• Published 24th Feb 2016
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Let Them Wonder - Onomonopia

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Race to the End

Author's Note:

Think of the course along the lines of Ninja Warrior.

Butterflies ran rampant in Sunset's stomach as she tried her best to focus on stretching, trying to warm herself up in the locker rooms before the big race. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get the images of her failing, her losing, out of her mind. And then the images of Diana, face full of disappointment, flashed before her eyes and she felt her stomach begin to cramp.

"No, I've got to do this," she said to herself while punching herself in the gut a few times. "Diana has trained me for this. And I'm not going to let my friends and school down a second time. I can win."

"There's the fighting spirit that I like to hear from you," Sunset turned around to see Diana walking towards her. "And don't look so nervous. This test should be easy for you."

"O-of course Diana, you know it," Sunset weakly stammered out with a laugh. "Nothing easier. Just got to get through this obstacle course without making a total fool of myself or letting anyone down. No pressure." Diana noticed her tone and the sweat that was dripping down Sunset's face, getting her to sigh before gently placing a hand on Sunset's shoulder.

"Sunset, do not worry yourself so much. This is nothing more than a race. It isn't for the fate of the world or anything that serious," Diana said, trying to comfort her student as best she could.

"Maybe not for you," Sunset said in a near whisper.

"You know I can still hear you even when you whisper, right?" Diana reminded Sunset, who groaned in reply. "Sunset, there is more going on here, isn't there? Please, talk to me."

"I just...don't want to let you down. You've placed so much faith in me and," Sunset said softly before gazing at the floor. "I just want to make you proud."

"You will make me proud. I have no doubt about that," Diana said with confidence before turning Sunset around and pointing her at the exit. "But it is almost time for the race to begin. Time to show your peers who you really are." Sunset smiled weakly up at Diana over her shoulder, but as she began to walk forward she felt her stomach start to tighten once more.

'No, Diana believes in me. My friends believe in me. I can't lose!' Sunset willed herself to think as she headed to the starting line.

=wWw=

The sun beat down on the heads of the hundreds of students that had gathered to see the second event in the Friendship Games rematch. Two sets of bleachers had been constructed around the obstacle course, with the teachers emphasizing that the two schools should sit together. Of course, neither school wanted to sit anywhere remotely close to the other, and so Canterlot High sat to the left side and Crystal Prep took the right.

The students from Canterlot High were in a near uproar, having never been ahead in the Friendship Games before. But with the lead Twilight had given them in the previous match, spirits were high as they prepared for the next event. Crystal Prep had a foul air about them, none of them knowing how they would cope if they had to listen to the inferior school bragging over them for another full year. And for a certain principal, she knew she would be the laughing stock of the school if she lost this event as well.

'However, my student will not be losing,' she thought to herself with a smile, gazing out from the special booth she and Celestia shared across the obstacle course. The course had been built behind Crystal Prep and was a well kept secret, with only the builders and Cinch having access to it. "Quite the hot day out, isn't it Celestia? I hope Sunset can handle the heat."

"You will find that Sunset will do just fine," Celestia replied before noticing someone else entering the booth. "Ah Diana, I'm glad that you made it. The contest is about to begin."

"Was just giving our star student a few words of advice before beginning the race," Diana smiled at Celestia before giving Cinch a look, one that Cinch gladly gave in response.

"Yes, the contest. Or as one could call it, the fall of Sunset Shimmer. Oh come now Diana, do you really believe that that girl stands the slightest chance against my student?" Cinch poked when she saw Diana's eyes narrow. "Sunset is a smart student, but she is weak and has a history of failure. What makes you think that today will be any different?"

"Because you do not know Sunset like I do," Diana replied as she sat down in one of the empty chairs, Athena resting on Diana's shoulder. The both of them gazed over the course, neither of them liking what they were seeing.

'She's made a few changes to it since the last time I laid eyes upon it,' Athena informed Diana, who frowned at that news.

The roar of the students turned the teachers' attentions to the starting line, seeing that Agatha had finally joined Sunset at the line. Agatha wore a black tracksuit, while Sunset wore a jacket over a tee-shirt with sweat pants. Both cast looks of disgust at what the other was wearing. Or at the other, in Agatha's case.

"Ready to be exposed for the failure that you are? Ready for everyone to see how you're a failure?" Agatha snarled at Sunset, who smirked in reply.

"If that's what you're wearing to this event, them I'm already winning," Sunset shot back. Agatha smirked as well before crouching down on the starting line, Sunset mirroring the action herself.

