//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3: Meeting the Roommates 
// Story: The Best of the Best 
// by Sweet_Harmony 
//------------------------------//

RD's POV

The next three days passed pretty quickly. Packing went smoother than I thought, other than the fact that Rarity gave me, like, half of her new summer line. After I finished packing, Pinkie was kind enough to through me a goodbye party with all of my friends and family to send me off. Now, I'm standing in my living room with two large luggage bags, hugging my family and friends goodbye. 

"We'll see you for the holidays, right?" Scootaloo asked after I let her go from our hug. 

"I'll try; from what Twilight told me yesterday, the Wonderbolt Academy has a pretty tight schedule, so I may or may not be here for Thanksgiving, but I'll definitely try to make it for Christmas. That sound good?" I asked her. 

"Mm-hmm!" she nodded. I turned to my parents and they both took me in a hug. 

"We'll see you, soon, Rainbow," I heard my mother say to me. I nodded against her shoulder before letting go. 

"And stay out of trouble, too," my father said, "well, at least try," he corrected himself. I rolled my eyes playfully before nodding. 

"I'll try," I told him. Then out of nowhere, Pinkie tackled me in a hug, nearly making me fall on my luggage. 

"I'm gonna miss you SOOOOOO MUCH!!!!" she shouted. 

"I'm gonna miss you, too, Pinkie . . . Now let me go before I die from lack of air . . ." I said with all the air I had left. 

"Sorry," she said, letting me go from her vice-like grasp. I gasped for air for a few seconds before I pulled myself together. Good Lord, that girl can hug! 

"We hope to see you soon, darling. Make sure you come down every once and a while," Rarity said as she pulled me into a hug. 

"I think I speak for all of us when I say to keep in touch," Twilight told me. 

"And if ya ever meet new people ya think we'd wanna meet, feel free to bring 'em down with ya on a visit," Applejack said as she leaned on one of my luggage bags. 

"Will do," I said with a thumbs-up. 

"Don't forget about the animal adoptions, either. I'll text you the dates when it gets closer to the season," Fluttershy said, moving her bangs out of her face. 

"I won't forget - promise!" I told her as I gave her a hug. We walked out the house together and I placed my luggage in the trunk of my car. Yeah, I have a bike and wings, but how exactly do you expect me to travel when it's cold, raining, or snowing? 

I slammed the car door after me and started the engine. I gave them one last smile before driving off. The top of my car was down, so I heard their goodbyes as I drove down the street. I've been to Malibu plenty of times to visit family, so once I got on the highway, I listened to my favorite album by Avril Lavigne during the whole half-hour drive. 





It was pretty obvious to know where the school was - it was huge, took up a lot of space, a lot of cars, big parking lots, lots of buildings, mostly blue and yellow . . . that and there was a huge sign saying "THE WONDERBOLT ACADEMY" at its entrance. You'd be surprised to know that there was actually a lot of empty parking spaces. I'd get my dorm building and room number up at the front. I walked up to the table on the side walk where someone told me it was a "find, take, and go". I looked for my name in the R's first, then the D's, and there I was - Dash, Rainbow. Of course the last name comes first. Thank God they didn't include my middle name for some weird reason. I carefully slipped the paper out and walked back to my car. I slammed the car door and took a deep breath as I read it over to myself. 

"North Building, room 2344 . . ." I said quietly. I exhaled loudly as I started up the car again. 

"Please tell me these places have elevators, 'cause I am not going to climb of fly up staircases with two heavy luggage bags looking like an idiot who doesn't know what she's doing," I said to myself as I drove to my dorm building. It was very far from where I already was, so once I got there, I found a place to park, grabbed my bags from the trunk, and headed inside. Some other people were going into the building as well, and there were posters hung up on the walls saying what floor your room was on and who your roommates were. Once again, I found my name under D. 

"Fifth floor? I can cope with that . . . Spitfire and Fleetfoot? Hmm . . . might as well meet them at the dorm," I said to myself. I took hold of my bags again and saw a few people catching a ride on an elevator. 

Hallelujah! I thought to myself as I jogged up to them so I wouldn't have to wait. Thankfully, they were nice enough to wait for me to join them, and we waited a few moments before closing the doors. 

"What floor are you on?" a guy standing by the elevator buttons asked me. 

"Fifth," I told him. 

"I'm meeting with my brother on fifth. I'll stick by you when they leave," a girl behind me said. 

It took a few minutes before I made it to the fifth floor. All that was left was finding my dorm. 

"2341, 2342, 2343, ah! 2344," I said to myself. I took a deep breath before opening the door. I was met with what sounded like a snack bag being crunched, then voices. 

"I thought the guys weren't coming till 1:30," a voice said. 

