Part 1
“...an’ she can buck a whole tree fulla apples in a single kick an’ she always makes a little time each day so we can play together an’ that’s why mah big sister Applejack is mah hero. The end.”
The one-room schoolhouse echoed with the sound of small hooves clapping. “Thank you, Apple Bloom!” cheered Cheerilee. “That was very sweet. Applejack must be proud to have a little sibling who adores her so much. Try to remember to slow down and take a breath once in a while next time though, okay?”
“Yes, Miss Cheerilee.” The teacher smiled as she watched her student trot back to her seat. Yes, this was what made all the time and effort worthwhile. Educating the next generation about the fundamentals was all well and good, but what really kept her coming back to her job day after day was the joy of seeing eager young fillies and colts be inspired by new knowledge and unfamiliar concepts. And what better way to find out what inspired the class most of all than having them write a page on the pony they especially admired?
“Well, who would like to go next?”
An orange hoof immediately shot into the air. “Ooo, pick me, pick me please?”
“Very well, Scootaloo, come on up.”
“Woohoo!” The little pegasus nearly flew up to the front desk, her paper between her teeth, and cleared her throat. “Everypony loves Rainbow Dash. She is a terrific athlete. She is the best weather pony in Ponyville, and she won the Iron Pony competition between her and Applejack—”
“That was rigged!”
Apple Bloom’s protest fell on deaf ears. “—and the World’s Fastest Flier contest in Cloudsdale! She can do all kinds of amazing tricks and totally has the coolest hair in all of Equestria!”
“Rarity always calls it Equestria’s most colorful rat’s nest,” squeaked another voice.
“And that’s why your sister doesn’t know anything about being cool, Sweetie Belle. Where was I... terrific, amazing... oh yeah! Rainbow Dash also goes on all kinds of adventures, like the time she singlehoofedly beat a bunch of evil sky pirates—”
Cheerilee arched an eyebrow. “Er, Scootaloo...”
“—and the time she drove an invading army of inferno spiders back—”
“Wait, wait, Scootaloo...”
“—into their volcano home an—”
“Scootaloo!”
The rare yell from her teacher finally got her attention. “Yes?”
As much as Cheerilee loved all of her students, sometimes she wished that a few of them wouldn’t go so far out of their way to make her life interesting. “Er, first of all, wasn’t it the ‘Best Young Flier’ contest?”
“Maybe. Is there a difference?”
“And secondly, this was supposed to be a factual report on your hero. Not a creative writing assignment.”
“Creative wri—but I didn’t make anything up!” Scootaloo’s wings sprung out in defense, unbidden.
“Really, it’s nice that you look up to Miss Dash so much, but you honestly expect us to believe a silly story like having her battle sky pirates?” asked Cheerilee, biting back a giggle. “And what was that other part, fraternal spiders?”
“But it’s all true!” the frustrated filly protested. “I went and talked to her and everything!”
“Alright, alright, you’ve had your fun, but I’m going to have to ask you to revise that part and come up with something a little more... grounded, so to speak.” She switched from her regular, beaming smile to the soft look that usually defused an argumentative student.
“But it’s true! Rainbow’s no liar!”
“That’s... debatable.” The soft look vanished as quickly as it had appeared. It didn’t hold up well to hard resistance.
“I’m no liar!” Scootaloo could feel her eyes start to sting while heat crept into her cheeks. The rest of the class kept silent, uncertain if laughing at the situation was worth the risk of drawing either side’s ire.
Cheerilee sighed. And the day had been going so well, too. Sometimes there was nothing for it but to make a quick end of the problem and deal with the troublemaker later. “That’s enough, young lady. I don’t know what that mare was thinking putting wild ideas in fillies’ heads like that, but I won’t hear any more of it.”
Scootaloo’s protests trailed off into a dark mutter. “But... she told me, and said it was all true, and, and she showed me the hat...”
“Now then, who’s next?”
Ponyville glistened. The town ordinarily wasn’t much to look at aside from a few particularly grandiose landmarks. The residents’ general consensus on which one was the most impressive varied from week to week, but the list invariably included Sugarcube Corner (Which the proprietors maintained was made of one hundred percent baked goods, and, if any impressionable fillies or colts were around, would in the same breath go on in detail about how large and fiery their ovens were and how it would be such a shame if anypony ever tried to nibble on the siding), the library tree (Which was surprisingly alive despite being completely hollow, making it the only library in Equestria that could fit in more shelving from year to year), and Rarity’s Carousel Boutique (Which was just plain gaudy and had a tendency to glitter in direct sunlight. Rarity was quick to tout it as a sign of special favor from Princess Celestia herself when visitors from Canterlot were around, and even quicker to take offense at the suggestion that she’d laced the paint with trace amounts of cheap quartz). But a good late afternoon spring shower could make even the most ordinary thatched roof shimmer with flecks of color as the lingering cloud cover gave way to the sun’s rays. Equestria’s manual approach to climate control meant that each shaft of light was the work of the local weather pegasi, the leader of which flitted around the sky haphazardly. Better organized teams in other cities knew enough to clear clouds out evenly, working from one side to the other, but Ponyville had given up on that approach a few years back. Having the fastest pony alive on the job was a benefit in some ways, but only if those ways accounted for the task being done in sporadic bursts, when and where she felt like it.
The pegasus in question was not pleased. “What was the mayor thinking when she scheduled this week? I spend all morning dragging clouds over here for what, two hours of rain, and then gotta get rid of them already just in time to do it all over again tomorrow! Totally. Pointless.” She halfheartedly kicked open another hole, then scowled as the surrounding cumulus clouds moved to fill the gap. “Oh, come on.” Being fast didn’t count for much on days like this when the clouds were still a light shade of gray and tended to clump together. Rainbow Dash enjoyed the prestige and fame of her position, but having to actually do it properly for more than five minutes at a time without an audience never failed to put her in a sour mood. “I’d have this done already if they’d just let me use my Super Speed Spin trick, but nooooooo. You cause one little tornado in the middle of Main Street and suddenly stunt flying is banned within town limits.” Frustration drove her hooves to strike harder, causing the chunk of cloud to vanish properly. “It’s not like it hit anything important. Applejack has plenty of... huh. What’re they doing here?” The last hole she’d opened revealed a familiar purple pair trudging along the road in from the Everfree Forest just below, snatches of their conversation drifting up to the cloud layer. Rainbow Dash settled in to listen.
