Not a whole lot of votes this round. As such it was all very close, but today's fic deserves to be the narrow victor.

Ponies get older over time. They slow down. This is a part of life. But Rarity, Twilight, Applejack, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie can keep pursuing their dreams as they get older. Rainbow Dash can't. This is her last chance to be a Wonderbolt, and despite working her tail off, she's not getting any better. In fact, she's getting slower. She just wants things to be fair. She wants one last chance to achieve her dream.
She wants to be faster.
This is what happens when she gets her wish.

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Happy reading, everyone!

Edit: story is open for discussion, y'all! I'd have done this yesterday but I'm still rather limited with internet access. So, how was Faster?

It was... interesting. In a good way. Kind of dark, too, what with Dash becoming, what, the pegasus of speed?

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I can certainly agree with the above statement. I don't normally read stories with the "romance" tag, but I just this one totally fascinating, and I couldn't not recommend it. I thought it gave a really good look at Rainbow's character, but in a way that showed that she was kind of flawed... I'm not sure if that makes sense, but that's part of why I liked it so much. The scene at the end and the mystery behind Rainbow's transformation also make for a very intriguing setup for the sequel. (Now if only it would update a little faster...)

I should mention I wanna punch Proteus, but in a good way. ;)

Faster, like many others, is a story I intended to read long ago. If there’s one thing I always liked about Rainbow Dash while watching the show, it was her ever-enduring desire to make it into the Wonderbolts. Very few people I personally know can actually say that they have accomplished their dream in life. In today’s world, with so many resources at our disposal, somehow it’s getting progressively harder to push for what you want, and actually get it. More people means more competition, and only the best, strongest, brightest… and fastest will be chosen to be the leaders in their chosen professions.

We know Rainbow is fast. She herself brags about being the fastest flier ever. She has accomplished what few in Equestria’s history ever have, and still she pushes herself. From day one, she wanted to be a Wonderbolt. Every season, the theme kept recurring. Season three saw her become a cadet. Season four saw her make the reserve team. What will season five bring? Who can say… yet.

Let’s rewind to a simpler time, closer to when Faster was actually written: when Rainbow had finally made it into Wonderbolts Academy. Two and a half seasons had been building to that moment, but while making the Academy was a step closer, Rainbow still wasn’t quite there yet. The story takes place with her set fully on becoming a Wonderbolt after making the Academy, but the clock is ticking; not only is there an age restriction on recruits (meaning it’s her last year of tryouts before she’s too old to reapply), but Rainbow herself is physically slowing down. Like the synopsis says, slowing down is what happens to people with age; even with things that aren’t physical, like athletics, gymnastics, swimming etc., but also with our information-processing speed, too. Gamers who participate in World Championships of Starcraft II or League of Legends even begin to slow down. It’s rare to find an elite-level gamer older than 25, because they simply lose the ability to retain their youthful speed, no matter if they train and train and train.

The same is true of Rainbow Dash. She pushes herself so damn hard, but is frustrated when all her efforts seem to achieve nothing but slower times and greater muscle pain. It just doesn’t seem fair does it? She certainly doesn’t think so.

The first chapter goes through and establishes this mindset pretty thoroughly, via the use of flashbacks. Some may cry foul on this technique, but they’ve been inserted in the story reasonably well, in strategic places. Rainbow’s getting desperate. She has one final chance to practice before the next day of Wonderbolt tryouts. And she’s going to throw everything she has into it.

She tried too hard. Her body penalised her for it. That fall should have killed her.

Now, this is where things start to get interesting. An unknown force senses the absolute determination still at the forefront of Rainbow’s thoughts, even as she plummets to her death, and so decides to spare her. What exactly it is never becomes clear, as it has the ability to shapeshift, but it takes the form of a glowing ball before Rainbow. It has the power to grant a wish to one who desires and values something greater than their own existence. It calls itself “Proteus,” after the Greek god whose domain lay in rivers and oceans, known as “The Old Man of the Sea” (which is reflected by its subterranean cave featuring an underground lake that Rainbow inexplicably finds herself in). It is primordial, having been even before the Royal Sisters (who actually share their own rather interesting connection with it). It deals in wishes, answers questions in riddles, and hints at the future without being truly clear.

Here’s where you have to stop and wonder. Rainbow is given her dream on a silver platter—all she has to do it wish to be a Wonderbolt, and it will come true. The dream could be hers, just like that. But then… isn’t one’s greatest dream worth pursuing and working for? And why would she simply wish to be a Wonderbolt when she could wish for anything at all? So, no. A little consideration, a little soul-searching, and Rainbow makes a wish that she feels will still allow her to achieve her dream without feeling like it has been magically given to her. She keeps the wish simple: for hard work to be rewarded as she expects, instead of feeling penalised by the limitations of an ageing body.