"Fleet, if they walked in, they'd be shouting something along the lines of 'Let's go, already! We're missing some great twelve-footers!' It's probably our other roommate. Let's go say hi," another said. 

I heard another crunch of a snack bag as I closed the door behind me and saw two Pega-girls walk into the room I was in. One had light orange hair with a darker orange streak running through the center from her Widow's Peak that was styled back behind her head, amber eyes, tanned skin, and golden-yellow wings. The other had white hair with light-teal streaks going through it that was pulled back into a small ponytail, fuchsia eyes, pale skin, and light arctic-blue wings. Both wore small smiles as they walked in. 

"Hi, you must be Rainbow Dash," the one with orange hair said to me. 

"That's me." 

"Yeah, the hair probably gives the 'rainbow' part away," the one with white and teal hair said, "I'm Fleetfoot, and this is Spitfire," Fleetfoot said as she placed a hand on her hip. I saw Spitfire look at my bags. 

"Would you like some help unpacking? You seem to have a lot on you," she asked me as she gestured to my luggage. I smiled a bit. 

"That would be great; but let me warn you, I am very picky about I put things, so if I start moving things you already put down, please don't murder me," I said to them with a smile as I started pulling up the handles on my bags. They laughed lightly. 

"Oh, don't worry; we're the same way," Spitfire told me, taking hold of one bag. 

"Then I think we're gonna get along just fine," I said. 

"Come on. We'll show you to you room," Fleetfoot said, nodding her head towards a small hall. 

"You were just in the living room, but the television and everything else was where we were," Fleetfoot explained to me as we kept on walking. 

"Then it must be larger than I thought," I replied. 

"This is the bathroom." Spitfire opened a door in the hall we were in and what I saw surprised me - it was huge! I mean, the mirror literally took up most of one of the walls, there were two sinks with a lot of counter space between them, cabinets underneath of the sinks, a large bath tub, and a large screen door shower. 

"Geez! It's huge!" I exclaimed, my eyes bulging out of my head. Spitfire just laughed. 

"That was my reaction," she said with a smile before closing the door. 

"Most of the stuff under the sinks in the cabinets belong to Fleetfoot, her being the 'girlier' one out of the two of us," Fleetfoot just shrugged sheepishly, "but there's plenty of space for your stuff, if you have any," Spitfire told me as we walked a little farther down the hall. At the end of the hall were three doors. 

"My door's on the left, Spitfire's is on the right, and your room is in the middle," Fleetfoot said, walking up to the middle door. She opened it, and once again, I was met with a surprise. There was a full bed against a wall, a simple, rectangle vanity desk, a computer desk, a bedside table with a lamp, a navy blue dresser, two beanbags with a few throw pillows sitting on top of them, and a closet next to the dresser. And there was a hell a lot of rug space! 

"Once again, this is huge!" I said. 

"We know it is. Kind of why we'd like to help you unpack. It might take a while to walk back and forth from one side of the room to the other," Fleetfoot said, talking with her hands. 

"And I don't mean to rush you, but we have some friends coming over in about in hour. We're spending the day at the beach. Since it's your first day, do you wanna come with us? I'm pretty sure they'll like you, anyways," Spitfire asked me as we walked into my new room. 

"Sure! I'd never miss out going to the beach," I said with a smile. 





About an hour later, we were done unpacking one bag and were half way done with the second when we sat down on the bed to take a quick break. Things in the room were already looking a little bit more "rainbow". I changed the bed sheets with my own - blue and white music notes over a black background, and solid colored pillows in matching colors. Since I didn't feel like going down to the bathroom, I left my bathroom things, along with a little makeup palettes I had, on the vanity desk. Everything else was filled with clothes and a few pairs of shoes. We agreed that the next day, we'd go down to the mall for some shoes and other things, since I only brought two pairs with me; I left most of them at home. Then, we heard the door open and the voices of boys enter our dorm. 

"That's them," Fleetfoot said, raising an eyebrow with amusement. 

"Do they always just barge right in?" I asked her. 

"Well, we grew up with the dudes, so, yeah," she said. 

"We'll finish unpacking your things either later tonight, since you don't have a lot of clothes left in your bag, or tomorrow morning. Since we'll most likely be staying at the beach for more than just a few hours, we'll probably unpack everything else tomorrow," Spitfire said to me. I just shrugged it off. 

"Eh, it's fine. I'll live," I told her. I heard a rich voice call out through our dorm. 

"Where are you guys, anyway?" he said. 

"We're in the empty dorm room," Fleetfoot yelled back. 

"Knowing them, their jaws are probably gonna drop when they find out we've got a new roomie. We haven't told them anything about you before you came, so expect some funniness," Spitfire said to me. I raised my eyebrows as I heard footsteps and voices came closer to my room door. This is gonna be interesting.





