Sonic Rainboom
The day after Rarity’s dress making antics and Celestia’s random visit had proven to be an extremely bewildering one, Twilight Sparkle had spent all day chasing Pinkie Pie around trying to figure out how her so-called “Pinkie Sense” worked and had wound up going to Froggy Bottom Bog with Applejack and Spike to check on Fluttershy after Pinkie had said there would be a “doozy” there; Winter had decided to follow them and find out just what was going on and he eventually found them all on the other side of a ravine.
“That’s funny, Fluttershy’s not with the animals…” he mused before Pinkie’s voice cut him off. He looked over a ravine to see the all perched on a narrow ledge on the other side.
“We’re over here Winter… we’re hiding” she said dramatically, prompting a raised eyebrow from Winter.
“You’re doing what?”
“We’re hiding, from a hideous monster, Winter.”
“Oh yeah? Well, where is it now then?” he asked before being knocked into a tree by the tail of a large Hydra, he hit the tree so hard that the trunk cracked and the tree fell over.
“There it is” answered Pinkie cheerfully.
“You seem to know a lot about monsters Winter, what do you think it is?” cut in Applejack as the Hydra blew a raspberry at them.
“Looks like that Hydra from the Everfree Forest that I taught a lesson to” Winter replied as the Hydra looked at him with recognition and snarled at him.
“Ah think you’d better get rid of it” she said, sitting down to watch the show that they all knew was coming.
“I intend to Applejack” he responded before picking up the remains of the tree trunk “right Scale Face, if you don’t clear off right now, I’m going to give you a sound bonking!”
“Oh here we go” groaned Twilight as the Hydra lunged at Winter but missed because he teleported backwards.
“RIGHT, You asked for this!” Winter snapped as he swung the trunk into its face and sent it flying off of the hill they were on; it looked at him, dazed, and he scowled at it “Oh, clear off!”
“Remind me never to get on Winter’s bad side” muttered Spike as the Hydra started walking dazedly off in the direction of Fluttershy’s frogs, which Winter didn’t fail to notice.
“I’d better get rid of that thing before Princess Sugar Addict sees it and decides to blast Froggy Bottom Bog off of the map and eat all my desserts again or something…” he muttered, which resulted in a laugh from Pinkie and Applejack, an eye-roll from Spike and a worried look from Twilight before something happened that halted them in their tracks.
“I HEARD THAT!!!” came an angry voice which caused Winter’s (and the Hydra’s) blood to turn to ice in fear of what was accompanying it, they turned their gaze skyward to see our favourite dessert loving princess wearing a furious look on her face.
“RUN!” he screamed as both he and the Hydra scarpered, the seething princess chasing after them so fast, she looked like a golden beam of light.
“I’LL GET YOU FOR THAT COMMENT WINTER!!!” she shouted as she chased them “AND DON’T THINK YOU’RE OFF THE HOOK FOR THREATENING MY STUDENT SCALE FACE!!!”
Meanwhile the folks on the ravine edge were watching the spectacle with odd looks on their faces as their princess, who had governed Equestria for over a thousand years, chased a Hydra and their Unicorn friend around the swamp while firing blasts of golden energy at them.
“Is this one of the reasons why you had so few friends before coming to Ponyville, Twilight?” asked Applejack, watching the chaos that her ruler was causing, unknowingly asking the question that was on everypony’s mind.
“Not exactly, ponies were more worried about my grandmother than the princess for some strange reason” answered Twilight, sweatdropping as she thought of her grandmother’s rather… unique personality “Anyway, I don’t know how that happened; coincidence, dumb luck or what, but Pinkie said there’d be a doozy at Froggy Bottom Bog and I’d say we just had ourselves one heck of a doozy, I mean, who could’ve predicted THAT series of events happening?”
“Was it just me, or did anyone else see Princess Celestia come rocketing past just now?” piped in the voice of Rainbow Dash, who had just popped up out of nowhere after the Princess started chasing Winter.
Suddenly, Pinkie started shaking again, revealing that none of the events that happened were the “doozy” which caused Twiight’s brain to malfunction then Twilight to literally burst into flames before declaring that she gave up on trying to figure out Pinkie and her “Pinkie Sense” and that she believed in it, which caused Pinkie to stop twitching, revealing that that was the “doozy”. The next day, Twilight wrote her Friendship report up and asked Spike to send it but before he could, Princess Celestia landed on Twilight’s balcony and took it before she flew off again. He then ran after Twilight, where he found her with the other Element Bearers and Trixie who were asking Winter about what happened to him yesterday.