Rainbow becomes faster. Not the fastest, just… faster. Not an insane speed-demon, just… faster. Proteus is never seen again, Rainbow is found by her friends after her untimely disappearance, and the hints of RainbowShy shipping finally come out in full. All seems fantastic.

Chapter two is where it all begins to deteriorate. The narrative is full of cues, references, hints about just what being “faster” actually means to Rainbow Dash. It’s here that we finally touch on an idea that fascinates me, and has done so for many a year since I knew what time was: is Rainbow really faster, or is everything else just… slower? Yes, fillies and gentlecolts, we are talking about perception now.

A long time ago, an idea welled in my head that every living thing is moving (or can move) at close to the same speed. Cheetahs can run super-fast compared to us, but live shorter lives as a tradeoff. The same is true of many other smaller creatures like birds, dogs, horses, insects... they may appear to move incredibly quickly, but perhaps because humans live far longer than most of these beings, we might simply perceive them as moving faster. The reverse situation supports this idea, too. Tortoises, elephants and whales are pretty large, slow-moving animals, but they seem to have great lifespans if left alone, outliving humans by quite a few decades. What if when we see something move faster or slower, we are actually seeing a distorted value of time unique to that which we are observing?

Of course, that whole idea is a load of tripe dreamed up by a child… but there might be a grain of truth to it. A fast runner might say that an average-speed runner is a slow runner, but then of course they are applying the term “slow” in regards to themselves by comparison. An athlete with quick reflexes might say that someone with an average reaction time has “slow” reflexes—the same thing, really. Throughout this chapter, Rainbow Dash is certainly getting faster by sheer willpower alone, but as she does, her perception of reality begins to change. Seconds feel like minutes. Her new Wonderbolt teammates can’t keep up. She can even see things on a micro-level when she isn’t trying to go fast. Standing still, waiting for others, even talking at normal speed feels like a huge drag, like the world is passing in slow motion.

Rainbow wished to be faster. She got her wish. But she is now faster in all sense of the word: not just her flight speed, but how quickly other things happen around her, the pace that she makes life-changing decisions with, the lack of patience for anything moving slower than her physically or in terms of what she wants. This perception idea is handled just as I hoped it would be. Being faster really isn’t so great now, not when the entire world and everyone in it is slowing down around you as a result. I adored this concept, particularly in regards to what it meant for Rainbow and Fluttershy’s relationship including what it eventually does to them, with tragic results.

I particularly liked the physical aspects and symbolism of using Orichalcum. I’m a sucker for stories and games that utilise the fabled “rarest of metals” and the way that Einhander uses it is rather unique.

Story/concept/execution-wise: high marks for originality, as it introduced many ideas I’ve never seen in a story before, relating to the Princesses and even Queen Chrysalis as well as the price one pays when one chooses selfishness over loyalty. But it also brings up the idea that loyalty was the thing holding Rainbow back for so many years: loyalty to her friends, her home, and the weather team among other things. It sort of implied that the Element of Loyalty herself despised that she was so, and almost wished she hadn’t been. That hit a little close to home, if I’m honest.

For the writing itself? Grammar and spelling were mostly spot-on; I think I only caught a negligible amount of basic errors. Faster is, however, fairly rife with passive writing and sentence fragments. It’s not a bad style for sure, particularly in this story (and I have to wonder if the author made the story feel slow to read on purpose, considering the subject matter), but it did take me out of it a bit. Show and tell are utilised pretty well, although as decent as the shipping was, it did still feel fairly forced and not built-up enough. Instead, we get the “I’ve liked you for years” story as justification for them getting together, which is a flat tell saying “Just believe it, this is happening.” I don’t really see why they needed to be in a relationship, as the story felt like it could have played out the same way with them just being best friends. Then again, a few issues brought up by Rainbow’s new “condition” might not have had quite a significant impact on the pair if they weren’t a couple, so… well, I can’t fault it too much, really.

I think the story tags might need a tweak, though. The story never really felt that “sad” to me, but it did feel like a tragedy. From the first chapter, it was foreshadowed that things would end badly, and in a tragedy you can generally tell where exactly in the story things are about to head downhill and not stop until they reach the bottom. More often than not, it’s also a single choice by a single character that nudges the snowball off the cliff-face, and that was quite an obvious pick. I’d probably lose the “adventure” tag too, as I think just Romance/Dark/Tragedy/AU would suffice. There wasn’t really much of an adventure save for Rainbow’s short detour to Proteus’ den in the first chapter.

All up, though, I thought this was a great read. I always wanted to read a good story with Rainbow doing whatever it took to be the fastest, and now I have.

8.5/10