Soarin's POV 

"Do we just walk right in?" Thunderlane asked to no one in particular. 

"Well, duh! It's not like their gonna mind, we've known the since we were, like, what, five?" Rapidfire said in reply. 

"I'm sorry, but the last time that happened, things didn't turn out very well! I don't like thinking about it." 

"Ha! Well, that was your fault for walking in on them changing." 

"You dared me to! There's a reason why some people say 'knock before you walk'!" 

"Ladies, ladies, you're both pretty, now can we walk in now so we can go to the beach already? We're missing some great twelve-footers!" I cut in. Geez, that's like their third argument today. 

"Fine, then, if you want to get them so much, how about you open the door?" Rapid said. I rolled my eyes and did just that. 

"Since when did you become so chicken? Look! This part of the dorm is completely empty," I said, gesturing around Spitfire and Fleetfoot's living room. 

"Well, I just don't wanna go through what Thunder did," he said, nodding his head toward my other best friend. 

"Dude, I don't think anyone wants to go through what I did!" he said, eyes widening as he remembered the scene. 

"Where are they?" Rapid asked us. 

"Where are you guys, anyway?" I called throughout the dorm. 

"We're in the empty dorm room," I heard Fleetfoot call back. I raised an eyebrow as we started walking down the hall. 

"Why would they be in Surprise's old room?" Rapid asked. 

"Well, since her accident, I guess they were just reliving the memory of her living there," Thunder replied. 

"It's kinda sad her injuries were so bad that they ended up taking away her wings. We should give her a visit some time soon," I said as we neared her old dorm room. I heard giggling coming from the room. This sparked my curiosity. What's going on in there? 

"Okay, since you two are too chicken, I'll open the door," I said, laying a hand on the partly opened door. 

"Thank you," they breathed out in relief. I rolled my eyes and opened the door, about to step inside until something, or rather someone, I saw made me stop dead in my tracks. Rapid and Thunder looked over my shoulders to see what the hold up was and saw the same thing I was seeing. 

What I saw was a rainbow-haired girl with lightly tanned skin, magenta pink eyes, and largest wings I've ever seen for a girl. She was sitting on the bed with Spitfire and Fleetfoot, all of them smiling at us. 

"'Sup?" Fleetfoot said to break the awkward silence. 

"'Sup'? That's all?" Thunderlane asked her, an eyebrow raised as he continued to look at the rainbow-y newcomer. 

"Who's she?" Rapidfire asked. The rainbow-haired girl snickered before saying something. 

"Gee, way to be blunt. I'm Rainbow Dash," she said to him. We were still kind of skeptical. 

"She's our new roomie," Spitfire said as she nudged Rainbow's shoulder. We relaxed. 

"We've been unpacking her things for the past hour. I think I found someone who has enough clothes rival my closet," Fleetfoot said. I raised an eyebrow as we walked into the room. 

"Fleet, no one can have more clothes than you," Thunder said as he put down a bag full of beach stuff for the guys. 

"Really? Then check the closet," Rainbow said, all three of the girls sharing the same smug smile. We turned our heads to look into the open closet and saw hangers and folded clothes neatly stacked and hung everywhere. Our jaws dropped at the variation of color and neatness. 

"Whoa," was all we could say. 

"Yeah, 'whoa' is correct," I heard Rainbow say, "By the way, I never got your names." 

"Oh, I'm Soarin. The guy with the black wings is Thunderlane and the blunt guy with the white streak through his hair is Rapidfire," I told her as we turned around to face them. 

"Hi." 

"'Sup?" 

"You comin' with us to the beach?" I asked Rainbow. She nodded her head. 

"Yeah, just let me get changed. Out! Out, out, out, out! Men are now restricted from this room until my say-so! Go snack on some food from the kitchen, or something!" she shouted at us as she pushed us towards the door. 

"Whoa, whoa, wait; what about them?" Rapid asked quickly before he crashed into the door. She stopped for a minute before turning around to face Spits and Fleet. 

"You're going with them, you know that, right?" she asked them. 

"Yeah, we figured," Fleetfoot said as she nodded her head. She and Spitfire stood from the bed. 

"C'mon, guys. Let's pack a few snacks for the beach, we just restocked our pantry with Oreos and Nutter Butters," Spitfire said as she walked towards the door. The mention of food got us out the door. 

"Do you still have any Raisinets? Don't judge, those things are good!" Thunder said as he and Rapid jogged down the hall. I just walked out of Rainbow's room when I heard her sigh and say "Boys are crazy" before closing her door. I rolled my eyes and shook my head before following after my friends. 