“Please, Twilight? We’ve been walking for hours and I’m hungry and my legs are killing me! You always let me have a ride,” complained a pint-sized dragon.
“I said no, Spike. I know looking for these leyleaf stalks took longer than we thought it would, but I’m tired too, so you’ll just have to manage. Besides, you’re covered in dirt and mud, and I don’t have time to go home and take a bath if I’m going to get these to Rarity on schedule,” replied the unicorn Spike knew as his companion, sister, and at times like these when her demands felt particularly stifling, master.
“Zecora could’ve given us some better directions, at least,” Spike groused. “‘You’ll find the leyleaf’s home to be the garden of Castle Everfree’? Maybe that worked a thousand years ago, but the whole place is completely overgrown these days! I still don’t see what you need some magic robe for, anyway. You’re already practically the most powerful pony in Equestria. Er, besides the Princesses, of course,” he added, casually glancing around the area just in case one of the royal sisters happened to be nearby. It was a useful habit to adopt in Canterlot, and given how frequently Celestia tended to stop by Ponyville without warning, he hadn’t given it up quite yet.
“It isn’t supposed to make me more powerful, Spike. According to Ninety Nine More Practical Uses For Hazardous Magical Herbs,” (Formerly One Hundred, prior to the removal of the poison joke-based ink formula used to print the first edition, which was quite rare on account of most of the print run having flown out of the publisher’s warehouse overnight. The lost copies were ultimately found in Manehatten, where they were seen roosting on the eaves and bullying the local pigeons.) “wearing garments woven from the fibers of stalks like these help a unicorn use magic more efficiently and give her more control over how she casts spells—eek!” A sudden burst of thunder accompanied a flash of light from behind her, giving Twilight just enough time to watch fragments of stone bounce past before being drenched by the following deluge.
“Hahahah! That was perfect!” Rainbow Dash glided down in a lazy spiral, coming to a stop in front of the dripping wet librarian in an upside-down hover. “I figured there was still some rain left in that part of the bank, but lightning too? Do I know how to pick ‘em or what?”
Twilight glared up at the prankster, thunder ringing in her ears, and resisted the urge to magically grab the pegasus and throw her into the mud. Or to grab the mud and throw it at the pegasus. “I’m glad you find tormenting your friends so amusing, but you almost hit me! Didn’t they teach you what a bolt of lightning can do to a pony back in Cloudsdale?”
“Relax, will you? It ‘almost’ hit you, but it didn’t, so there’s no harm done, right? Heheh, except for your mane, anyway.” Dash reached down to run a hoof through the disheveled hair. “Maybe you can use Spike’s tail for a hairbrush.”
“Huh?” Spike wandered over to the two ponies, noisily munching away at the contents of one cupped hand. “Nah, she tried that once back in Canterlot when she fell asleep in the library overnight and almost overslept her appointment with the Princess the next day. She ended up missing it anyway on account of having to get three stitches from the royal nurse. I’m not named Spike for nothin’, you know.” His empty hand pointed back at the spines in question, and an audible gulp punctuated the anecdote.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “What in the world are you eating?”
“Bits and pieces of that boulder Dash just fried. Nice job, by the way. It’s solid granite, and the lightning scars give it a real zing you don’t naturally get in igneous rock like this!” He held the last piece out as an example, then flipped it into the air and snagged it with his tongue on the way down. “Plus, I usually only get to see stuff explode like that in Twilight’s lab. Think you could do it more often?” he asked, bending over to scoop up another handful.
Rainbow Dash rolled over in midair and smirked. “Glad to see somepony—uh, dragon, appreciates what I do around here.”
Twilight’s glare narrowed. Somepony needed to have her ego taken down a few notches. But not today. It had been too long already, and just the thought of getting her friend to stop gloating brought on the twinge of a headache. “Let’s go, Spike. If we hurry, we might still be able to catch Rarity before she goes to meet Fluttershy, and if we’re lucky the leyleaf hasn’t been completely ruined by getting soaked thanks to a certain pony with too much time on her hooves!” With one final huff, she turned around and started back down the road to Ponyville, almost-but-not-quite angry enough to miss seeing the magenta mare stomping past her. “Cheerilee?”
“Rainbow Dash!—and hello, Twilight—you hold it right there!” Cheerilee stomped towards her target with all the sense of purpose of a Royal Guard.
“Geez, Rainbow, you’re just getting on everyone’s bad side today, aren’t you? Except for me. We’re cool.” An errant belch abruptly sent Spike’s handful of rock candy trailing away in a cloud of green smoke. (Or what a dragon considered to be rock candy, anyway. The species as a whole was similarly confused about what exactly constituted stone soup, marble cake, and rocky road ice cream. Spike had tried explaining the semantic differences from the dragon’s point of view once, but it had only led to Pinkie Pie briefly experimenting with candied rocks, which the mayor put a stop to after having to bring in a dentist from Fillydelphia.)
“Twilight’s always grumpy like that. I dunno what Cheerilee’s ticked off about though, honestly,” said Rainbow Dash, landing on the road. “At least not today. How’d you find me all the way out here anyway?”
“On a day like this?” Cheerilee looked up at the sky and waved a hoof in its general direction. “One just has to follow the trail of half-closed holes in the clouds and you’ll be at the other end eventually.” She fixed Rainbow Dash with a stern look of disapproval, feared among her students. “No, you know exactly what it is you’ve been up to, you scoundrel! And don’t try and say clearing the weather. You’ve clearly been taking a break. For a while,” she added.