“Well, after the Solar Overlord sent the Hydra flying over half of Equestria, she then put a few new holes in the landscape before capturing me and teleporting me way, locking me in her chambers…” Winter explained to them but was interrupted by Trixie.
“Does Trixie really want to know where this is going?” she asked, wearing a slightly disgusted look which resulted in confused looks from Winter, Rainbow and Twilight, a slightly understanding look from Rarity and normal facial expressions from the rest.
“Why? What do you think happened?” interjected Twilight, trying to work out Trixie’s line of thinking.
“Well… you know…”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about Trixie, everypony knows that I never do ANYTHING not suitable for family viewing” answered Winter with an eye-roll as he caught on to where Trixie’s thoughts were going “Get your mind out of the gutter!”
“MOVING ON!” interrupted Rainbow as she wanted to know what happened next in Winter’s story “please continue Winter, I wanna know how much trouble you were in.”
“Thanks for your concern Dash” deadpanned Winter in response to Rainbow’s interest in how angry Celestia was with him “anyway, she made me spend the rest of the day having tea with her… well, she also made me sing to her as well at one point…”
“Ha, bet she regretted that” said Rainbow, falling out of the air from laughing so hard.
“Her windows broke if you must know” he replied which caused the others to laugh and he eventually joined them.
“So what happened to training today, Dash?” Winter asked, changing the subject and causing the rainbow maned mare to turn to Fluttershy.
“It’d be going a whole lot better if Fluttershy would step her cheering up a bit. She’s a great support and all, but her cheering isn’t exactly inspirational” Rainbow answered, as she gave Fluttershy a half-hearted glare before turning back to her friends “I wish you all could come to Cloudsdale to see me compete in the Best Young Fliers Competition.”
“The what now?” asked Twilight, blinking in confusion along with Trixie.
“And what’s that when it’s at home?” added on Trixie to voice her own confusion but before Rainbow could give an angry retort, Pinkie answered the question.
“It’s where the greatest Pegasus fliers get together and show off all their stud, some are fast and some are graceful” she said, as she tried to act out the flying styles with varying degrees of success, getting weird looks from the others.
“And that was neither graceful nor fast” muttered Trixie as Applejack voiced her desire to see Rainbow perform which prompted another interjection from Pinkie.
“OOH! I’d love to see you perform a Sonic Rainboom, it’s like the COOLEST thing ever (even though I’ve never actually seen one) but still it’s a SONIC RAINBOOM! How not cool could it possibly not be?”
“What’s a Sonic Rainboom?” asked Twilight, confused as she’d only ever heard of a Sonic Boom before.
“It’s a rare phenomenon where a Pegasus or Alicorn is going so fast they break both the Sound and the Visible Light Barriers simultaneously” answered Winter, looking at Rainbow analytically “the only pony ever recorded to have done this is Princess Celestia though it is speculated that Princess Luna or Nightmare Moon could also perform one, but it was never confirmed. I’ve also seen our very own Rainbow Dash perform one before as well.”
“Really?” asked Twilight, looking at Rainbow impressed.
“Yeah, but it was a long time ago, I was just a filly” replied Rainbow, with a rare note of modesty in her voice.
“But you’re gonna do it again, right?” asked Pinkie, bouncing all over the place, drawing a worried look from Rainbow but before she could answer, Winter interrupted.
“I wouldn’t advise it because the Rainboom takes an immense toll on the body, due to the body not being used to going at speeds near to or even exceeding the speed of light” he said, fixing Rainbow with a firm stare “Rainbow could very well hospitalise herself just from performing the Rainboom and that’s not even taking into account the damage she’ll do to herself if she hits anything while moving at those high speeds.”
“Winter, I’m not a foal! I can take care of myself!” Rainbow snapped at him, fixing him with a glare that would scare most ponies into submission but not Winter as he’d been on the receiving end of that glare many times (in fact, he practically taught it to Rainbow) and thus was not cowed by it “anyway, I’m gonna rest up, don’t want to over prepare myself or anything…”
“She’s practiced that move over a hundred times and not even come close once, I’m not sure if I can cheer loud enough to motivate her into doing it” said Fluttershy as Rainbow took off and Fluttershy followed her.
