//------------------------------// // Sonic Rain-Dust // Story: My Little Pony: Friendship is Absurd // by Lord Seth //------------------------------// “All right!” said Lightning Dust. “What have we learned?” “You’re really making me go through with this,” Gilda said flatly. “Loss of control, screaming and hollering, and passion. Those are the elements of a good cheer. Now let’s hear one!” Gilda held up a flag and waved it around slowly. “Yay,” she said unenthusiastically. “You’re going to cheer for me like that?” asked Lightning Dust indignantly. “Um, duh?” “Louder!” “Yay,” said Gilda in a tone only fractionally more enthusiastic than the first one. “Louder!” Gilda rolled her eyes. “Yay,” she said in a tone technically more enthusiastic than the previous one but still so unethusiastic it didn’t really matter. “LOUDER!” Gilda inhaled, and… “YAAAAAAY.” Lightning Dust found herself blown away by the sheer strength of Gilda’s shout. She flew back quickly. “What in the world was that?” Gilda held up a megaphone. “Enh, just the power of a megaphone turned up all the way. I thought it would be amusing to screw with you.” “Are you kidding?!” asked Lightning Dust excitedly. “That was awesome! You’ve got to bring that along to cheer me on!” “Yeah, yeah, on your stupid Best Young Flyer Competition.” “The winner gets to spend a day with the Wonderbolts! Do you have any idea how much that could do for me becoming a member?” “Well,” said Gilda, “if you’re lucky, it might make them ignore your questionable legal history. You know, the constant property damage and the fact you even got convicted of battery.” Lightning Dust glared at Gilda. “What? I’m just saying. And I’m only going because there’s some stuff I had to do in Cloudsdale anyway.” “Oh man,” said Lightning Dust giddily, “I bet lots of other people will want to come watch me! I’ll go ask everypony right now!” She dashed off. Gilda stared after her. “I can’t believe she thinks she can get anyone else to come.” Later… “I can’t believe you got five other people to come,” said Gilda as they all walked on the clouds in Cloudsdale. “What can I say?” asked Lightning Dust. “I’m a master motivator!” Suri bristled. “Master motivator? It was just dumb luck somepony happened to place an order for some outfits that they insisted must be delivered in person to Cloudsdale.” “And the only reason I bothered coming was–” started Sunset before finding herself interrupted yet again. “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Lightning Dust said dismissively. “The Great and Powerful Trixie has made a decision!” said Trixie. “She will be entering the Best Young Flyer Competition!” “Look, Trixie, I know you all got that spell that lets you walk on the clouds–” “And oh boy, did we have to sign a ton of waiver forms to be able to come here,” commented Flim. “And also agree to wear these invisible automatic parachutes.” “–but that’s still completely separate from actually being able to fly,” finished Lightning Dust. “Oh yeah?” challenged Trixie. “Watch this!” Trixie concentrated very hard. Her horn started glowing, and absolutely nothing happened. “Huh,” said Trixie. “I guess that wing-making spell actually did require a lot of power.” “Didn’t they forbid anyone without natural wings from participating anyway due to an accident where some idiot using magical wings tried to take part in the competition, but then the wings got all burnt up by the sun, and they fell?” wondered Gilda. “Yeah, something like that,” said Lightning Dust. “Well, I have better things to do than stand around mumbling about past accidents, so I am going to go deliver these outfits so I can get money,” said Suri. She turned around and handed several uniforms to some pegasi. “Here you go. Have fun with these!” After receiving some money, she turned back again. “Well, that’s done. Now what?” “I don’t care,” said Sunset. “I’m just going to go do what I came here to do and then engage in a little sightseeing.” She walked off. Everyone else took the cue to wander off as well except for Lightning Dust. “Well, as long as they’re around to see me totally win this thing, I guess I don’t care what they do in the meantime,” she said to herself. The pegasi that Suri handed the uniforms to approached Lightning Dust, now wearing said uniforms. “Hello, Lightning Dust,” one of them said. “Do I know you?” Lightning Dust asked, feeling confused. “See?” another of the pegasi said to the other two. “I told you she wouldn’t remember us in these totally different outfits. Those old ones were way better.” “Look, we’ve already been over this! We had to get rid of them so… hey! Don’t go away!” the pegasus shouted out to Lightning Dust, who had gotten bored and started walking off. “We were having a conversation!” Lightning Dust sighed and turned around. “Fine. What do you guys want? More importantly, who are you?” “Well,” said the first pegasus in an ominous tone, “since you don’t seem to remember us, I’ll have to remind you. Remember when you went to stop Nightmare Moon?” “Oh, yeah,” said Lightning Dust, “that was an adventure. I… wait. You guys are those stupid Shadowbolts I encountered?” “Yes. Well, okay, it’s technically Team Shadowbolt. You were actually right about that whole intellectual