Blossomforth is lucky to refuse her drink, but at the cost that half her group is now going home with food poisoning. This is going to be a long week.

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-Octavia's Apartment-

After getting up the next morning with an upset stomach from the sight she endured yesterday, she heads over to Octavia's apartment for her next day of training. The last time she was here is when her friends, herself included, tried to help Sherbet act like an Apply Family member again. Although the Reunion was a while ago, it felt like ages since she was last in Octavia's studio. Blossomforth goes into the apartment complex and heads over to an elevator to go to the top floor. As she rides to the elevator to the top floor, the elevator doors open up into the penthouse level to reveal Octavia's studio.

Blossomforth sees that either Octavia is not home yet, or is busy, but the rest of the group is here all attended for; save for the ones that got food poisoning. Blossomforth then takes the opportunity to look at her friend's apartment, even though the place is almost cramped. The furniture in the living room is very basic and well kept clean. In fact, the entire room is clean and organized, but not quite like Twilight's place. There's a table in the center with two couches facing it. She sees the entrance to the kitchen/dining room on the other side of the room, at least she remembers what it looks like. One corner of the room is decorated with musical equipment, especially Cellos. Pictures on the wall decorated the room as well. They have pictures of herself and her friends, as well as Octavia. Octavia is also shown in the pictures with other musicians, nobles, and even with Princess Celestia where it appears to be the Gala. Overall, Blossomforth is impressed with Octavia's decoration and her taste in style.

She then hears somepony coming from the kitchen with a wine glass in her mouth. It's Octavia, and she goes over to the table in the middle of the room and puts the glass down.

"Good to see you've all come this fine morning," says Octavia.

"Yeah, yeah, enough chit chat, let's get moving now," says an annoyed Lightning Dust.

Octavia places her wine glass down and goes over to her musical corner to prepare her cello in place.

Octavia then looks over to Blossomforth and says, "Help yourself to a drink. One must rejuvenate our mortal coils."

"Geez, enough with the brain killer sentences, move it!" say a more annoyed Lightning Dust.

Octavia shows a face of disinterest, but begins her lesson. Blossomforth is thinking that Lightning Dust is putting on this act way too seriously. Blossomforth then goes to the fridge and gets out the OJ and pours into her glass. She puts the OJ away and grabs her glass. She then goes over to the rest of the group and listens to Octavia's lesson.

"Now, flying is like music. They both follow a need of rhythm. Now some of you come up and dance, we'll begin right away," explains Octavia.

Blossomforth volunteers herself to begin her training. Although she has two left hooves, she'll give it her best shot. Octavia readies her instrument, and begins playing.

Blossomforth tries to dance, but all she's doing is stomping her hooves. She also crosses her hooves and gets them tangled up. Afterward she trips over herself and lands face first onto the floor.

Octavia stops playing and goes over to her, "You need to listen to the music and follow the rhythm of it. Dancing is also more than stomping your hooves, there needs to be some grace to it," she says gracefully.

Blossomforth groans with her face still on the floor.

"We'll try again, and soon you'll fly high higher than any graceful swan," says Octavia.

"I have no time......I mean WE have no time for this. I'll show you all how to dance," declares Lightning Dust.

Lightning Dust then starts to wave her legs about, as if she's trying to dance. It looks more like she's trying to swat a fly away. Just like that, she then starts to accidentally hit some ponies in the group. Ponies start going down one by one, and are being left with a hoofprint on their face, or a black eye. Lightning Dust then stops trying to dance, and sees the damage done.

She blushes in embarrassment with Octavia making a quick remark, "You on the other hoof, have no grace at all."
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-Outskirts of Manehattan-

The next day, Blossomforth is heading to Trixie's cart that she leaves on the outskirts of the city. Since Trixie originally traveled from town to town, she never really settled in one town to live in. Since nopony wants Trixie to take up space in the city and cause a disturbance, other than the times she performs in town, she decided to live outside of town. Blossomforth doesn't know how Trixie will help with training, since Trixie only performs with her magic when the whole group is composed of pegasi.

After taking a taxi past the Brookmare Bridge, she finally makes it to the city border. The city outskirts are very bare compared to the stone and steel of the big city. Past the bridge is grassland and a sandy pathway going for what seemed miles. Other than the various trees scattered about in small patches, nothing is remarkable to Blossomforth.