“It’s not only a matter of motivation though” Winter said after the two Pegasi had left, drawing confused looks from the others “in order to do the Rainboom, Dash will need to push herself way beyond the limit since her body isn’t used to moving at those speeds; unless she can find a way to do that, she won’t be able to perform the Rainboom at all.”
“Don’t you have any faith in her Winter?” asked Rarity, looking slightly scandalized at Winter’s apparent lack of faith in Rainbow, which caused Winter to sigh.
“It’s not that I lack faith in her, it’s that I worry about what will happen to her if… no, WHEN she succeeds” he explained while massaging his temples with a hoof “the last time she did one, she was fine for about a day afterwards but was bedridden for over a week afterwards due to the fact that her muscles were almost shredded from the stress that it put on her body; it would’ve been longer had it not been for healing magic, so you can imagine why I’m not so keen on her doing this stunt.”
“Well, do either you or Twiight have a spell that will get us wingless ponies into Cloudsdale?” asked Rarity out of the blue, causing Winter to raise his eyebrow.
“Well there is the Cloud-Walking spell but it’s a permanent spell and the last time I used it was a decade ago, so I’ve forgotten it… sorry” answered Winter slightly sheepishly while thinking ‘more like I never actually used it, being an Alicorn and all’ before he realised something “why the sudden interest?”
“Well didn’t you see how nervous she was? Our presence there would give her a much needed confidence boost” she answered, which resulted in a thoughtful look from Twilight and a scoff from Applejack.
“Nervous? Did your ears temporally stop working or somethin’? She was tootin’ her own horn louder than the brass section of a marching band” the farmpony said, which caused Rarity to lecture them about stage fright and Pinkie to pull a book on giving a pony wings out of nowhere, which Twilight read and saw that it was an extremely complex spell and thus requested a test subject, resulting in Applejack and Pinkie exchanging nervous looks while Winter rolled his eyes.
“The last time I had wings, I was harassed by the entirety of Cloudsdale, more trouble than they’re worth if you ask me” he said as Rarity steeled herself and offered to be the test subject, Twilight lit her horn with lavender light and tendrils of turquoise light began spiralling around Rarity until she was encased in a cocoon of light which exploded, sending all the ponies back and causing Winter to crash into a wooden stand and break it.
“I needed that…” he sighed before teleporting it back to his house to fix it later when he was blinded by multi-coloured light “OI! PUT THAT LIGHT OUT! PUT THAT LIGHT OUT!”
“I think it worked” chimed in a woozy Twilight after she caught sight of the effects of her spell on Rarity, as well as being somewhat enraptured by the lights like the other mares in the room, resulting in them all ignoring Winter’s shouting to put the light out.
Scene Change: Cloudsdale
“Well if it isn’t our old friend Rainbow Crash” was the first thing Winter heard as he wandered into Cloudsdale and found Rainbow and Fluttershy surrounded by three rather rude stallions, the one who had spoken was a brown Pegasus with a greyish mane and a Cutie Mark in the shape of a barbell, which Winter took as his cue to intervene.
“Wow, what a creative insult that was, you should try putting your clearly unparalleled creativity into something productive like writing” he said as he approached, voice almost literally dripping with sarcasm and drawing the attention of all the Pegasi there.
“Say what? What’s it to you anyway?” retorted the Pegasus, attempting to intimidate Winter but doing a really poor job of it.
“Well I couldn’t help but notice that you three idiots were ganging up on that mare there, so – being the good, upstanding citizen I am – I simply had to intervene.”
“So you think you’re some kinda hero for standing up for Rainbow Crash here?”
“Nope, just a semi-decent citizen.”
“Oh really? Just who are you anyway?”
“Winter Shield, you may recognise me as the Unicorn who threw you through three thunder clouds after you started bullying Dash here at a most inappropriate time” Winter answered, getting worried looks from the three bullies as they remembered what he did in defence of the rainbow maned Pegasus “now clear off and stop bugging my friend.”
“Too bad your little guardian here won’t be able to compete in the contest for you, it’d save you a ton of embarrassment when you botch your whole performance in front of the Wonderbolts and Princess Celestia. Don’t worry, we’ll definitely be there to watch you fail” put in one of the brown Pegasus’ cronies, a beige coloured Pegasus with a brown mane and three basketballs as a Cutie Mark, before they all flew off laughing and Rainbow sighed.
“Those guys are right, I’ll never be able to do it” she said in a depressed tone which caused Fluttershy to attempt to reassure her but only succeeded in making her feel worse.