property thing; we had to change our name a bit and get different uniforms.” “Huh,” said Lightning Dust, trying to figure out how she felt about all this. “Did you guys still want me on your team?” “Oh, not anymore,” said one. “We figured out that we’re great enough by ourselves! We have no need of someone like you.” “Well, I would’ve said no anyway; you guys are still lame. Do you even have names?” The apparent leader pointed to himself. “Thunder Strike.” He pointed to the female of the group. “Stormy Skies.” He pointed to the remaining male. “Maelstrom Tempest.” “Fine,” said Lightning Dust. “I guess that’s better than Shadowbolt A, Shadowbolt B, and Shadowbolt C. But if you didn’t want me to join your stupid group anyway, why are you even bothering to talk to me?” Thunder Strike pointed a hoof at Lightning Dust dramatically. “We’re just here to intimidate you.” Lightning Dust stared at them for a little bit, then shrugged. “Okay, I’m… intimidated, I guess. See you.” She walked off. Stormy Skies face-hoofed. “I told you she wasn’t going to be intimidated by that.” “That wasn’t the actual point, and you know it,” said Thunder Strike. “My question is why we didn’t just fight her last time. We could’ve just beaten her and maybe even her companions up, but no, you insisted on that whole temptation thing.” “Oh, come on, you know as well as I do that Nightmare Moon was about the lamest boss ever. I was just following her inane orders.” Maelstrom Tempest simply said, “Hrm.” Sometime later… “Welcome to the Best Young Flyer Competition!” announced the announcer. He paused. “Yeah, that’s all I have for an introduction. Let’s begin!” Lightning Dust waited with the other competitors in the waiting room, feeling restless. She surveyed the rest of the competition. She observed that Thunder Strike was there, but neither Stormy Skies nor Maelstrom Tempest were. Hrm, wonder where they are, she wondered. Meanwhile, outside in the stands… “Ugh,” complained Sunset. “I can’t believe basically everywhere is closed to the contest. Now I’m stuck watching the stupid thing because there’s nothing else to do around here.” Trixie rolled her eyes. “Yes, Sunset, we are aware of that. Just as aware as we were the last five times you complained.” “Well, complaining about it is a lot more interesting than sitting here doing nothing!” “All right, contestant number one, you’re up!” declared the announcer. “There,” said Suri, “maybe now you’ll stop complaining when there’s something to watch.” After performing a number of stunts, the first contestant’s final routine was to, with a smoke creator machine strapped to them, leave a trail of smoke left in the sky. Rather than simply settle for skywriting, however, they used the opportunity to sketch an in-detail drawing of a a hand. “That one is going to lose some serious points,” commented Suri. “Why?” asked Sunset, trying to find something to keep her attention on to avoid getting bored. “Just look at Gilda. Species with hands, claws, or anything else with fingers clearly all have four fingers, but for some reason this was erroneously drawn with five.” The announcer spoke up again. “That was contestant number one! Now please welcome contestant number two!” Another pegasus rushed out of the waiting room into the open air. Again, after several random stunts, this contestant opted to try to impress the judges by flying around with extremely heavy weights chained to them. Sunset found herself yawning. “Boring,” she muttered. “Oh, hey, look,” said Gilda, “I think Lightning Dust is next. That could be interesting.” “What’s she doing?” asked Sunset. Gilda scratched her head. “Come to think of it, I don’t know. She never said.” Lightning Dust emerged into the outdoors stadium. After the usual filler stunts, she announced, “And for my trick, I shall create a tornado!” Gilda buried her face in her claw. “Oh, please don’t tell me she’s serious. Every single time she does this the same thing happens.” “Wait, so what’s the thing that happens?” Gilda sighed. “You’ll see.” Lightning Dust flew around in a circle, increasing her speed more and more as she did so. The speed of the wind created a tornado. Eventually it took on a life of its own and she exited it. “Viola!” she said, pointing towards the tornado. “A perfectly created tornado! And one much larger than you’d expect a single pegasus to be able to create! I’m sure you’re all very… uh-oh,” she said as she noticed the tornado started moving. “Darn it, not again.” “And that,” said Gilda to Sunset, “is what always happens.” Sunset grabbed Gilda. “Then get us out of here! That thing is coming straight for us!” “Oh no,” said Gilda with a manic glint in her eyes. “We’re fine. I came prepared.” She took out her loudspeaker and spoke into it: “YAAAAAAY.” The sheer force of the soundwave pushed the tornado away and sent it flying harmlessly to the ground. Lightning Dust suddenly found herself being glared at by everyone in the audience. “Um… tada?” she said nervously. Everyone immediately found themselves distracted, however, by a female voice ringing out from the stands. “Oh no! The tornado made my baby fall!” And indeed, a small pegasus could be glimpsed falling towards the ground. The Wonderbolts in the judging area all