“Slow down, Pinkie Pie! Where’re ya takin’ me?” Applejack could barely hear herself over the stadium’s energetic roar.
“To our lead, of course! Where else, silly?” Pinkie answered. “I hope she’s still there, I haven’t actually tested my new sticky streamers on another pony before!”
Applejack cocked an eyebrow. “Sticky streamers? Why would you need—never mind, forget I asked.” She blinked a few times, doing her best to avoid being slammed into other ponies around them. ‘Y’know, ya can let go o’ me, Pinks. I can run just fine by myself.”
“Oh yeah. Oops?” Pinkie laughed as she let go of AJ’s hoof.
Passing underneath a lower archway, Applejack noticed multiple doorways on either side of the corridor. The din subsided as Applejack galloped after Pinkie down the passage, beyond doors labelled Bathroom, Storage, Changeroom… before finally coming to a sliding halt in front of a door marked Cleaning Supplies.
Pinkie brought a hoof to her mouth. “Shhh. She's in here.”
Applejack quietly followed Pinkie through the door, emerging in a dark yet spacious room.
“You got any light in here, Pinks?” Applejack fumbled around in the dim area. “I can’t see nothin’. It’s darker than my own apple cellar in here!”
“Sure thing, Jackly-App!” Pinkie extracted the lightbulb from within her mane. “I knew this would help sometime.”
After carefully trotting into the centre of the room, Pinkie stared at the ceiling with her face screwed up in concentration. “A little to the left… no, some to the right… perfect! Except, no… A bit further north-east? Maybe if I stand here—”
“Pinkie!”
“Oh, sure, here’s the right launch pad!” Pinkie bounced on the spot, steadily gaining height with each bounce. Finally after ten bounces, she took a deep breath and seemed to flatten herself to the floor.
“Let there be—” she sprung up to the ceiling with a loud sproing! “—light!” Pinkie’s hoof managed to somehow slot the lightbulb into the assuredly-empty space, in total darkness, with perfect precision.
“How’d you do that?”
“Lucky guess?” Pinkie shrugged, turning her attention to the far wall next to a row of empty shelves. Applejack followed her friend’s gesture and gasped.
“You tied up your lead?”
* * * * *
“Gilda! What are you doing here? Let go of me!”
Rainbow Dash struggled in the grip of her former friend, but the mighty griffon’s talons did not yield a millimetre. “I’m serious, you let me go right now, or I’ll—”
“Or you’ll what? Squirm at us some more? Like how you made me squirm at the academy after I was unceremoniously kicked out?”
Rainbow’s eyes grew larger than dinner plates as the second speaker flew into view. Her aquamarine coat, orange-streaked mane and fiery eyes seemed far too out of place. Gone were the tones of regret, penitence and excitement that Rainbow had heard from the mare just one hour earlier. Instead, star spider venom laced every syllable that the pegasus spat Rainbow’s way.
“How could you, Lightning Dust?” Rainbow asked, still struggling in Gilda’s iron grip. “After everything you said to me before… and the academy… attacking your own team?”
“Oh, spare me the semantics, Rainbow Dash. Of course I had to come up with something to tell you when you crashed into me. I wasn’t going to the bathroom at all—I was listening to you and your teammates’ banter.”
Lightning giggled sharply. “Heh, I can’t believe that a pony like you would even entertain the idea of leading such a pathetic team. I mean, that yellow one? Even I can tell that she’s more timid than a fly. And that puffed-up bodybuilder? Really? How were you ever going to win with them?” Lightning’s body shook with laughter as Rainbow felt Gilda’s hold on her slacken by the barest amount.
“Yeah, Rainbow Dash.” Gilda chuckled. “How far have you fallen exactly since you made friends with those ground-dwellers? I bet you don’t even know how to be cool anymore. You lame-o.”
“How far I’ve fallen?” Rainbow struggled with renewed fervour. “What about all this, huh? What do you gain from hurting Spitfire and my friends? How is this helping anypony at all?”
Lightning lowered her hoof from her mouth and examined the bound pegasus. “Oh, we’re not trying to help anypony at all.”
Lightly fluttering up to Rainbow, she gave her a swift kick to the stomach. “I’ll take that, if you don’t mind.” Rainbow released her hold on the blue piece of cloud with a loud coughing fit. “Giselle! Come on out!”
The dark-winged team captain emerged from behind Gilda, meeting her friend’s hawk-eye with an excited grin. “I see you’re in a bit of a bind, Rainbow Dash. Can’t have your cloud fall short of its goal now, can we?”
With a nod to Lightning Dust, Giselle snatched up the tuft, waved her claws in farewell and swiftly zoomed towards the ground, out of sight.
“Let me go! You can’t do that! Cheating at the Equestria Games… what are you two gaining from this, Lightning? Gilda?” She squirmed once more, almost breaking free before Gilda came to her senses and reinforced her grip.