“Dash, you must remember that ponies told Princesses Celestia and Luna that they’d never be able to unite the three pony tribes or defeat Discord but they still did and that ponies said that you’d never be able to defeat Nightmare Moon but you still did; never let another pony’s doubts define your abilities, just do your best and anypony that matters will be proud of you” interjected Winter when it became obvious that Fluttershy’s attempts were not having the intended affect.
“Maybe, thanks Winter, I feel slightly better now” Rainbow replied gratefully, returning to her normal self “but if Princess Celestia banishes me to the Everfree Forest, I’m blaming you.”
“Would that really be a punishment? I mean you have Zecora to hang out with there…”
“And your old friend Scale Face.”
“Exactly, who wouldn’t want to live there?”
“Well me… for… one…” Rainbow trailed off as she saw that Fluttershy was distracted by something, she spun round to see what it was but she could hardly believe it herself “is that Rarity… WITH WINGS?!”
“Why it most certainly is” answered the Unicorn in question who happened to have a pair of giant butterfly wings on her back, allowing her to fly “Don’t you like my new wings? Twilight made them for me and I just ADORE them.”
Rainbow gazed on in shock for a moment before rounding on Winter “DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS?!”
“If you’re asking if I knew that they were going to do this, then no, I didn’t” he answered as Rarity continued talking before a large lavender hot air balloon rose through the clouds and landed in front of them with Twilight, Pinkie and Applejack in the basket who disembarked and stood on the clouds with no bother at all, shocking Fluttershy but not Rainbow who’d seen Winter do it when she was younger, eventually it was decided that they’d take a tour around Cloudsdale but first Winter had an important question to ask.
“Won’t anypony mind that we’ve basically put a massive hole in the base of a city?”
“Nope, happens almost every other week when the wind gets out of control” was his answer from a passing Pegasus worker as they waked over a verge made of clouds to see the rest of the city… before Rarity distracted them after she caught sight of herself in a mirror, much to Winter’s chagrin as he walked over and started pushing her away from it.
“Come on, we don’t need you acting like a parrot and preening yourself every time you see a mirror” he said as he pushed the protesting Unicorn after the rest of the group who had decided to continue the tour, the next stop was the Weather Factory which Applejack had decided to visit after Twilight warned Rarity to be careful with her wings as they were extremely delicate.
“Ow! Ow! OW!” groaned Winter as the thunder clouds seemed to have a strange fixation with shocking him, resulting in him getting shocked several times as they headed into the factory “that’s the fifth cloud now! What did I do to them?”
“Maybe Princess Celestia put them up to it” said Rainbow jokingly as they explored the snowflake making room, however Rarity’s wings kicked up too much of a draught resulting in the snowflakes being blown everywhere in the room and Rainbow quickly ushering them out to the rainbow making area, Pinkie decided to taste the rainbow and found that it was extremely spicy, much to the amusement of the other ponies (other than Rarity, who was preening under compliments about her wings again).
“Well look who it is, Rainbow Crash again” came the voice of the brown Pegasus that had been taunting her, it appeared that he and his cronies had been following Rarity about since they’d arrived at the factory.
“Yeah Rainbow… um… ah… erm… Crash!” added in the beige (and apparently slightly dim-witted) one.
“You three again?” groaned Winter as Rainbow asked what Rarity was doing hanging around with them.
“Oh, they were just admiring my wings, Rainbow Dash” was the answer from the winged Unicorn which resulted in more teasing from the trio before they left and damaged Rainbow’s confidence even more.
“Relax Dash, you’ll do fine in the competition” Winter said to her as she sighed and looked at him with an upset look on her face.
“I hate to say it but they’re right, I’ll never be able to do the Sonic Rainboom and just look at these boring old feathered wings” Rainbow replied in a down tone, which caused Winter to take her to one side and wrap a foreleg around her as they sat down.
“Dash, remember what happened when you came home after the first time you crashed at flight school?” Winter asked her, which earned him a confused look from the Pegasus.
“Yeah but why does it matter?” she asked before seeing the look on his face and relenting “those guys had been harassing me about being unable to control my speed after I went too fast and crashed through two walls and a window of the mains school building, they continued doing so all the way home until Dad saw the look on my face and chased them off while spraying them with a hose pipe; as I recall, you were nearly dying of laughter when he did so.”
