//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: "Well, 'good' morning' to you, too." // Story: The Best of the Best // by Sweet_Harmony //------------------------------// Soarin's POV I remember turning away from the window as sunlight poured into the room. I don't mind mornings, as long as it's not too early, but I hate it when I crack my eyes open and all I see is a blinding light. I think it was around 8:00 in the morning, but since I was still very lazy and drowsy I ended up going back to sleep. About two-and-a-half hours later, I hear someone taking a large, long exhale, like they were silently yawning. It was quiet for a minute, then I heard the rustling of blankets and the sound of a phone unlocking. I assumed it was Fleetfoot. She's the one with the most social media, and she's usually glued to her phone if she's not hanging out with us, so it made sense. Then I heard a voice whisper: "It's too early for this, I'm going back to sleep." Then a soft thump was heard, followed by more blankets moving, then silence. Yup. Definitely Fleetfoot. Not too long after that, I heard someone take a sharp inhale, then a long exhale as if they were stretching, followed by a deep yawn. Then I heard two voices, one soft and feminine, another masculine and raspy from sleep. Spitfire and Rapidfire. The both of them slept side-by-side last night, so it seemed logical that if one woke up, the other would soon follow. I ignored the soft chatter from the two and was about to drift off again before I heard a snort, then a deep groan from somewhere in the room. Thunderlane woke up. I heard him and Fire Squared - get it? - exchange their good mornings and continued the soft chatter. Then another feminine voice popped in. Looks like Fleetfoot didn't up going to sleep after all. So two-thirds of the group were up and awake. Great. I tried to go back to sleep, but I was up for past five minutes by then, so the best I could do was cat-nap and eavesdrop on their conversation. "When did you guys wake up?" "A few minutes ago, actually. You sound a bit more clear than the rest of us, so I'm assuming you woke up earlier, Fleet." "Yeah, probably a good ten, fifteen minutes before you two. I tried going back to sleep, but hey, eyes already adjusted, can't fight that." "Yeah, I woke up probably a few minutes after Spits and Rapid did." "Dude, you sound like you've been screaming while going down the Griffon in Busch Gardens after a hundred times, you're voice is, like, demolished, oh my gosh." "It's what happens when I'm really tired and whenever I wake up. It'll clear soon. You should know this, Rapid, you've been my roommate for years, man." "I know, I just don't usually hear you talk right when you wake up, that's all." "Does anyone else wish they could go back to sleep?" I raised an eyebrow. Spitfire just pulled off a Fleetfoot - wishing to go back to sleep not too long after waking up. "Trust me, babe, I'd be sleeping like a freaking boulder if I could, but my eyes are used to the light and I'm already talking, so screw it." I rolled my eyes underneath my eyelids. Typical Rapid. "I didn't think I'd still be so tired, I'm usually wide awake by the time I wake up." See? My point exactly. Geez, Spits, you need some coffee. Actually, no, I take that back, Spits is terrifying when on coffee. "I really wanna make a song reference right now, but tired voice and singing . . . not a good combination." I nearly laughed. It's too true, especially with Fleetfoot. "Yeah, don't do that. I still wanna be able to hear, thank you very much." Me too, Thunderlane, me too. "And besides, Rainbow and Soarin are still asleep. You know how grouchy Soarin gets when he's disturbed, and we've already had a nice description of Dash's temper from yesterday's 'Twenty Questions' game, so I'd rather stay away from that." Couldn't agree with you more, Spits. "Touche." Time for me to come into the picture. I faked waking up by taking in a sharp inhale of air, then stretching out my back and slightly shaking my wings. "Well, not anymore," I mumbled as I let out a yawn, that actually wasn't staged. "Mornin', sleepy head," Spitfire greeted me. I crawled over my makeshift bed on the ground so my head was peeking out from the end of Rainbow's bed and saw Spitfire snuggled up in Rapidfire's side, giving me a tired smile, Thunderlane still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, and Fleetfoot's head from the other side of the bed, looking much more awake than any of us. "We didn't wake you, did we?" Fleet asked me. I shook my head. "No, not really. When did you guys wake up?" I asked in order to mask the fact that I was listening to the conversation the entire time. They didn't seem to notice. Thank God for the theater and drama classes I've had to go through for the past nine-ish years. "Fleetfoot apparently woke up before any of