“Hah hah,” deadpanned Dash, who had long since stopped directly acknowledging any comments about the timeliness of her work to avoid fueling further complaints. “But really, I haven’t pranked anypony but Twilight at all this aftern—wait, is this about the bell?” She froze. “This is about the bell, isn’t it? Aw, I told Pinkie somepony would notice—”
“The bell? What happened to the bell? Do you mean the schoolhouse or the clock tower?” asked Cheerilee.
“...and I swear that crack was there before. Er. I mean, uh, in Twilight’s bell. In the library. Where she lives. Eheh.” Rainbow Dash took a step back, spreading her wings.
“What are you talking about? The library doesn’t have a bell.”
“I know, and I’m very sorry about that and I’ll replace it any day now but you know I really should be getting back to wor—oof!” Her attempt at flight came to an abrupt halt. A quick look back identified the source of the problem as Cheerilee’s hoof firmly planted on her tail. “You’re faster than you look, you know that?”
Cheerilee kept her weight on the captive hair. “I imagine I’ll regret not asking about it later, but no, I’m not here about any bell. I’m here because you’ve been telling one of my students some of the most preposterous nonsense I’ve ever heard in a classroom and passing it off as, as some sort of grand adventures you’ve been on!” Her free leg gesticulated wildly as the rant warmed up. “Really, just where do you get off intentionally misleading a naive young filly like that? She really looks up to you, you know? More than anypony else! And then you go and take advantage of her trust just to make yourself feel better! It’s uncalled for, and insincere, and, and...” She paused for just a moment, searching for the right word. “And downright shameful!” She brought her free leg down hard, breathing heavily. The fire driving her outburst finished burning itself out, and she broke eye contact. “I-I’m sorry, I got a little carried away there. But it’s still not right to deceive her like that!”
“Nonsense?” asked Rainbow Dash. She gave the offending limb holding her prisoner the same glare usually reserved for Applejack’s teeth. Light tugs at her tail were proving to be futile, which did nothing to dissuade her from trying stronger ones. “What—eeergh—are you talking—eeeeeerg—abou— whoa!” Cheerilee relinquished her hold, and the sudden lack of resistance sent Dash somersaulting across the ground. She managed to come up on all four legs after a couple of revolutions, a feat which earned applause from Spike, who had settled in to enjoy the show. “Oh, you mean Scoots! Sure, I’ve been tellin’ her all kinds of stuff. All of which is one hundred percent true, thank you very much.” Free once more, she gave her wings a celebratory flap and held a hoof to her chest with a grin.
“I find that highly unlikely,” Cheerilee replied. “There’s no such thing as sky pirates in the first place! Or... colonel spiders, or whatever it was.”
“Oh? You doubt?” The grin grew wider. “Then take a seat and listen, ‘cuz what you’re about to hear will blow. You. Away,” said Dash, punctuating each word by jabbing a foreleg in Cheerliee’s direction.
“Try me.”
“Spike! Leaving!”
“Aw, come on Twilight! We’re already late, Rarity’s probably closed up by now anyway, and this is just getting good!” complained Spike as he scrounged for more granite fragments among the tall grass.
“Listen to the little guy, Twilight. I guarantee it’ll be way more interesting than whatever it was you had planned with Her Grand High Fanciness,” Rainbow Dash boasted.
“But the leyleaves, and the appointment...” Three pairs of eyes stared back at her. “Ugh. Fine.” The unicorn dropped to one of the remaining dry patches of ground, too tired to resist. “At least if I stay here, I’ll only have to deal with one pony complaining at me later. But I’m telling Rarity it’s all your fault. And you owe me a new bell. Apparently.” A thoughtful look replaced the longstanding mask of annoyance. “Come to think of it, there was some spell I wanted to try that used a bell, a book, and a candle.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. So there I was, fresh off of winning the Best Young Flier competition...”
And I felt great. I mean, really. Best. Day. EVER. Who managed to pull off a trick so difficult that no living pony had ever seen it? Me. Who used that very trick to save four ponies’ lives at the same time in front of everypony in Cloudsdale? That’s right, me. Who got a crown from the Princess herself to prove to all of Equestria who the hottest thing to ever hit the skies really is? Here’s a hint: It’s me. And that’s before I got to finally blow off a bunch of jerks from my flight school days and fly away with two of the Wonderbolts as my personal escort.
Best. Day. EVER.
“This!” exclaimed Cheerilee, springing to her hooves. “This is exactly what I’m talking about! It’s preposterous!”
“Actually... that’s all true,” said Twilight.
Cheerilee blinked. “It is? So she really...”
“Yep.”
“And she saved...”
Twilight nodded. “Uh-huh. It all happened three weeks ago. There’s probably a whole story there in and of itself.”
“Are you guys done yet?” asked Dash, tapping a hoof on the ground.
“If Twilight vouches for you, I suppose so,” said Cheerilee, sitting back down. “Was all of that really relevant, though?”
“Yes. Now be quiet and listen, will ya?”
As I was saying, the competition was winding down and I finally got to claim my real prize. I mean, the title and crown were nice and all, but they just made what everypony already knew official.
Getting to hang out with the Wonderbolts for the rest of the day? I’ll take that over some silly jewelry every time. Especially these days.
See, the Wonderbolts usually maintain a full roster of twelve members split up into four three-pony teams. But an older married couple on the team, Feather Flap and Shimmer Span, decided to retire together shortly after last year’s Summer Sun Celebration, so they’ve been down to eleven for a while now. And yeah Cheerilee, I mean eleven. I’m not that bad at math. One of the spots was filled in less than a week by the team captain’s younger brother. That sounds kinda suspicious, but he’d been winning flight competitions all over the place for a few years and everypony figured he was a shoo-in anyway. That took care of one of the positions, but the other one still hasn’t been filled. Completely coincidentally, the Wonderbolts have been doing a bunch of extra shows lately compared to their usual schedule.