She looks around and sees Trixies wagon hidden in some trees. She goes over to the patch of trees and tries to get to her cart, since the branches make it very hard to get in. After Blossomforth gets in, the other group flies in through the top of the trees. This makes Blossomforth look stupid and wonder why she didn't think of this. She really needs to pay attention other than looking at the scenery. She sees that the wagon is very well shaded in the trees with a little open area to have a campsite to eat and leave other variables around like clothes(even though she only wears her cloak and hat), and kitchenware.

With the group in the little area, they try to look for her as she's nowhere to be found. Since she can't see Trixie out here, Blossomforth figures that she is in her wagon. So she goes over to the side of the cart's entrance and knocks on the door.

She gets a response back, "Oh, The Great and Powerful Trixie allows entrance to you all!"

Blossomforth rolls her eyes at Trixie's boastful response, but goes in either way. Blossomforth goes into the cart with the others following her from behind, with Lightning Dust in front of the group. They all get a very unexpected surprise. When they go in, they didn't expect the place to be very organized and well kept. Twilight mentioned to her friends how the place looked, from her bedroom furniture, to the wall full of Hairy Hoofdini memorabilia. She sees Trixie sitting next to her dining table and sipping on her coffee. Trixie sees her at the doorway and motions her over to sit down.

The group goes over to the dining table and stands opposite of Trixie.

"So you ready to take some training from 'The Great and Powerful Trixie'?" asks Trixie.

Everypony nods as Trixie gets off from her chair and gets ready to go out.
Trixie pauses at the doorway as she realizes something, "Oh that reminds me, put these on."

Trixie then uses her magic to levitate some clothes and puts them on everypony. Blossomforth notices that the clothes look like Trixie's robe and hat, but is only gray and worn out.

"What are these Trixie? I look like Ganhoof the Gray from 'Lord of the Hooves," says a confused Blossomforth.

The group looks at her with their robes on giving a weird out look, and Trixie raises her brow as she never hears something like this from her.

"Twilight got me to read The Lord of the Mare books," says Blossomforth.

Trixie shakes her head and then goes outside with Blossomforth and the rest following her out. As they get outside, Trixie goes to the other side of the wagon and pulls a lever to have her stage come down out. Blossomforth is still confused on what she is still being trained from Trixie.

"So what are you training us on exactly again?" questions Lightning Dust.

Trixie smiles as she gets the fireworks ready, then responds back, "We're going to train you in some showmanship."

Fireworks then go off as Trixie poses at the end. Everypony's jaw drops as they are dumbfounded by this. Lightning Dust slaps her face in sight of this pony's stupidity.

"Performing helps with you looking good and to help with stage fright. When you have others look at you, you may get stressed out, so we might as well work on that." , says Trixie.

Trixie then uses her magic to pick off some sticks and pick some stones. As she moves them around and twist them, she makes some makeshift manikins that are supposed to look like ponies. Lightning Dust doesn't waste a second and goes over to Trixie.

"Look, I don't need any more stupidity like this for the week. Now why don't you try throwing those sticks and stones to actually hurt us?" says an angry Lightning Dust.

Trixie gets a worried look on her face and asks, "Why would The Great and Powerful Trixie harm innocent ponies?"

"When we start to form the tornado, we may encounter some debris being sucked into the twister. So we need to dodge stuff like this," Then Lightning Dust rips of the outfit she was given, "Now fire!"

Trixie starts to hesitate as she levitates the debris in front of her. Blososmforth now knows this is starting to get very dangerous, and this will no doubt hurt the group behind her.

So Blossomforth then speaks out to Lightning Dust, "Um Lightning Dust. This doesn't seem to be the best idea."

Lightning dust then looks to her, "Nonsense, these ponies will be able to shake this off without any trouble."

Lightning Dust then slaps the back of Trixie's head and shouts, "Now FIRE!"

As a reaction to this, Trixie unintentionally lets her magic slip and the debris starts to go flying to Blossomforth and the group. Blossomforth ducks in time, but the rest of the groups is not fortunate.

The various rocks and sticks hit the group with one shouting in anguish, "My leg! My leg....."