us. Spitfire and Rapidfire woke up after she did, I followed after, and then you came up," Thunderlane relayed. I made a face. "Wow, you sound terrible," I said, laughing a bit at the end. He rolled his eyes. "Thanks for that, Captain Obvious," he said playfully, "Yeah, I know, I sound like a frog. It'll clear up soon, though." He cleared his throat for good measure, though it didn't do much. Then a thought popped into my mind. "What time is it?" I asked. We all looked at each other, then at Fleetfoot who had grabbed her phone. Her eyes widened, then mouthed something along the lines of "holy shit". "Mind telling us what the time is?" Rapid asked her, his tone dripping with amusement. She held up her phone to us and covered her mouth to stifle her on-coming laughter. "It's almost eleven in the morning," she said. "Pfft-!" was my reaction before I stuffed my face into my blankets and laughed. I heard Spitfire facepalm before laughing and Rapidfire laughing as quietly as he could. Thunderlane had ended up coughing, so most of his laughter was drowned because he was laughing in his pillow, to make sure his hacks wouldn't wake up the still-sleeping girl in the bed. "Oh, man, that's a close second to our record!" Rapid said. We knew what he was talking about. Back when we were about nine to 10-years-old, we all ended up staying here in the dorms for New Years because snowstorms crossing the country were canceling flights to areas like Miami, for me and Spits, New York, for Thunderlane, Houston, for Rapidfire, and Fleetfoot's parents were caught in a business trip in Nashville, so she couldn't go home to L.A. We instead watched the Ball-Drop show together, but passed out about a quarter after midnight. We didn't wake up until a quarter after noon the next day - a solid 12-hour sleep. We've never woken up that late since. "Wow. Still nowhere close to twelve-twenty-five noon, but we're getting there," I said, leaning back and putting my head against the pillow. Almost instantly after I laid back, I was met with a cyan blue feather, followed by a huge wing. "What the fu-?!" I managed to get out before dodging out of the way from getting a face-full of feathers. I stood on my knees and looked onto the bed just and Fleetfoot popped her head over, and saw a rather amusing sight - Rainbow Dash was laying on the bed, body angled diagonally across it, her left wing hanging off the side of the bed where I was, her right wing half-open on the other side of the bed, while her arms were tucked close to her body. And the icing on the cake? She had a tangled river of rainbow hair over her shoulders and surrounding her head. I rolled my eyes playfully before going back down to the ground. Fleetfoot had an amused smile on her face, her left elbow on the bed and her hand supporting her head. "Wow. She wasn't kidding when she said she was a bed-hoarder. I feel bad for her future husband, no offense to her or anyone else," she said as she crawled back to the floor, laughing a bit at the end. Spitfire scoffed and gave her a playful glare while us boys laughed a bit. "Fleet, that is so mean!" she said while throwing one of the smaller throw pillows at her. "I'm sorry, I'm just saying! I wonder why she hasn't thought about curling up into a ball and cocooning herself with her wings. That's what I do," Fleet said, demonstrating herself. We all laughed, because she looked like a blue, baby turtle with white hair. "Maybe she has but doesn't do it because it's uncomfortable or something. You can't really question that," Thunderlane pointed out, his voice much clearer. He was starting to feel more awake. Fleet shrugged a shoulder in response, coming out of her wing-cocoon. "Touche," she looked at her phone again, then snickered, "Hey, do you think we should wake her up soon? It's actually eleven now, and I'm starting to get hungry, so . . ." she said. "Probably. But how? She sleeps like a rock," I said, lifting her dangling wing and dropping it back down, not even stirring her in the slightest. "Scream 'RAINBOW, STARBUCKS' at the top of our lungs?" Raipidfire suggested. Spitfire and I simultaneously face-palmed. "What? We all live off of it, and I could use a frap right about now, so why not?" he defended himself. I snickered while Spitfire shook her head with a sigh. "Sure. Why not?" she gave in. I nearly laughed. Spitfire must be really tired if she caved to one of her boyfriend's ridiculous ideas. He smiled devilishly and rubbed his hands together as he sat up, bringing Spitfire up with him in the process. "Oh, I'm gonna have fun with this . . ." he said like some sort of evil cartoon villain. Spitfire face-palmed again, but ended up laughing in her hand at his childish ways. I stole a glance at Fleetfoot and saw her smiling like an idiot, and I saw Thunderlane smiling while shaking his head. I continued to silently