“And do you remember what Spectrum told you afterwards?” Winter pressed and then continued on as it appeared that Rainbow was beginning to follow his line of thought “he said: “What you should remember Rainbow, is that no pony worth their salt ever got something perfectly right the first time they ever did it, not even the Princesses. While our successes can and do teach us much, we learn the most from our failures so do not ever be afraid to fail, instead look upon it as an opportunity to learn and grow as an individual and remember that both I and your mother will ALWAYS be proud of you.” Now, I’m not your parents nor am I ever going to try and substitute for them but I will tell you this: the only way your parents will even consider being disappointed in you is if you quit this competition because of fear of failure; if you really wish to quit, then quit for your own reasons, not because a few idiots and a prideful Unicorn are putting you off!”
“Yeah, thanks Winter, that really helped” Rainbow said before she gained a look in her eye that told Winter she’d steeled herself for the competition “I might still blow it, but at least I won’t be bothered by wondering what happened if I did compete instead.”
“That’s the spirit. Now, let’s catch up with the others so I can undoubtedly be shocked by more thunder clouds” he replied which gained a laugh from Rainbow as they rushed to catch up with the mares, they eventually caught up in a room full of clouds (thankfully, there were no thunder clouds) where a crowd of Pegasi workers was surrounding Rarity, making noises of appreciation at her wings and Twilight appeared to be telling her off, the duo managed to catch Rarity’s response to Twilight’s admonishment.
“Twilight darling, how can you ask me to put away perfection? It’s a crime against nature to do so” the winged Unicorn replied as she flew up in front of the sun and the light was scattered through her wings like a glass prism, forming a rainbow pattern, which shook Rainbow’s newly regained confidence and earned a frown from Winter.
“Rarity, you’re not the flamboyant one or the one with buckets of self-esteem, that’s Dash’s role. You’re the dramatic Unicorn fashionista so get down here and stop messing about; we’re here for Dash, not you!” shouted the irate stallion at the fashionista, which started off an argument between Winter and Rarity (and her admirers). While this was going on, Twilight walked over to Rainbow to try and offer some measure of support or comfort to the Pegasus.
“Rainbow Dash, are you okay? You don’t look so good” the lavender Unicorn asked the slightly pale and quivering Pegasus who was watching the argument between her two friends escalate.
“Yeah, I’m just gonna have to do my best in the Best Young Fliers Competition and hope Rarity’s wings distract everypony if I blow it” came the reply from the usually overconfident Pegasus, which was heard by a pony with a pink mane, the same colour eyes as Rainbow and a Cutie Mark of a rainbow (her name was Rainbowshine).
“Hey there’s an idea: you should totally enter the competition” chimed in Rainbowshine to various voices of agreement by her fellow admirers.
“Well it’s true that there really is no other pony that uses their wings quite like I do…” began Rarity before she was interrupted by our favourite grouchy stallion.
“BECAUSE NO OTHER PONY HAS A PAIR OF ARTIFICIAL BUTTERFLY WINGS!!!” Winter shouted but was ignored.
“… Perhaps I should enter the competition” she finished, getting a horrified look from Rainbow and an annoyed look from Winter.
“WHAT?!” exclaimed the cyan Pegasus in horror as Rarity slid off to the side with her admirers going back to ooh-ing and aah-ing.
“Did she seriously just Show-Off Slide us?!” demanded Winter but he was ignored again as Rainbow went back to panicking.
Scene Change: Cloudiseum
Rainbow Dash paced in the changing rooms as the other Pegasi prepared for the show, one knocked on Rarity’s door but was told that Rarity would “be a while”. She then peered out of the curtains to see the other four mares sat on a cloud with the three bullies that had been harassing her recently on the cloud beneath them and Winter occupying his own cloud just above them, the stallion in question appeared to be tinkering with something.
“Fillies and gentlecolts, please join me in welcoming our beloved Princess Celestia” cried the announcer (whose appearance reminded Winter of Hoity Toity for some reason) as the Alicorn soared down and landed on a cloud with two Pegasi guards flanking her, unfortunately she landed on a bubble of rainbow liquid which exploded, showering her guards in the liquid and making them look quite ridiculous if Winter’s reaction of nearly falling off of his cloud with laughter was any indication (he calmed down after he caught Princess Celestia looking at him which caused her to smirk and wink at him before waving to the crowd).
“And please welcome our celebrity judges: The Wonderbolts!” continued the announcer as the group soared in, flew into a tight formation and separated to a volley of fireworks, three of them then flew to a cloud near the princess’ as the others flew to other clouds in the stadium.