Hah! Whatever. They’re out to track down somepony with enough skills to make the cut, and everypony knows it. The whole “celebrity judges” thing? Totally just an excuse to be there to scout out the best. Cloudsdale’s been trying to get them to sponsor the Best Young Flier contest for years, but until now all they’d ever agree to was a simple flyover at the very beginning to kick it off. Some story about not wanting to draw attention away from the contestants. Makes them sound good, yeah, but I think the real reason is that they’ve always had better things to do than sit around watching a bunch of lame pegasi prance around like their wings are for looking pretty.
I think it speaks for itself that I was the only one who went in there with pure speed up her feathers and came out on top. Just sayin’.
So there I was, flying away from the Cloudiseum feeling like a million bits with two of the Wonderbolts as my wingponies. As fun as it would’ve been to let my adoring fans fawn over me some more, if I was gonna get anything important done, we had to get out of the city.
“Think you guys can keep up?” I asked.
“Ordinarily, I’d say yes, but after a display like that I’m not so sure.” That was Red Sky. He’s not just a team captain, he’s the team captain for all of the Wonderbolts. And he was grinning! At me! I thought I’d pulled myself together after the competition, but that was when it stopped feeling like a dream. The Wonderbolts never talked to me in my dreams. It was sort of like going to sleep on a cloud and waking up to find that the ground’s getting a lot closer really fast. I guess you guys wouldn’t know what that’s like.
The first thing you do is panic. Yeah, even me. It just happens.
I threw a grin back at him and took off as fast as I could and hoped that I didn’t look as nervous as I felt. I’d had that afternoon planned out for weeks, but having him be right there for real and talking to me for real shook me up a little. Not too much, but this was the big important part I couldn’t screw up if I wanted to be a Wonderbolt.
The second thing you do is either get a grip and start flying or... well, if you’re lucky enough that somepony saw it happen, you get caught. There’s always some cocky colts and fillies every year who think they can deal with going out on their own before they’re ready, though. Once in a while they don’t all come back. Once the news gets around, the rest of the kids usually start taking the lessons about flight safety seriously.
I know, “Rainbow Dash talking about flight safety, ha ha, that’s funny,” but I could recite the rules in my sleep. They just get kinda flexible if you’re good enough.
I’d blasted off at a few hundred miles per hour, and while it’s not like I can’t keep going at those kinds of speeds as long as I want, I decided to slow down a bit after a few minutes. Y’know, to see how far behind the Wonderbolts were. I got turned around just in time for them to both blow past my position, trailing smoke. They’re good. Not so good that I couldn’t tell they were a little winded by the time they swung back around my way, though. It was the first time I’d ever seen them have to actually work at flying.
The other guy with Red spoke up first. “Good show, miss! I always say, there’s nothing like a race to... limber up and really... get the... hm.” He stopped and turned to look at something on his suit. Or maybe at the smoke still pouring out of it. “That’s peculiar.”
“Is that supposed to happen?” I asked.
“No, it isn’t,” said Red, who turned and flapped over to his partner. “Autumn, I thought we agreed you weren’t bringing anything experimental to the competition.”
“The modifications functioned perfectly well in testing, and as soon as I can find the off switch... aha!” His face lit up.
And then he exploded.
Okay, maybe he didn’t, but whatever he was fiddling with did. I heard a big, muffled bang, and suddenly there was a huge, dark cloud getting bigger by the second! I was far enough away to avoid it, but they were both stuck inside!
“Blast! The contrail creator’s containment capsule cracked!”
“Then stop it before we suffo— suffocate—” Red broke into a coughing fit before he could finish.
“No good! The interior’s exposed, it’ll keep vaporizing until it deple— whoa!”
“Hang tight!” I came barreling out the other side of the boiling cloud dragging the poor guy behind me, his suit still spewing smoke. A couple seconds later he got it together and pushed off.
“I need to keep flying until the fuel’s completely expended, but I’ll be alright! Go back and do something for Red!” he said, and then sped away.
I turned and looked around, but the only other things in the sky were the usual clouds and the big gray smoky death ball. On a windier day it would’ve already started blowing away, but the head weather guys back at Cloudsdale had engineered the whole area to be calm so no sudden gusts would interfere with the competition. It was up to me to save the day again!
“Couldn’t the captain have just flown out of it?” asked Twilight. “Simple smoke clouds aren’t all that dangerous.”
Rainbow Dash looked a little confused. “Maybe it doesn’t sound too bad, but that’s probably only because you’ve never been caught in one,” she replied.
“Hah!” Spike tossed another shard into his mouth before continuing. “You should hang around the lab sometime when Twilight’s experimenting with mixing new potions. There’s a reason why there’s a ventilation shaft in the ground outside the library these days, y’know.” His face twisted in thought. “That might explain why the birds in the branches have started growing beards. Fluttershy’s been trying to shave them, but the magpies keep stealing her razors.”
“Oh, is that all? I was starting to wonder what the poor dear was doing, buying so many blades,” said Cheerilee.
“Spike, remember that talk we had about not volunteering information no one asked for?” Twilight leaned closer and dropped her volume slightly. “Especially about the lab?”
Rainbow Dash pushed her way between the two. “Well if it’s that bad, then you should know how much the stuff can mess you up.”
“‘Get low, find an exit, and crawl out.’ Or fly out, in this case,” she amended, looking at Dash’s wings in front of her. “It’s all there in the Interior chapter of Fleeing Fires For Fillies.”
Spike pulled Rainbow’s ear down to his level. “I spent a whole day last week painting arrows on the basement floor pointing to the stairs,” he whispered, not quite soft enough to avoid being heard by the other two ponies.
