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// 7 Airborne Retreat 
// Story: Potion Panic 
// by gaitiem 
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	“That helmet is strapped on tight, right Squirt.”
“Yes, Rainbow Dash,” Scootaloo answered.
“Well, it’s not gonna do you much good at the altitudes we’re going, but keep it as a good luck charm if you want,” she said as she bolted off of the ground and into the sky with Scootaloo at her back. “The weather publication said Cloudsdale should be about three hours away from Ponyville right now, so we should be there in an hour. You comfortable?”
The world was whizzing by Scootaloo much faster than she could keep up with visually, but the crisp feeling of wind at her back was oddly comforting, and she called out, “Yes!”
“We’re not at max speed yet, Shortstop. You don’t have to yell.” Rainbow added, “Actually, really don’t yell! I need my sense of hearing when I fly.”
“Sor-! Uh, sorry,” Scootaloo verbally stumbled.
“It’s cool kid! In fact, it’s awesome! I’m so glad we get to go on this trip together.”
“Me too,” Scootaloo answered pensively.
“We’ve got a good breeze today!” Rainbow reported. “Maybe we will break the sound barrier after all!” Rainbow picked up the pace with her wings some, building up a cone of sonic energy around herself. “Strap on tight, kid!” she shouted. 
All at once the cone broke and an iris of light formed behind the two of them. Scootaloo felt nothing, but heard a deafening boom, and saw, looking back, the rainbow they had created. It looked like the same rainboom that Rainbow had made before from 1:30 to 10:30 o’clock, only with a fourth of it, from forty-five degrees to one hundred thirty five, colored all purple and orange near the center like a sunrise. Scootaloo was so awestruck by the sight of it, growing and dissipating through the air, that she stopped thinking of herself entirely. Her surrogate big sister trailed the color behind herself. Rainbow Dash never noticed, focused on getting to her destination in record time. Scootaloo looked back until the colors dispersed and faded into a uniform blue, like watching a sunrise fade away into the day. The sight of that, and the feeling of moving faster than she had ever before, made the time she spent getting to her destination feel even shorter than it actually was. Very soon, in record time even, the two would be on the verge of Cloudsdale, a city Scootaloo had only ever seen as a far off and distant dream.
Her mind tried to juggle these new sensations with her remembered feeling of isolation from the pony she loved. She remembered, though, that these new thoughts and feelings were  a good thing, and she should try to forget about her and Sweetie Belle being together. She should try to live in the moment, like Rainbow would tell her to do if they weren’t traveling faster than sound, the same advice that she repeated to Sweetie Belle. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what Sweetie Belle was doing without her.