snicker. Back when Rapid and Spits first started dating, Fleetfoot, Thunderlane, and I, though mostly me and Fleet, would gush over how adorable they are. We still do. But there's meaning behind why. One of the biggest reasons why we love these two together is because Rapidfire can reveal a completely different side of Spitfire. No one can make her smile and laugh like he does - not even me, and I'm her best friend, the brother she never had. We've only been awake for about half an hour and he's already found a way to make her laugh. I can't do anything but smile, because while Rapidfire can be very reckless, I know my "little sister" is in safe hands. "Okay, are we gonna scream, or what?" she asked him. He stopped his evil villian act and nodded. "Yeah. On three, people!" he told us. "One . . . two . . . three!" "RAINBOW!!!! STARBUCKS!!!!" we literally screamed at the top of our lungs. We fell over laughing, but we only laughed harder when all Rainbow did was roll onto her other side and snuggle her face into her pillow. "Damn, talk about heavy sleeper," Thunderlane stated as the laughter died down. "Yeah, no kidding. What does it take to get his girl to wake up?" Fleetfoot asked, standing up completely and jumping onto the bed, just missing Rainbow's legs. The girl-in-question let out an irritated moan and kicked Fleet off with no problem. "Ooh! Ow! Crap! Holy shit . . . oh, wow, that hurt . . ." Fleetfoot cried out as she tumbled back on the ground, saying the curses under her breath, despite that fact we could still hear her and we were used to it. We all snickered and held back our laughs. "What did you land on?" Spitfire asked, a hand hovering over her mouth. "My damn freaking phone, that's what! Wow, my hip hurts, oh my God . . ." she told us, fake-sobbing as she laughed at herself. That was when we all lost it and just busted up into laughter. How Rainbow still hadn't woken up will forever be a mystery. Then, out of nowhere, a pillow landed in my face. Rapidfire let out an exceptionally loud snicker while Spitfire laughed her head off into her pillow. "I'm sorry, I had to!" he defended himself, lifting up his forearms for protection. I picked up the pillow and walked a few steps on my knees, giving him a playful glare. "Oh, so that's how it's gonna be, huh?" I asked in a fake challenging tone, then I chucked the pillow at him, knocking him down and landing on Spitfire's back, who screamed in surprise, then continued to laugh even harder. "Well, gee, thanks! I just crushed my girlfriend!" Rapid "yelled" at me through his laughs. "Rapidfire, get off of me! I need to breathe, I can barely breathe right now!" Spitfire rushed in one breath, still lost in her contagious hysterics. He got up, but right after, he threw the same pillow back at me. I swatted it away, but then, a pillow from Fleetfoot's side landed on his head. "Ha!" I yelled at him. Fleetfoot then sprung up into the air with a pillow in her hands. "PILLOW FIGHT!!!" she shouted. All of us, even Spitfire, grabbed the nearest pillow and started assaulting and pulverizing each other with them. This went on for a few minutes before a new pillow found it's way into the mess. We momentarily stopped and turned our heads to see a slightly irritated Rainbow Dash sitting up in her bed, tangled locks of rainbow resting on her shoulders and another pillow in her right arm. It was silent for a moment before Fleetfoot broke it. "Well, 'good morning' to you, too," she said. Rainbow just raised an eyebrow. We all grew sheepish smiles, but what threw us off was the amused smile that creeped up on hers. "Brace yourselves, people, 'cause this pillow fight's about to get more extreme!" she said, despite the tired cracks in her voice. Her smile turned into a genuine one as she chucked her pillow at us, which landed on Thunderlane's head, then reached for another one of her pillows and jumped into the fight. She was right about one thing - the fight got much more extreme. It first started off with all of us battering each other, then we somehow split off into teams - me, Dash, and Fleet on one side of the room, Spits, Rapid, and Thunder on the other. We ended up throwing pillows and balled-up blankets at each other for, like, a good 25 minutes, before we ran out of plush amo and started tug-of-warring over Fleetfoot's fuzzy teal-colored blanket. The owner of that blanket was going crazy, pulling on it with all her might that she alone was enough to make the Fire Squared team fall on their butts two-out-of-three rounds. By the third round, we all put too much weight into it and ended up slipping on blankets and pillows, causing us to crash on the ground. We laughed for a few minutes in the messy aftermath of the pillow fight-turned-war-turned-tug-of-war. Seriously, there were blankets and pillows all over the place! "Well, that's one way to wake up in the