“Spike!” The full force of Twilight’s protest was lost on him, having been absorbed by Rainbow’s other ear, which went flat.
Rainbow Dash stepped back before anything else could happen. “Eh, it’s different for pegasi, though. When there’s smoke it usually means the air currents are all hot and messed up, and beating our wings just stirs it up and sends it all over the place.” An attempt to kick up dust for a demonstration only resulted in her hooves getting muddy, which she casually flicked in Cheerilee’s direction. “If you’re in the middle of it you can’t see out, and you get dizzy pretty fast breathing it, so you can’t tell which way is up any more. Plus smoke and clouds and stuff like that is just...” She hesitated, flapping her wings once to fill the silence. “...Thicker, for us. They tell this story back in Cloudsdale about the time a lot of ponies got trapped at the weather factory one day and nearly died ‘cause the rainbows caught fire.”
Dash’s audience stared.
“What?”
I’d gotten lucky diving through the cloud the first time, but looking at it again, I had no idea where Red Sky was trapped and I didn’t have time to waste. Good thing I’ve got plenty of moves. There were a few ways I could think of to get him out, of course, but sometimes keepin’ it simple is best. I took a deep breath and started up my classic high-speed spin right next to all the smoke to suck it up, and in five seconds flat I’d turned the whole thing into a black, swirling vortex under my control. I sent it spiraling down to the ground and turned back to check up on Red. He looked kinda groggy, swaying back and forth and still coughing away, but he’d be okay.
Our flight path earlier had taken us over the Crysta Mountains, and we settled down on a nearby outcropping on one of the high slopes. I took a look up to see if I could pick out Autumn anywhere just in time to see him finish tracing out a huge black version of the Wonderbolts’ winged lightning logo in the sky.
“Heh, that showoff. Ugh, my throat feels like sandpaper.” He sounded like it too, even after spitting a loogie over the edge. “Now, where can a pony get himself a drink around here—oh, where are my manners? That’s twice today you’ve saved me from disaster and I haven’t even formally introduced myself yet.” He held out a hoof for me to shake, which I took. “Red Sky, fifty-sixth captain of the Wonderbolts. Er, the fifty-sixth lead captain over the course of the team’s history, that is, not that there are currently fifty-six captains, that’d, heh, just be ridiculous.” He started shaking faster. “After all, the team’s never even had over twenty members at once and even those were special circumstances—”
“Rainbow Dash. It’s great to meet you!” I let go of his hoof and smiled. Poor guy seemed as nervous as me, now that I had a chance to get a good look. Probably just the stress of the day getting to him. Probably. The goggles made it hard to tell.
I also had to stop myself from totally flipping out again. I mean, he’s basically the best flier that’s ever lived, okay? Besides me. Maybe. He even looks awesome between the suit, the cool turquoise coat, and the rockin’ blue-black mane. And I shook his hoof! At twenty-six he’s the youngest lead captain the Wonderbolts have ever had, and he got the position after being part of the team for less than five years. And when he joined they didn’t bother with all the tricky scouting business they’re doing now, they just went straight to him with the recruitment papers. In a few months he’d turned their old routine, which was classic but kinda stale, into the hottest show in all of Equestria.
...
He used to live in Cloudsdale. When I was still a filly and hadn’t even gotten my cutie mark yet, I’d head outside the city and track him down so I could watch him practice. He never said anything, and I never bothered him. I’m not sure if he ever even noticed me, down in the trees. It was enough to see him cut through the air like it was nothing, twisting and whirling and bending the clouds around him. He didn’t always get it right, but when he finally did, it was always the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. I’d never imagined anypony could move like that.
He’s my hero.
And don’t tell AJ I said that. She’d never let me live it down if she found out I can be this sappy.
In fact, just forget I said anything.
“Hold on a moment,” interjected Cheerilee. “He’s a turquoise and blue stallion named Red Sky?”
Rainbow Dash took to a low hover while she elaborated. “His folks are Morning Sky and Blue Sky, and they run this popular restaurant back in Cloudsdale named Sky’s Pies. The rumor is that they picked out his name before he was born, ‘cause they were hoping he’d get his mom’s colors.” She pointed to her own red and orange streaks as an example. “And they figured he’d grow up to be a cook like them and take over the business. Instead he looked like his dad and wanted to be a stunt flier.” A quick loop-de-loop drove the point home. “They never really did get along, apparently, which is why he spent so much time away from the city. His kid brother Soarin’ Sky was a couple years ahead of me in flight school. We never met, but I saw enough of him around and he seemed pretty laid back by comparison, so I guess they figured out the whole parenting thing eventually. The two of them look a lot alike, though,” she finished, landing with a shrug.
A sad sigh escaped Cheerilee as she brought a hoof to her face. “How terrible! Didn’t they realize what sort of harm you can do to little ones by pushing them to be something they aren’t?”
“Weren’t you the one who gave the Cutie Mark Crusaders that comedy award?” asked Twilight.
“Their act was hysterical! Really took me back, too.” Her look of concern melted away as she stared into the distance and smiled.
“Did you know they’re working on a stand-up routine now?”
“How delightful! Hopefully they’ll enter it in next year’s talent show.”
Spike stuck his tongue out and wrinkled his nose. “Were you planning on a Best Dramatic Horror category?”
“So you guys don’t actually burn up the air behind you after all, huh? I’d always wondered about that. All I could ever figure out was rainbows, and I have to soak my tail first to do it.”
“Eheh. No, that’s a little Wonderbolts trade secret,” said Red. I probably shouldn’t be telling you any of this, come to think of it. You didn’t hear it from me. “You can do a lot of great tricks by manipulating the air properly, but mixing in some clockwork and chemistry spices up the show in ways that we normally can’t.” He pulled a little tube from somewhere behind his wings. “Like this single-shot firework launcher, for instance.” It slipped back into his suit, but I couldn’t tell how. “Autumn spends a lot of time building little gadgets like that with a unicorn buddy of his back in Canterlot. Great crowd-pleasers, but sometimes they’re a tad finicky.” We took a glance back at his partner, who looked like he’d finally run out of steam halfway through some big equation.