"Here are the rules!" Celestia yelled into the crowd after picking up a megaphone. "The first student to get to the end of the course before the other is the winner. There are four obstacles in this course that the two must pass to make it to the finish line, however. And those are the monkey bars, the bouncing balls of doom, the rolling log, and finally the rock face! Whoever gets to the end of that is the winner!"

The crowd of students roared as the obstacles began to rise out of the ground, revealing pools of water underneath each obstacle in case a student fell. 'That has to be a safety violation,' Athena muttered to Diana.

'The monkey bars and the rock wall should be no problem for her, but the bouncing balls and the rolling log are something I didn't prepare her for,' Diana mused with a concerned expression, but when she glanced over at Cinch she saw no worry upon her face. 'Yet not an ounce of concern from you. But it's just a bluff. Athena was watching you the entire time before this event, so there was no way that you could communicate anything about the course to your student. They're both on an even playing field.'

"On your marks! Get set! GO!" Both Sunset and Agatha took off sprinting the moment Celestia said go. They both tore across the opening platform straight to the monkey bars with incredible speeds. Sunset reached the long line of bars first, not bothering to stop as she leapt over the water and skipped six bars before finally grabbing onto them.

"Go get her, Sunset!" her friends cheered from the crowd as Sunset rapidly began to work her way through the bars, moving at a pace that shocked the students from Crystal Prep. When Sunset got close to the end, she glanced behind her to see how far ahead she was...only to see that Agatha was right behind her on the other set.

"What's the matter? You thought you were the only strong woman here?" Agatha spat before kicking forward and skipping the rest of her bars, landing at the end before Sunset. Sunset snarled as she forced herself to go even faster, reaching the end and racing forward to catch up with Agatha.

The next obstacle was numerous red, giant balls that floated along the surface of the water. Figuring out what they were supposed to do almost immediately, Agatha leapt forward and bounced from the first ball to the second. Sunset reached the balls when Agatha was nearly halfway across, muttering a swear to herself as she leapt down and started to catch up. Despite being ahead, due to misfortune or a bad bounce, Agatha caught one of the balls wrong and slipped to the side, plunging into the water.

"Oh, that's going to cost Agatha some time," Celestia commented as Agatha surfaced, glaring up at Sunset as she managed to skip ahead of her floating foe. Agatha then swam toward the ladder out of the water at the end of the course, but by the time she pulled herself out of the drink Sunset was already at the rolling log. Taking a moment to steel herself, Sunset then leapt on top of the log and began to roll it across the rails with her feet.

"There's no way your student can catch up now," Diana taunted Cinch, who was gripping her chair with enough force to leave marks. "Seems that Sunset is going to do the exact opposite of what you thought she would. Guess you're not that good a teacher after all."

But while Cinch was unable to defend her student, Agatha was more than capable of doing that for herself. The moment she reached the log she slammed her foot into it and sent it rolling down the rail. The Canterlot crowd began to cheer at what they thought was a mistake, but Agatha then raced back to gain some distance.

What she did next blew the minds of the students and the teachers. Even though the log was already halfway across the rails, Agatha sprinted forward at full speeds with all of her might. The moment her foot touched the edge of the course she hurled herself into the air, clearing the insane distance towards the log with a single jump. But if that wasn't enough to impress the crowd, the moment her other foot hit the log she kicked off again and sailed herself the rest of the distance towards the other ledge. And she stuck the landing.

"How is that possible?" Diana whispered as the Crystal Prep side of the stands went crazy. Even Cinch had a look of absolute bafflement upon her face, but the moment she saw Diana's disbelief she changed her tone.

"Seems that my student has been training her heart out, even more so than your student," Cinch taunted, getting a cold glare from Diana. "Oh come Diana, did you think I would not notice? You spy on me with your owl, I spy on you in my own way. And while we haven't seen much of you training Sunset, we have seen Sunset train on her own and know what she's capable of."

"You little..." Diana began, but Athena shook her head before Diana got truly angry. Diana snarled before glancing back at the course, seeing that the two students were now at the rock wall. An instructor helped Sunset into a harness before she hurled herself onto the wall, scaling it with incredible speeds. Yet Agatha was no slouch either, reaching the wall not long after Sunset. She too hurled herself onto the wall after being harnessed and began to scale with speeds almost equal to Sunset.