Blossomforth looks at the damage, with Trixie looking in discomfort and Lightning Dust having an impressed look on her face.

"Uh, Trixie. Do you have a medical book about stick in butt?" questions Blossomforth.
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-Manehattan Library-

Finally, Blossomforth is going to see Twilight before getting a required free day, suggested by Daring. After the gruesome exercise from Trixie yesterday, she hopes somepony more understanding like Twilight has a training regimen that doesn't result with Lightning Dust causing harm to the now remaining 5 members, not including her and Lightning Dust. After walking for a couple of minutes, she makes it to the entrance of the Manehattan Library. She sees the group ahead of her then goes into the library with the group sitting in the lounge area. When she gets in, she sees somepony approach her. She then realizes it's Spike, carrying a pile of books in front of him. Spike is appearing to be having some trouble lifting the books, but then puts them down and goes over to Blossomforth.

"Hey Blossomforth, here to see Twilight?" asks Spike.

Blossomforth nods, then Spike says, "She's on the second floor at her desk."

Blossomforth then says, "Thank you."

"Lightning Dust, Twilight is upstairs," says Blossomforth.

Lightning Dust hears this as she flies to the second floor, with the rest of the group following suit. Spike goes back to the pile of books and brings them to a table in the reading area, clearly still showing strain from lifting a huge pile of books. Blossomforth then goes to the stairs that goes up to the second floor. When she gets up to the second floor, she sees Twilight at her desk writing, with the group behind her. Twilight sees everypony behind her approach and puts down the quill pen with her magic.

"Oh, hi everypony," says Twilight.

Twilight then looks to the clock on the wall, "Is it that time already?"

Twilight goes over to the group and motions then to follow. They all go down to the first floor as Twilight goes over to the reading area. Blossomforth sees some books on one table, in fact, it's the same pile of books Spike was carrying earlier. Also, Spike is on the floor breathing heavily and tired.

Twilight smiles and tells everypony, "Okay, now you can start studying on the history of flight."

Blossomforth then says, "What do you mean?"

"Well, since I can't help you with physical activity, I'd help you with my only way possible, research." , says Twilight.

Twilight then goes back to her work on the second floor. But Lightning Dust stops her by getting in her path.

"Now hold it! I've had just about enough of this wimpy training regiment. Daring may have suggested you all because you're friends, but this doesn't excuse the training I've received. I may have had to eat healthy food, do a dance routine, and perform for a fake crowd, but THIS, is the worst! There is no hay-flipping way, that I'll read and take directions from a bookworm like you!" shouts an enraged Lightning Dust.

Then a displeased Twilight, still on the steps of the stairs calmly says, "Then why don't you leave and abandon your group?"

Lightning Dust flies down back to the first floor and says, "Everypony, consider this an extra day off! Go and do whatever training regiment you want."

As she is about to leave, Blossomforth then walks right next to her and asks, "You can't seriously think about leaving our group? You're supposed to supervise us."

"Outta my way flower girl! I've had enough for this week," says an angry Lightning dust as she shoves Blossomforth away.

Blossomforth is then hit with reality, Lightning Dust is not putting on an act, she's really just a big jerk. Lightning Dust then takes off at 'Lightning' speed and heads out the front leaving the library shaking. This causes one of the bookshelves to start wobbling and is about to fall over. Then the bookshelf starts to fall and then lands on the remaining members of the group, save for Blossomforth. Blossomforth then realizes she's the only member left in her group with the rest injured.
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-Manehattan Museum-

After four days of what is considered to Blossomforth, a failure, she finally gets her free day and decides to go and speak with Daring. She gets over to the her friend's museum and goes inside to meet her inside. She makes her way to her friend's office, and finally gets herself ready for a talk about Lightning Dust. Maybe the dream she had the day before wasn't a normal nightmare, but maybe a vision of things to come?

Blossomforth knocks on the door, and gets a response to come in. After going in, she sees Daring dusting some statue in the corner. She looks around her friends office to see some other statues, tomes, runes, artifacts, and various vases. These things are probably from her friend's various expeditions and travels from around the world. Daring finishes dusting her statue and goes to sit down to her desk.

"Take a seat, Blossomforth," says Daring. Blossomforth takes a seat across from her friend.