I've known these guys since Pre-K. Growing up with them, they're like my brothers and sisters. Rapidfire is the annoying goofball who loves having fun about 24/7 - pretty much sums him up. Thunderlane prefers to use his brain most of the time, but it comes in handy whenever we pull a prank on some random stranger and he decides to live like he's never lived before. Fleetfoot is you're typical girl - likes to hit the mall about every weekend, but when she wants something, she commits. Spitfire . . . let's just say, don't make her mad. You don't want to see her live up to her name. Seriously, that girl is as scary as hell when she's angry! But she has a good side that fortunately shows more than her bad side, so we're safe. 

I walked into the moderate-sized kitchen where Rapid and Fleetfoot were busy putting things in a large beach bag while Thunder and Spitfire were popping Raisinets in their mouths. I stood next to Thunder by the counter and took a handful of Raisinets from the bag he was holding before pouring some into my mouth as well. One thing I forgot to mention - we love to eat. 

"There's something called 'asking'," he said as he glared at me. 

"Yeah, there's also something called 'sharing'," I shot back, my mouth half-full of the chocolate-covered raisins. 

"Should we bring the cooler? Warm water is the worst, and it's supposed to be scorching hot today," Rapid asked as he grabbed a water bottle from the fridge. 

"Yeah, just dump the ice from the ice box in the freezer in it. That should last us for a few hours," Spitfire said to him. As he did that, we heard some faint music playing from the hall. Rapid stopped pouring the ice into the cooler to listen and we all stayed still, trying to figure out what was playing and who was playing it. 

"Where is that music coming from?" Thunder asked as we looked around us. Then, we heard a door open and light footsteps coming from the hall. It finally clicked that Rainbow was probably listening to something. 

"Ohhh," we all chorused at the realization. The footsteps tapped the ground in a certain rhythm, and soon, humming came along with the music. I recognized the tune as "Rock 'n' Roll" by Avril Lavigne. After a few moments, Rainbow came into the kitchen with a pair of blue Beats headphones hanging around her neck, iPod in her back pocket, the humming turning into light singing as she slightly danced her way towards us with her eyes closed. She was about to pass by Thunder, Spitfire, and I when she opened her eyes and saw the Raisinets bag Thunder was holding. Her eyes widened and sang her words to the tune of the song. 

"Some-some way, we'll be getting' outta - ooh! Raisinets! Thank you very much for sharing with me," she sang as she basically took the entire bag away from Thunder, leaving him dumbstruck and the rest of us laughing, "you know how the story goes - oh, oh, oh," she continued to sing before she popped a few into her mouth. 

"Wait - what - how - where did you come from?" Thunder asked her, obviously not paying much attention after we fund out where the music was coming from. She paused bringing her hand to her mouth and raised an eyebrow at him. 

"My room - duh," she said, adding a little of know-it-all sass to her tone. She ate another handful of the snacks as the rest of us continued to laugh. 

"Oh, let her have the bag, Thunderlane! It's her first day here, let the girl have some fun!" Fleetfoot defended her. Thunder just pouted and crossed his arms. 

"Fine. But I call dibs when we get to the beach!" he said as he pointed a finger at her as a warning. She just shrugged before she swallowed. 

"Speaking of the beach, when are we leaving?" she asked. We turned to look at either Spitfire or Fleetfoot. 

"I guess now. It's already 2:30," Spitfire said, looking at her phone for the time. 

"Alright, are we flying, or driving?" Fleetfoot asked. 

"I don't feel like hauling these things in the air. Let's take the van. The boards are already in there, anyways." Rapid said as he picked up the cooler. Spitfire picked up the beach bag full of food. 

"Alright, but you're driving," she said, walking into the living room. He groaned before following her and we headed out of the building to the parking lot. I turned my head to my left to see that Rainbow still had her headphones around her neck. 

"Are you gonna listen to those in the car, or are you actually taking them to the beach?" I asked her as we came closer to Rapid's van. She nodded her head. 

"I'm taking them to the beach. When get tired I usually just plug them in and gorge myself with snacks until I feel like going back in the water again," she said, opening the car door to get in the back with Fleetfoot. Rapid made sure that the surf boards were firmly strapped at the top before getting in the drivers seat and driving out of the parking lot and onto the highway. 

"You guys up for some music?" he asked not too long after we got onto the highway. We all whooped and cheered and he turned on the radio, and "Love More" by Chris Brown came on. We all whooped loudly and Rapid rolled down the windows. We all started to sing along, including Rainbow Dash. That's all we did for the entire drive to the beach - singing at the top of our lungs to music. Though, sometimes, whenever something like Fifth Harmony came on and us guys stopped singing and just listened to the girls, I couldn't help but look in the rearview mirror to see Rainbow singing strongly with Spit and Fleet like she'd known them forever. I smirked. I've only known this girl for half and hour and I can already tell that's she's gonna be something special.