“Why, satisfaction of course, Rainbow! The satisfaction of seeing you lose at something for a change.” Gilda and Lightning Dust laughed once more together. “You’ve always had the glory, the victories, even as you shoved us aside for your own benefit.”
“It wasn’t my fault that your friends decided to visit you at the academy!” With a crazy grin, Lightning Dust began preparing a thunderhead, lining up her cyan target. “I wasn’t out to get them! They were just stupid enough to fly into a military-style training ground with no precautions taken. They would have gotten what they deserved. Now, hold sti—argh!”
Lightning cried out in pain and shock as a violet and jasmine mare plowed an accelerated hoof into her hip. After losing a few metres of altitude, Lightning regained her composure and fluttered in place, massaging her side with both forelegs. “You?”
Cloud Kicker glared at her attacker, still lightly blackened around the tips of her pinions. “They don’t call me Cloud Kicker for nothing! That was for zapping me before, you insane filly!”
Seizing her chance, Rainbow squirmed out of Gilda’s grip, the griffon distracted by Cloud’s surprise attack. Flying over to her saviour, she offered a tap on the shoulder. “Thanks, Cloud Kicker. You really saved my flank there.”
“Hold that thought, Rainbow!” At Cloud Kicker's warning, Rainbow turned as Gilda snarled and lunged forward. Rainbow cried out in surprise, barely dodging the vicious talons.
“Hold still, already!” Gilda let out a high screech as she dove for Rainbow again. With the element of surprise now lost to her, though, Rainbow easily danced around Gilda’s desperate attempts to restrain her once more. She could see Gilda growing steadily angrier as she weaved, whirled and ducked her way out of reach.
“Cloud Kicker! Get to Rainbow Swoop and Spitfire, wake them up and get outta here!”
Rainbow faced Cloud Kicker, even as Lightning Dust turned to her with a menacing gleam in her orange eyes.
“What about you? You’ll be okay, right?”
“Darn it, Cloudy, I can look after myself! Just get the others to safety!” Rainbow concentrated on putting some space between herself and Gilda. As Cloud Kicker nodded and zoomed towards the unconscious Spitfire, Rainbow directed her attention toward her two former friends.
Two former teammates…
“How noble of you, Rainbow Dash.” Lightning Dust sneered as Cloud Kicker and the newly awakened Spitfire flew off to aid Rainbow Swoop. “You do understand that you’re totally forfeiting the race? Your team is destined to finish in last place now. Can’t you see that you’ve fallen right into our ruse?”
“I don’t care about the gold or the glory!” Rainbow's rebuttal drew confused glances from the malicious pair. She waved her two forelegs around in front of her. “Giselle would have reached the finish line by now, anyway. What good would it do me to try and race her back?”
She sighed for a brief moment. “At the end of the day, nopony should get hurt trying to win a competition. I’d hoped you’d have learned that lesson already, Lightning, but I guess a zebra doesn’t change its stripes huh?”
“Grrrr…” Lightning gnashed her teeth. “Gilda, get the filly! I’m gonna zap her into next week!”
“Oh no you’re not!”
“Huh?”
Lightning, Gilda and Rainbow all looked up in confusion as a powerful voice split the skies and parted the clouds. Twin beams of purple and glassy blue shot from behind the solid wall of white, impacting Gilda and Lightning Dust respectively. The conspirators screamed for a few moments as cylindrical tubes of magical light engulfed them.
“Rainbow Dash!” Are you okay?” Princess Twilight Sparkle flew towards her friend as she came into view, flanked by Princess Cadance.
“Wow, Twilight! Way to show those guys.” Rainbow flew up to Twilight, embracing her gratefully. She sent a nod of appreciation to Cadance, who returned her smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s the others that I’m worried about, though. They all got zapped by Lightning up here earlier—” she glared at the mare in the blue prison, who was banging her hoof against the interior in vain “—but luckily they were only knocked out. Thank Celestia she didn’t use larger thunder clouds, or it could have been much worse.”
“Wait, she struck you all with lightning?” Twilight shot Lightning Dust an icy stare.
“Whoa, Twilight, you’ve done enough. Settle down.” Rainbow placed two hooves on her friend's shoulders. “Look, let’s just leave it for now, everypony. We have a race to finish, after all!”
She flew a short way from Twilight, returning to the rainbow-hued cloud. Another piece turned solid blue as it found purchase in her hooves. With a glance over her shoulder, she smiled as Cloud Kicker, Spitfire and Rainbow Swoop all grasped a tuft of their own. Each piece changed a different colour, representing the coat of the pony who held it.
“Everypony feeling all right?”
A chorus of cheers greeted her, followed by hoofbumps all around. “Awesome. Now, let’s get back down there and give the audience the most brilliant show they’ve ever seen!”
With a glance at Spitfire, she raised her eyebrow at her hero. Spitfire returned the gesture, holding out her hoof again for Rainbow to bump.
“You ready this time? Are you truly gonna earn your wings, filly?”
“Why don’t you try to catch me and find out?”