“Exploding is just ‘a tad finicky’?” I tried to make heads or tails of the sky writing, but it was the weird egghead kind of math that doesn’t use numbers.
He pawed at the ground a couple of times, and wouldn’t look right at me. “They don’t usually backfire this hard. The idea for this one came from another little catastrophe, as a matter of fact, with a simple little thing that was supposed to shoot off streamers. Unfortunately it worked a little too well and shot the streamers off so fast that they ignited, and one of them clipped Spitfire’s tail.” That finally got him to smile a little, and he faced me again. “She bolted for the nearest pond and made it out alright, but suffice it to say there were a lot of impolite words afterward and Autumn spent a week with a black eye.” He mimed a pony getting decked right in the face. The goggles probably would leave a pretty nasty bruise. “The smoke she left behind en route inspired him to make the contrail creators, though, and they’ve been a Wonderbolt staple ever since! ‘Make the best of a bad situation’ could practically be the team motto, in all honesty.”
“Those come up often?” I asked.
He froze and went stiff. Just when he was starting to relax, too. “What? Oh, never. Well, hardly ever. Did I say motto?”
I didn’t have time to press him further, since Autumn finally flew over and started patting him on the back. “Not to worry, old chum, I have an idea as to what went wrong. Canterlot’s steel is likely too brittle to hold up under the pressure exerted by my new long-duration formula, but a stronger grade of metal from Stalliongrad should serve to produce a sufficiently sturdy chassis.” He walked over to me and grabbed my left foreleg. “As for you, my dear, I find myself honored to be among the Wonderbolts in your debt today. Celestia herself could not do more justice to the crown upon your head.” Then he kissed my hoof.
What their promotional posters don’t tell you is that the Wonderbolts are all kinda weird.
Twilight’s eyes lit up. “Wait, I think I know who you’re talking about. Does his full name happen to be Autumn Westwind?” she asked. “Gray coat, big fluffy blue mane that’s always styled like he’s about to go to a dinner party?”
“...yeah. How the hay do you know him? You don’t pay any attention to the Wonderbolts!” accused Rainbow Dash.
“Because he’s still a pony when he’s not in uniform,” explained Twilight, though she looked disinterested in the subject. “Mr. Westwind is one of the richest ponies in Canterlot, and certainly the city’s biggest philanthropist.” One of Spike’s rocks levitated over to her and began spinning around in her telekinetic grip while she talked. “I used to see him at the palace occasionally when he’d come around to see what new requests for charity Princess Celestia had received.” The rock split into pieces, reformed, and teleported over various short distances. “The ones that aren’t officially sponsored by the throne get passed on to interested private donors, and he picks up quite a number of them. She introduced us once.” She concentrated for a moment, her horn’s glow increasing slightly. “I thought he was rather charming.” The rock flashed into a rose, drawing an appreciative sound from Cheerilee. “Said something about how it was his pleasure to meet one of the bright hopes for the future. I didn’t realize he was part of the Wonderbolts, though.”
“I... you’ve met... he’s rich? Why doesn’t anypony ever tell me these things?” The irritated pegasus fluttered over to Twilight and began pacing.
“Don’t you know everything about the team?” She opened her mouth to nibble on the flower, but thought better of it at the last second. Transmogrified objects had an unfortunate tendency to revert to their original forms over time. (This was the main reason why magic couldn’t effectively make food from dirt. However, Twilight had long since discovered that it was an effective way to make the cabbage the palace kitchen was fond of serving into a much more palatable bed of tulips, without losing any of its nutritional value.)
“All the important stuff. I had to practically work my wings off to meet them and you just walked in and said hi and didn’t even know who you were talking to? So not fair.” Dash’s tail twitched at irregular intervals.
“Sure. As the Princess’s private pupil, I’ve gotten to meet all sorts of fascinating people. Everypony who’s anypony comes through the palace eventually.” Lacking any further ideas, Twilight sniffed the rose and stripped its thorns before tucking it behind one ear. “I’ve got a bookmark signed by the last captain of the Wonderbolts sitting around somewhere. What was his name, Ridge Slider, or Ridge Diver? Something like that.”
“D-Does anyone else hear that growling?” asked Spike, who was looking around with the healthy paranoia of someone sitting just outside the Everfree Forest.
“I had a light lunch. It’s probably just my stomach,” replied Rainbow Dash through gritted teeth.
“Oh. Want a rock?”
For the next few moments, the growling gave way to the sound of a pegasus beating her head against a nearby tree.
Ow. Hang on a sec, I think I got some bark in my eye.
There we go, that’s better. Stupid tree. Stupid Twilight. Where was I? Right, that screwball.
I pulled my hoof away before he could do anything else to it. “Well. That’s, uh, flattering,” I said while backing up slowly. Of all the things I’d expected to do with the Wonderbolts that day, getting sorta-kinda hit on wasn’t one of them. I mean, it’s not that I’m against the idea, but the guy’s forty or something like that. He can make somepony else happy. “The name’s Rainbow Dash.”
“An apt moniker for one of such talent and loveliness.” Still weird. Thankfully Red took the chance to step in.
“Don’t mind Autumn too much. He greets every mare he meets that way.” I couldn’t see through his goggles, but I’m pretty sure he was glaring at his partner out of the corners of his eyes.
“Only those who deserve it.”
Red tilted his head. “You think everypony deserves it, Autumn.”
“Because, young Sky, inside of each and everypony is a spark of light that may yet grow to illuminate the dark corners of the world.” He reminded me a little of the Princess when she’s going on about the magic of friendship.
“Is he always like this?” I asked.