“Now, let’s find out which of today’s contestants is the Best Young Flier…” finished the announcer as Pegasi began to emerge from behind the curtain and perform various flight routines, however they quickly began to show similarities which ended up boring Winter so he went back to tinkering; there was soon a break in the flight routines before the last one, allowing the mares to discuss which ones they liked but just as Applejack wondered why they hadn’t seen Rainbow or Rarity yet, Winter poked his head down from his cloud, looking unimpressed.
“Oi! I’m being extremely clever up here and there’s no-pony to stand around looking impressed, what’s the point in having you all around?!” barked Winter before pulling his head up again, leaving four rather confused mares.
“Just what was that all about?” Applejack asked her friends.
“I’ve no idea so I’m just going to say that it’s Winter being Winter” answered Twilight to nods from Pinkie and Fluttershy as Rarity and Rainbow Dash emerged from the curtains, which caused Winter to poke his head down again, this time wearing an expression that was between confused and amazed.
“Why is Rarity wearing THAT much makeup and – more to the point – how can she fly with that much stiff on her face?” his question was ignored but it did explain some things to Applejack.
“Well that explains why Rarity took so long” Applejack thought aloud as Rarity wished Rainbow good luck and told her that she’d changed the music from Rainbow’s rock and roll because it “didn’t match her wings”, then the music started.
(A/N: Play His World from Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 (the original version, not the Crush 40 or Zebrahead remixes)
“Hang on, this isn’t my music! I demand that you change it back!” barked Rarity at the music player pony who fumbled with the machine, but – unbeknownst to anypony in the stadium – Winter pressed a button on the device (a long and thin metal rod) that he’d been tinkering with, causing one end to light up blue and change the song to the world’s most annoying song.
(A/N: Play It’s a Small World if you want the full experience… though your ears may bleed if you do)
“NO! NO! ANYTHING BUT THAT SONG! CHANGE IT BACK PLEASE!” cried Rarity and the rest of the stadium as Winter pressed the button again and a song which matched both contestants’ flying styles started playing
(A/N: Sorry about subjecting you to that abomination, play Ride of the Valkyries now)
‘Hey, I can fly to this song. I wonder if Winter had something to do with this’ Rainbow thought as she looked over at Winter, who winked at her when she caught his eye as he put something away in his cloak. The two started going through their routines with Rarity’s being more of a ballet style routine compared to Rainbow’s which showed off her agility as she weaved through some columns without incident and then started spinning clouds, however a piece of the third cloud she started spinning came off and flew at the princess’ box, hitting her in the face and dissolving in a cloud of dust, causing her to cough.
“She’ll have to be marked down for that” muttered the Wonderbolt with a yellow coat and flame coloured mane to her companions but Princess Celestia intervened.
“She was not responsible for that cloud breaking apart” the princess said to the Wonderbolt.
“But she could’ve endangered the spectators with that stunt, you yourself got hit by it.”
“I know, but she was not responsible for the poor construction of that cloud. The only pony that was responsible for that cloud falling apart was the one who made that cloud, therefore you can’t mark her down for it.”
“As you wish princess” sighed the Wonderbolt as the two ponies began flying upwards for the finales of their routines and Rarity bathed the stadium in light from her wings, but she had flown too close to the sun…
“Hey, can anyone else smell burning?” wondered Winter aloud before Rarity’s wings combusted and Rarity fell, with Rainbow Dash tearing after her. Winter, Applejack, Twilight, Fluttershy and Pinkie all hopped off their clouds and looked down through the hole in the floor of the stadium that Rarity had fallen through and were nearly blown away (literally) as the Wonderbolts and Rainbow shot after her.
“We must do something, but what can we do?” asked the panicked mares to each other as Winter looked over the edge.
“I have an idea but it’s probably stupid, definitely dangerous and has a low probability of actually working” replied Winter as he turned back to face them.
“Why, what is it?” asked Twilight which gained her a smile from Winter as he took a step backwards.
“You’ll see” he replied before backflipping over the edge “GERONIMO!!!”
“WINTER!!!” cried the mares as they dashed forwards to see what appeared to be an ice blue light zig-zagging its way to the ground, overtaking the speeding Pegasi and falling Unicorn.
“WINTER! NOW’S NOT THE TIME TO TEST LIGHT SPEED’S THEORY OF TELEPORTATION!!!” bellowed Twilight so loudly it made Celestia wonder if she had somehow learned to use the Royal Canterlot Voice and getting confused looks from the spectators.