immediately flew straight down towards it. Lightning Dust did as well, hoping that the act of saving the pegasus might redeem the dislike the tornado caused. To their surprise, however, another pegasus had managed to get ahead of them to catch the falling child in the horizontal portion of a U-shaped dive. “Oh, thank you,” said the female pegasus as the child was given back to her. “You’re a hero!” Everyone started to cheer on the pegasus who grabbed the child. Lightning Dust, however, recognized both pegasi. “Hey, you two are the Shadowbolts! Stormy Skies and Thunder Strike!” “Your point being?” asked Thunder Strike. “This whole thing seems fishy to me because of that! I don’t think you even have a child!” Unfortunately for Lightning Dust, the apparent act of heroism by Thunder Strike combined with the dislike of Lightning Dust’s tornado caused everyone to consider her accusation an act of jealousy. A large amount of boos resulted. “Boo! Get out of town!” shouted Trixie. “Why are you booing her?” asked Flam. Trixie shrugged. “It’s nice to be part of the angry mob for once.” Lightning Dust looked nervously at all of the pegasi looking at her nastily. “Uh, excuse me,” came another voice. “But while I have no idea who the ‘Shadowbolts’ are, what just happened was impossible.” Everyone turned around to look at one of the contestants who hadn’t yet performed. “Care to explain?” asked Thunder Strike. The other pegasus sighed. “I can’t believe it isn’t obvious to everypony here. Physics! At the rate that alleged child was falling, there was no way a sudden stop to its fall by catching it would have allowed it to survive. It would have been no different than if they hit the ground. To save it, you would have had to, while going at its own velocity downward, grab it and then gradually decrease your speed until you came to a stop. You just grabbed it with no pause!” She pointed at Stormy Skies. “I think this whole thing was just staged to make yourself look good! I demand we get a look at that supposed child and see if it’s real!” “Um…” started Thunder Strike. “Well, the thing is, we, er… Okay, run for it!” He and Stormy Skies suddenly took off flying at top speed. Maelstrom Tempest, who was just sitting in the stands, simply said, “Hrm.” He then took off after them. “I told you this wouldn’t work,” complained Stormy Skies to Thunder Strike as they flew away. “Hey, the plan was working great for making us look good and making Lightning Dust look bad up until that thing about physics.” “How could you not realize something as obvious as that?” “I didn’t hear you bring it up in the planning stages!” He sighed. “Regardless, we’ll need new uniforms after this to stop us from being recognized. I’ve heard there’s this great seamstress in Manehattan…” Back in the cloud arena… “Okay,” said the announcer, “now that that whole thing is done with, can we have the next contestant go?” “That’s me!” declared the pegasus who had exposed the hoax, who immediately took off and, after continuing the tradition of starting with filler stunts, flew off in a blinding speed. “Oh, come on, just going fast?” asked Flim, feeling disappointed. “Anypony can go fast. What makes this one so–“ BOOOOM! An explosion of color occurred. “Did she–“ started Lightning Dust, eyes wide open. “–just perform the–“ continued Gilda. “–Sonic Rainboom?!” finished Lightning Dust. “The Sonic what-now?” Flam asked. “Why did we even bring them along if they don’t know anything?” sighed Gilda. “But who is that?” Lightning Dust wanted to know. “It’s hard to see much about her because of that full-body flying suit she’s wearing.” The pegasus in question returned to the stadium, briefly bowed, then darted away. The remaining contestants emerged and performed their own various routines. “Meh,” commented Sunset as a pegasus just finished juggling while flying around. “These are all even more boring than usual in comparison to what just happened.” “Do you do nothing but complain?” asked Gilda. “Pot. Kettle. Black.” “And now,” said the announcer once everyone had competed, “our judges will retire to make their decision.” 2.5 seconds later… “And they have decided! The winner of the Best Young Flyer Competition is the performer of the Sonic Rainboom… Rainbow Dash!” “Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!” Rainbow Dash said excitedly, her previous calm demeanor having completely disappeared. “This is the most amazing day ever!” She flew straight to the Wonderbolts. “By the way, does the ‘whole day’ thing mean the next 24 hours or is it just the remainder of this day?” “So,” Lightning Dust said a ways away, “her name is Rainbow Dash.” Her eyes hardened. “She is now my ultimate rival.” “Ultimate rival… do you even listen to yourself?” asked Gilda. “Also, she doesn’t even know who you are!” “That will change!” Lightning Dust announced dramatically. “Look, now that the whole stupid thing is over, can we just go home? This whole thing has been a giant waste of time for me,” said Sunset. “Didn’t even accomplish what I wanted to.” A pause. “Nopony wants to ask what I wanted to accomplish?” “Not really,” said Suri. Dear King Sombra, Today I learned it isn’t the fall that kills you; it’s the sudden stop at the end. Sincerely, Sunset Shimmer