“Always,” Red said with a sigh. “You get used to it, in time. Nimbus should catch up to us shortly. She’s the sub-captain of his team, and can tell you all sorts of stories about what he gets up to.” Autumn put on a look that said he had no idea what Red was talking about. “Anyhow, since I doubt you went to all the trouble of winning that competition just to jaw around with us, what did you have in mind for today? It’s your call. Everything is on the table.” He went stiff again. “Well, almost everything. Most things, within reason. Nothing questionable, that is, not that I’d expect a hard worker such as yourself to make that sort of request, but you wouldn’t believe some of the fan mail we get, it’d make you blush for a week—”
“No, no, I get it!” If I hadn’t interrupted I think he would’ve kept rambling on all day. Even then, he kept fidgeting and wouldn’t look at me for more than a few seconds. Something really had him on edge. “All I really wanted was to see what you guys thought of some of my other tricks, maybe get some tips on how to pull a few of yours off, that sort of thing. Like a special flight training session.” I flapped my wings a couple of times to make it clear.
“Your dedication to your craft is most admirable—”
“Yes, we’d be happy to see what else you can do!” Red’s twitching let up. I guess talking about flying helped take his mind off whatever else he was thinking of.
“Sweet! Okay, I call this one the Fantastic Filly Flash! Here I go!” I shouted, and took off. The Filly Flash is this great move where I fly as high in the sky as I can, then free fall in a corkscrew spiral until the last second when I pull up and buzz the crowd. It really shows off the “Rainbow” and the “Dash”.
The catch is that if you aren’t right-side up again at just the right moment, the crowd’s gonna be watching a pony-shaped crater instead. It’s the sort of trick you practice over open water.
“So that’s why you’re such a great swimmer Dashie!”
“Ye—I mean, no! That has nothing to do with this, Pinkie Pie!” Rainbow Dash took a second to think over what she’d just said. “Wait, when did you get here? And what’re you doing here? And where’d Cheerilee go?”
“Rarity sent me to find these two! Hi Twilight! Hi Spike!”
Spike waved. “Hey Pinkie! Want a rock?”
Pinkie bounced over to the small hoard of rubble. “Is it the tasty bakeable kind like last time? They made the best hard candy! Even if the mayor didn’t like it. Is it is it is it?”
“Naw, those were all shale. This is some great lightning-roasted granite, though! Dash made it,” he finished, pointing towards the pegasus.
“Rainbow Dash, you never told me you could cook!” protested Pinkie Pie, grabbing a shard from the pile.
“Cheerilee left a little bit ago, Rainbow, while you were busy abusing the local flora with your skull,” replied Twilight, pointedly ignoring the ongoing conversation. “She said something to the effect that she didn’t have time for a long story and it was already getting silly anyway.”
“What?” Dash’s wings sprung out in sheer indignation. “She gives me all that grief and calls me a liar and then bails? I oughta... Pinkie! You, me, at the schoolhouse this evening! Bring your best pranking gear!”
“Aw, but that’s the same thing we’ve done every night this week!” Pinkie pouted. “Ooh, tingly teeth! I wonder what that means?”
“That you shouldn’t take a dragon’s advice when it comes to snack food,” quipped Twilight. “Dash, what exactly is going on between you and Cheerilee? Or rather, how in the world did you get on the bad side of one of the friendliest ponies in Ponyville? Besides talking to her students.”
“We had a tiny little disagreement,” said Dash, folding her wings back down.
“About?”
“Whose fault it was that the schoolhouse was surrounded by flank-high mud last week. These stupid spring showers take forever to get rid of!” she said, gesturing at the gray clouds above. “Just because the school was the last place I got around to clearing out didn’t mean she had to take it personally. And then she didn’t appreciate the rain cloud I emptied on her head to clean her off, either! Or how I covered the school grounds with fog the next day to try and soak up the extra water making it so muddy.”
Twilight raised a hoof to her temple. “Yep, definitely a headache.”
“Bravo!”
“Most well done, Miss Dash.”
I went through most of my routine, and they applauded and cheered me on the whole way! The more I did, the more they encouraged me to keep going, and the more relaxed I finally was. Being tense and nervous all day hurts. “Aw, thanks guys. You’re just being nice though, your stuff is way cooler.” And it is. Not that I’m not proud of my own tricks or anything, but none of it is really anything they haven’t done at some point. Hundreds of years of history is hard to beat. Hard’s not the same as impossible, though. There’s the Sonic Rainboom, of course, but... well, I think it takes some special conditions to pull off. For now. But I still had one big showstopper trick left besides that, a trick so risky that I’d been banned from trying to do it back at flight school and even at Junior Speedsters Flight Camp. But what did they know? It’s like the flight safety rules, you’re only in trouble if you’re not good enough.
Red Sky took a step towards me. “Don’t sell yourself so short, Rainbow. Those weren’t the maneuvers of a filly who just stepped off a cloud for the first time. A pony with that sort of natural talent and hard-earned skill can go far.” Hah! “Go far,” he says. Might as well have just given me the invitation right there. The only place to “go far” to in stunt flying is the Wonderbolts themselves. Every other team in Equestria is full of ponies who tried to hang with the best and failed.
“Well, if you thought all that kids’ stuff was cool, lemme show you a real trick! Feast your eyes on the Buccaneer Blaze!” I said, and took off for the sky one last time.
And then they weren’t even paying attention! By the time I got high enough up and turned to make sure they were watching, another one of the Wonderbolts had shown up. Red and Autumn were too busy talking to her. It wasn’t worth the effort to pull off a Blaze when my audience couldn’t appreciate it, so I swooped back down to see what the deal was.