“What’s Light Speed’s Theory of Teleportation?” asked Pinkie, unknowingly asking the question that was on the minds of most of the ponies present.
“Light Speed was a Pegasus scholar and athlete that came up with the theory that a series of smaller teleports would take less energy to perform than one large teleport that would cover the same distance; you see, long range teleportation takes up so much energy that only exptremely powerful Unicorns like Gandalf Greymane could perform them, hence Light Speed’s theory, but it’s significantly easier to just use transportation like carriages or trains to cover long distances, thus nopony has ever proved the theory because there’s been no need to… until today, apparently…” lectured Twilight, getting an approving look from her teacher but nopony saw it as Applejack had noticed something.
“Hang on, is that… ice?” she asked and the other ponies looked to see that indeed it was, a large pyramid of ice was growing upwards towards Rarity and the Wonderbolts (all of which she’d knocked unconscious with her flailing) but Rainbow was gaining on them as a cone of air began to form in front of her…
The ice pyramid grew, the origin of it revealed to be Winter Shield, wearing a look of immense concentration and determination as his horn was encased in an ice blue glow and occasionally sparks of ice blue light rand down it along with sweat from the exertion of performing magic of this magnitude…
Rainbow steeled herself and fought to keep her body as streamlined as possible as rainbow coloured light began to run along the cone of air…
The ice pyramid climbed higher, ready to stop the falling ponies in the tracks but…
A loud noise akin to that of an explosion was heard as a circle of rainbow light appeared in the sky and a rainbow trail rocketed towards the falling ponies, catching them and getting them out of harm’s way before arcing up back to Cloudsdale and the Cloudiseum while the shockwave shattered the ice pyramid into dust, giving a glittering hue to the rainbow trail and blowing Winter through three trees before he was finally stopped by the fourth.
“For want of a better word: OW!” Winter groaned before he laid back, saw the rainbow trail and smiled “Good job Dash… good job.”
After he had been given a hoof back to Cloudsdale by a couple of Pegasi, he re-joined the action to see Rainbow having some weird looking crown put on her head by Princess Celestia signifying that she’d won the competition after her and her friends had had a little heart-to-heart. This was followed by Rainbow’s bullies asking her for flying lessons but being turned down in favour of a day with the Wonderbolts, then Twilight and Rarity briefed the princes on what they’d learned about friendship that day before they started chatting with their other friends (as well as the yellow Wonderbolt, whom Twilight seemed to know) and Celestia went to stand next to Winter, watching the aftermath of the competition.
“Well, all’s well it ends well then?” Winter said to Celestia who smiled.
“Indeed, you must be very proud” she said back to him.
“Of Rainbow? Yeah I am, but I just wish her parents could’ve been here to see it” Winter replied, a sad look crossing both his and Celestia’s faces as they remembered the unfortunate fate of the Element of Loyalty’s parents “they’d have been prouder than anything of the wonderful mare their daughter has become.”
“Indeed but let’s not sour this happy day with such sad thoughts, instead let us think of that meeting for tea that you owe me for insulting me yesterday” the princess said, grinning at him mischievously before grabbing him and taking off, much to Winter’s chagrin.
“Ack! CELESTIA! PUT ME DOWN!”
“Oh come on. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“I left it on the ground when I got blown through those trees…”
“We can go and get it if you want, though it’ll make your flight longer…”
“NO! No, that’s not necessary.”
“Then stop complaining or this will take longer.”
Scene Change: Celestia’s Chambers
The Alicorn eventually landed in her chambers, depositing Winter ungracefully on the balcony overlooking the city before she busied herself with getting her table and tea set out along with some cakes.
“You know, you can’t just go and abduct random ponies just because you want some tea, there are laws against that sort of thing” Winter grumbled as Celestia brought all of her tea stuff outside and started setting it up.
“I know and I don’t just go out and abduct random ponies every time I want tea, instead I just go out and randomly abduct you when I want tea” she replied, smiling innocently at him as he poured two cups of tea and handed him one with her magic “you should probably feel honoured, I’d bet that most nobles would kill for this chance.”
“I don’t doubt that” he deadpanned before noticing the state her chambers were in, to be blunt: it looked like a bomb had gone off in there “I see you’ve redecorated the place since I was last here… I don’t like it, to be frank.”