"Now, I'm guessing you're ready to ask about Lightning Dust, right?" asks Daring.

Blossomforth didn't even get the chance to explain what happened over the week.

"How did you know?" asks Blossomforth.

"I had a feeling something related to that girl would happen. Now please explain what happened," asks Daring.

Blossomforth then starts from the beginning where she was talking to Lightning Dust before training week, to the end up to the events that happened at the library. As Blososmforth finishes, she sighs and goes over to the window, looking outside.

"That pegasus has caused nothing but trouble not only for you, but for your teammates as well. I think it's time I have a chat with Spitfire," says aloud Daring.

Blossomforth then speaks up saying, "Are you sure? Is that a good idea?"

"Of course it is! Spitfire is her commanding officer, she can't refuse an order from her," says Daring.

Daring then is about to leave and gestures Blossomforth to follow.

Daring then says to Blossomforth, "It's time for Spitfire to learn the truth about her promising recruit."
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-Orange Hotel, Room 897-

Daring and Blossomforth head for Orange Hotel and look for Spitfire's room. They find her room number and head for the 8th floor, the suites. They make their way up and finally get to her room. When they knock on the door and get an answer, Spitfire answers the door and greets them. Wasting no time, they head inside the room and begin to explain their concerns about Lightning Dust. The more and more they explain their story, Spitfire's expression goes from confused, to disappointment. After they finish their story, Spitfire is in a very bad mood.

"I can't believe she would endanger and injure her own teammates! I had high hopes for her, but I need to be professional," says an angry Spitfire.

"So what are you going to do?" asks Blossomforth.

Spitfire sighs in disappointment and says, "Until further notice, she'll have her invitation to the Wonderbolt Academy suspended until further notice. Hopefully she'll change until then. Even so, we'll still have a problem."

Daring grows concerned and asks, "What problem would that be?"

"With the entire group out of commission, we won't have enough pegasi to even form the tornado. Even if by some miracle we get the team back up if by just a little, I'll still need Lightning Dust to do this even if none of you will agree," says a furious Spitfire.

Daring and Blossomforth moan in dismay that not only will this job potentially cancelled, but Lightning Dust will still be attending. How are they going to get their team up by tomorrow morning?

Blossomforth then steps up and says, "I won't give up!"

Spitfire and Daring look to her in confusion.

"Lightning dust may look to her team as a bunch of good-for-nothings you can just throw away, but I won't let that happen!" shouts Blossomforth.

Daring then puts her hoof around her friend and says, "Blossom, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but not even modern medicine with their injuries can get them up and full healed by tomorrow."

"But I will not give up because of that. I'll help them before you know it! Just be sure that everypony else is at the park tomorrow during their normal routine," says a determined Blossomforth.

Blossomforth then bows her head at Spitfire for thanks, then leaves the hotel room.

"Your friend has got determination. But can she really do it?" says a concerned Spitfire.

"I hope so. Blossom is the most loyal and dependable pony I know," says a gentle Daring.
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-Central Park-

Everypony is all attended for after their week of training. All 5 groups, save for Lightning Dust being the only member of her group, are present and are about to record their wing power before the operation starts in the afternoon. Daring is all set and ready to prepare, but is on the lookout for Blossomforth. She looks to the track with Twilight recording the passing pegasi, and Spitfire in attendance supervising. She then looks to the various flower patches, but is seen nowhere. As she is starting to get worried, Spitfire then blows the whistle and calls for everyponies attention. Daring goes over and listens in on what Spitfire is about to explain.

"I suppose by now we would be ready to initiate Operation Rainrise. But with a recent incident resulting in an entire group being out of commission, due to the lack of interest for her teammates", She leers at Lightning Dust with the rest of the recruits following suit. Lightning dust is not fazed by this and shrugs it off; "We will not be able to go forward with the rest of the operation."

The whole group moans in disappointment and droops their heads. Daring is thinking that Spitfire is not even going to wait for Blossomforth to come. As if everything is going to be over, somepony calls out in the distance.

"WAIT! Don't stop without us!" shouts somepony from the sky.

Everypony looks up and sees a whole group of pegasi coming towards them. As they get closer, Daring can see the pegasi all bandaged up, but still look very sickly. In the front of the group, is a lone white pegasus, Blossomforth!