She was pacing back and forth in front of the other two when I got there, a tiny little cream colored thing with two-toned light blue hair about as big as she was. “Do you guys have any idea how far off you actually flew? I thought I’d find you something like two miles from Cloudsdale, not twenty! And I’d still be flying around if I hadn’t noticed Autumn’s signal, and then what would we have done—oh hi there, hehe!” Pacing one second, right in my face waving her legs around the next. The laugh sounded squeaky and forced, too. “I’m Nimbus! You took off in such a rush that I never got to thank you for saving my flank earlier! Hehe, everyone in Cloudsdale’s talking about it, you know? You should write a book! ‘Dashing: The heroic story of the mare who saved the Wonderbolts from certain doom, straight from the horse’s mouth!’ It’d be a hit, hehe! You could be rich! Famous!”
“Thanks, I guess.” I had to back up a couple steps to get her hooves off my shoulders. “But all I really want to be famous for is being a Wonderbolt.” Yeah, I did not mean to throw that out there. Even if they liked me, the last thing I wanted to do was look too eager.
Unfortunately Nimbus jumped on my slip before I could play it cool. “Oooh, hehe. Aiming to be one of us? Now that’d be another story! Hehe, maybe you’re already writing it, though?”
That was already enough of that. I could deal with Red being all nervous and Autumn just... being, but it’d been too long of a day for that particular kind of crazy. “Okay, look, I already have a friend who’s kind of a giggling nut, and I’m pretty sure you’re just faking it. I don’t know why, but could you please cut it out?”
She pouted. “Aw, you’re no fun. All business, just like Red. He doesn’t have any fun either.”
“Hey, I have plenty of fun!”
“Hey, I have plenty of fun!” We’d spoken at the same time, and the two of us both stopped and glanced at each other. Awkward.
The little mare burst out laughing for real. “Just alike, just like I said! But alright, since you’re so observant, I’ll play along and drop the act.” I might’ve believed her if she hadn’t winked. At least I think she did. It was hard to tell through those goggles, and I had the feeling she knew it. For the first time, I found myself getting annoyed at a Wonderbolt. “Not that it matters much. As I was just telling the boys, I’m afraid something very big has come up that requires our attention, so this little get together is going to have to end early. Head on home, would you?” One hoof waved me away, like she was trying to shoo an animal. “I’m sure your friends are waiting with a party.”
...
What?
“Whoa, wait a second, you guys are bailing on me?”
“What a shame, huh?” She smiled, but it was as fake as her giggling. “You’re a big girl, I’m sure you can get over disappointment. You’re still this year’s best young flier, if that’s any consolation.”
Scratch that. I was getting really ticked off at a Wonderbolt. “The prize was supposed to be an entire day with the Wonderbolts. It’s barely been an hour!”
“I’m sorry, Rainbow,” said Red, “but she’s right, this is important. We can’t pass up the opportunity.”
I couldn’t believe it! After all that, they were really trying to ditch me! I stomped my way over to Red. “What do you mean, ‘opportunity’? You’re a trick flight team! You guys get to make your own schedule!”
He frowned a bit at that. “Not as much as you’d think. And in this case we’ve only got this one chance and a limited amount of time before it passes by for good. And that would be bad.”
“One chance to do what? What the hay is so secret and important that it can’t wait? Does the Princess need you or something? I know her, I could talk to her!” I kept getting closer, just a couple hooves short of being muzzle to muzzle. Red held his ground.
“It’s official Wonderbolts business. I can’t say any more.”
“But you’re the captain!” He tried to look away, but I moved in front of him again.
“I know I am, and I’m sorry, but I just can’t explain!”
“Why not?” I was screaming at that point, my heart racing and my wings flared. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen! We weren’t done! The biggest day of my whole life was about to slip right through my hooves! “You can’t just leave me! I earned this! I busted my flank for months to win that competition! I saved your life! Twice! I—ow!” Something hit me on the back of the head, hard. The next thing I knew I was on the ground, but I didn’t remember falling. “Owwww... wh... wh‘hd y’ do... ?” My mouth wouldn’t move right.
“Fun fact: Did you know there’s a spot juuuust below a pony’s ears that you can hit in a certain way to scramble her nerves and leave her completely helpless for a while? It’s true!” Nimbus. She sounded distant, but the blue blur that walked in front of me was too small to be one of the guys. My head wouldn’t stop swimming. I tried to get up, but my legs and wings just twitched. I couldn’t feel them at all. I couldn’t do anything. “Ah ah, you won’t be going anywhere just yet. Here’s a lesson for you. You were seeing Red and seeing red. One of them is easy on the eyes, but the other just leaves you wide open and distracted. Don’t forget that.” She walked out of sight, and soon I heard two pairs of wings flapping away.
“Farewell, Miss Dash. I do wish we could have parted on more pleasant terms. May our paths cross again in happier times.”
“You’re too sentimental, Autumn. She’ll be fine. And if she’s smarter than us, she’ll stay...” I couldn’t make out the rest.
The only noise left was the soft sound of hooves on stone. Red.
“Rainbow Dash, I’m sorry it had to be this way, please believe that. We aren’t making sense and we’ve ruined your day a couple times over, and you have every right to be angry. I’ll see if I can make it up to you. Not now, but... someday. Somehow.
“So long.”
And then he left me too.
“’m ba... come back... jerks...”
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A bell, a book, and a candle? Why does that sound familiar?
You used "germane" properly in a sentence. If I hadn't already been planning to read this, I would be doing so now.
338995
Because reasons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell,_book,_and_candle
This is getting more and more fun with each line.
This is just fantastic!
Hmm, yes, I suppose oaks don't have the same level of will to live that redwoods have, do they. I guess it is impressive when an oak overcomes its racial disabilities with living while hollow.
I can't imagine why anybody would choose to read without the footnotes.
Spike, please volunteer information like this as much as possible.
Might be related to how you pulled off a trick that isn't supposed to be physically possible, not to mention saved several Wonderbolts, in front of quite a lot of ponies, and if you decided you didn't want to be a 'Bolt and would prefer to, say, use the attention you thus garnered to launch a solo performing career, it would be a PR disaster and he would probably be blamed.
Which would probably constitute a stressful day, I agree.