“Who’s Frank?” Celestia asked jokingly before noticing the “are-you-serious” look he was giving her and she rolled her eyes “try to make you laugh… anyway, I had the Trouble Brothers guarding me and we had them doing DIY which caused this.”
“The Trouble Brothers?”
“A pair of guards that happen to be related, they’re under the command of Guard Captains No Slacking and Get-Out Of-It and are extremely accident prone but their accidents are so comical that Luna and I are always bickering about who they’re scheduled to guard just for the entertainment that comes with it… Cadenza doesn’t like them much for some odd reason though.”
“Cadenza?”
“Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, my niece.”
“Ah, I see…”
The rest of the day continued on like this, with Celestia and Winter making small talk and exchanging jokes or stories and it ended with everypony going home in a rather good mood.
Scene Change: Winter’s Hut, the next day
“OOOWWW!!! Do you have to press so hard?!” came a loud female voice as five of the six Element bearers approached Winter’s hut.
“Stop complaining! I warned you this would happen and you did it anyway!” came the irate voice of Winter “Now stop moving about unless you want to be bedridden for about three-to-five days instead of just one or two.”
The Element bearers entered Winter’s hut, wondering what was going on and they saw Winter giving Rainbow a massage with a bottle of something next to them that the mares recognised as a Zecora creation. The two looked up to see the five mares and Rainbow’s expression brightened considerably as she greeted them.
“What’s going on here?” asked Rarity as they crowded around Rainbow.
“This is the toll of Rainbow performing the Sonic Rainboom yesterday, fortunately Zecora had something to speed up the healing process so Dash should be up and flying about again in a day or two” was the response from Winter as he headed for the kitchens “now, I’m going to fix us some lunch so please try not to excite her too much in the meantime.”
“Heh, same old Winter: abrasive but you know he cares” muttered Rainbow but Twilight heard her which caused her to remember a question she’d always wanted to know but never gotten round to asking.
“That reminds me Rainbow, how did you meet Winter anyway? It’s obvious you’ve known him longer than any of us have” Twilight asked which resulted in the other four mares looking at Rainbow, wondering the same thing and Rainbow sighing.
“There’s not really much to tell, Winter was a friend of my parents and we met properly when he looked after me once…”
FLASHBACK
“Rainbow, this is Winter. He’ll be looking after you while we’re out at practice tonight” said a Pegasus stallion with a navy blue coat and a rainbow coloured mane.
“We’ve known him or a long time and we’re sure you two will get along” added a Pegasus mare with a cyan coat and a purple mane that was spiked up as if she’d been shocked.
“Hello, I’m Winter Shield and who might you be?” asked the white Unicorn which prompted Rainbow (who was just a young filly at the time) to go into a long rant about how she was Rainbow Dash and would one day be the best flier in Equestria.
“Rainbow Dash eh? Spectrum Blitz and Lightning Dash told me a lot about you, I can’t imagine that they could be happier to be your parents” Winter replied.
“Well since you two seem to be getting along well, we’ll be off now or we’ll be late and I really HATE being late!” said Spectrum as he and Lightning exited the house and left Winter and Rainbow on their own, Winter turned to Rainbow.
“Right, since I don’t know you and you don’t know me, I think we should set some ground rules” Winter said to Rainbow, causing the filly to tilt her head sideways in curiosity and nod “Okay then: do whatever I tell you… within reason, don’t ask stupid questions and don’t wander off, okay?”
“Okay” replied the filly which caused Winter to smile at her.
“Excellent” he said before walking into the house…. And crashing into a closed door which caused him to fall over with a dazed look on his face “Okay, rule number four: don’t do that.”
FLASHBACK END
“Wait, he really walked into a door?” asked Twilight as the other four mares were nearly on the floor with laughter which prompted Rainbow to smile.
“Yeah, he’s quite clumsy and I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t fallen over something recently” she replied, getting more laughter from her audience.
“So was that it?” Twilight asked, smiling in amusement at Winter’s antics but still curious about how Rainbow and Winter knew each other so well.
“Pretty much, yeah. We got to know each other better after that and Winter took me in a few years later after my parents died in a flying accident; as a matter of fact, it was only a year or two ago that I moved out and found my own place” Rainbow answered, a sad note entering her voice as she talked about what happened to her parents which caused her friends to move in and hug her before she told them another story about Winter’s clumsiness, resulting in them laughing their heads off again as Winter re-entered the room.
“Okay lunch is… what? What’s so funny?” he asked but got no reply as all the other occupants were too busy laughing at Rainbow’s stories.