morning," Dash said as the laughter died down. "Dude, we screamed at the top of our lungs, Fleetfoot jumped on you, and we laughed for a good half hour about stupid stuff - how the hell did you not wake up?!" Rapid asked her incredulously. She shrugged a shoulder sheepishly. "I have three loud-as-crap siblings back at home, I've learned to shut out noises when I sleep. Unless it's like a scream, then I wake up and start freaking out," she elaborated, laughing a bit at the end. "Who wouldn't? Waking up to a scream would be scary," Fleetfoot agreed. Then, Rapidfire suddenly groaned and slammed his face down into a pillow. Spitfire, who somehow managed to land across his back when we fell, looked at him with a half-confused, half-amused expression, then chuckled a bit. "What's up with you?" she asked through a smile. Rapid lifted his head again and playfully pouted through a smile. "I'm hungry now," he told her. "Pfft. You could've just said that, you know," Thunderlane said to him. Fleetfoot checked the time on her phone. "Oh, God. You guys, it's eleven-thirty-four, we've been messing around for, like, half an hour!" She told us. Rainbow's eyes nearly popped out of her head. "Are you serious?!" she asked, not believing it. "Believe it, girl - we were knocked out like lights last night," Spitfire told her. Rainbow blinked before chuckling. "Well, damn," was her response. I snickered. "My thoughts exactly," I told her. "Hey, anyone just wanna get breakfast from McDonald's or something and stop by Starbucks on our way back? I don't feel like making breakfast today," Fleetfoot suggested. I rolled my eyes with a smile. "Fleet, you never feel like making breakfast," I said. "Yet, I do anyway," she backfired. "Touche." "Yeah, I'm up for it. Though I don't feel like it would be safe for any of us to drive in our current state, we're all still half-asleep, even after that huge plush-pillow war," Rainbow pointed out, getting back onto her bed while stretching. "We don't have to drive. The Academy's at an intersection. All the restaurants and shopping centers and stuff are across the main road. There are walk-ways across main road too, so we'd be perfectly safe going and coming back," Spitfire explained. "Wait, wouldn't it be easier to just fly there?" she asked. Wow. First time someone's actually pointed that out. "Oh, yeah, there's that, too," Spitfire said, "I vote flying, it's always nicer in the air." "Me too," Thunderlane agreed. "Me three!" Rapidfire threw his hand up into the air like a little kid. "Flying sounds nice," I said with a shrug. "Not that far, but hey, a flight's a flight," Fleetfoot said, standing up to sit next to Dash on the bed. "Back at home I'd always take a quick flight around the neighborhood just to wake me up. This should be good for me," Rainbow said while standing, stretching her legs after she stood up. "Don't bother getting ready and stuff, it's still morning, people can't judge. Although you may not wanna wear pink, Rainbow," Thunderlane said with a teasing smile. She rolled her eyes at him and stuck out her tongue. "Oh, ha, ha, very funny," she said. She headed into her closet and closed the closet door and came out less than 30 seconds later wearing a loose, rainbow tie-die t-shirt. It was too big, so she ended up tying the extra fabric at her hip with a hair tie. She had another one in between her teeth, which was probably for her hair. "Hey Fleet, do you have any extra hoodies? I think I left mine at home," she asked her. "Yeah, I have this really big one that I never wear. You can have it if you want," Fleetfoot said, walking out of the room and to the right to her room. She back a few moments later with an over-sized white hoodie that Rainbow took gratefully. She shook out her wings through the wing holes in the back, mumbling something about preening as she pulled the rest of it down. Although the hoodie was really loose and big, it almost seemed like the appropriate size for her because of her freakishly broad shoulders. She rolled up the sleeves a bit before flipping her hair over her head, gathering up her messy hair, and pulling it up into a very messy ponytail - or maybe it was a bun, I couldn't really tell, that's how tangled her hair was. "So, styling messy hair must be a thing for you, huh?" Spitfire asked as Rainbow finished tying her hair up. "Yeah, it became a habit for me after a while," she said as she went back into her closet. She had pulled out a pair of blue comfortable-looking running shoes and slipped them on before walking out. Fleetfoot had grabbed a hoodie of her own and Spitfire's things were always by the door, so we just followed them out into the living room. After Fleet put on some sandals, Spitfire her jean jacket, running shoes and wallet, and us boys the shoes we had the night before, Spits grabbed the dorm keys and we headed out.