The crowd was in sheer pandemonium as the two were practically neck and neck, each straining to get ahead of the other. Diana watched the entire time with a smile upon her face, for with her eyes she was clearly able to see that Sunset had the edge and that a gap was starting to form between the two.

'I've almost made it!' Sunset thought to herself, that thought pushing her through the burning that was going on in her muscles. 'I'm going to win! I'm-'

SNAP!

Sunset's heart went cold as she thought for a second that her rope had snapped. But when she glanced up she saw that it was perfectly alright. She let out a quick sigh of relief before scaling the last few feet of the wall, gripping the edge and pulling herself over the top. A smile that beamed like the sun spread across her face as she spied the finish line at the end of the course. All she had to do was race over to it and she'd win.

"Help." Once more Sunset felt her heart go cold as she turned around and glanced over the edge of the rock wall, spying Agatha not too far down. But as she glanced at the girl's harness, she saw the source of the snapping sound. While her rope had not snapped, it was Agatha's that had. Not only that, but the girl was in a bad spot and from the way her arms were shaking Sunset could tell she wasn't going to be able to hold on much longer.

"I think her harness broke," Celestia said to Diana and Cinch, who both gasped in terror. Cinch rushed to her feet and snatched the binoculars from Celestia, but Diana remained seated with her eyes on Sunset. "We need to stop the race and get someone to-"

"No, we will not be stopping it!" While Celestia and Cinch argued, Diana kept her eyes glued to Sunset. She was ready at a moment's notice to fly over and grab Agatha before she fell, but not until she saw what happened next.

'She needs help,' Sunset realized as she took a step forward.' And I still have my harness on. I could go down and-' But then Sunset glanced over her shoulder at the finish line, which was practically calling out for her. 'But I could win. All I have to do is rush over to the finish line and win. Then I can come back for her.'

Agatha called out for help once more and Sunset turned her focus to her foe, torn between doing what she knew was right...and proving to everyone that she was a winner. Sunset clenched her teeth as she tried to decide what to do, before roaring at the sky before getting back on the rock wall. She moved down towards Agatha, who was losing her grip.

"Give me your hand," Sunset said once she was close enough to Agatha, extending her hand to the girl.

"I think some of the rocks broke under me when the rope snapped!" Agatha informed Sunset as she reached out. Sunset wrapped her hand around Agatha's and wrapped it around her shoulder.

"Alright, we're going to move up this together, alright?" Sunset told Agatha, who nodded weakly. Leaning against each other, the two began to crawl up the wall. Each of them climbed one hand and foot at a time. It was a slow process, but after a minute the both of them made it up to the top of the rock side. The crowd cheered as Sunset pushed Agatha over the edge first, before sighing in relief before starting to pull herself up.

"Hey Sunset?" Agatha began. Sunset looked up at Agatha with a smile, but that smile faded into a look of absolute terror when she saw the look of evil upon Agatha's face. "Thanks for the help." The rocks that Sunset were standing upon gave out under the girl and she felt herself slip back down. Instinct kicked in and she grabbed the edge with one of her hands, stopping her long fall back down.

With an effort she pulled herself back on top and rolled over the edge, but as she lifted her head she felt her soul shatter into thousands of pieces. For standing across the victory line was Agatha, who was waving her arms around and laughing as the Crystal Prep students cheered with thunderous applause. The Canterlot High students were as silent as a graveyard, none of them able to look at the faces of the Crystal Prep students.

"Well, it seems that despite your best efforts to sabotage us, the better student won," Cinch said with a sneer to Celestia, who rounded on the principal with a look of fury.

"Us? This is your damned course, Cinch! I'd say that you're the bitch that probably tried to get our student hurt!" Celestia roared back. While the two women began to scream at each other, Diana kept her eyes upon the two students atop the rock wall.

'I didn't feel any of Hades' power or the magic from the land when the rope snapped or when the rocks gave out. Whatever the cause, it wasn't either of those,' Athena informed Diana. But if Diana heard her friend's words, she didn't show it. Instead, her gaze was solely focused on Sunset.

'No...I...couldn't,' Sunset weakly thought as she rested on her hands and knees, staring down at the ground beneath her as the reality of what had happened began to sink in. 'I...failed? Even with Diana's training...and my own skill...I...?' Tears then began to drip onto her hands and the ground around her as her heart was shattered. Sunset couldn't hear the sounds of the crowd, nor could she feel the eyes that were upon her. All she felt was the crushing realization that she had failed once again.

And then she slammed her head into the ground and let out a scream that no one heard, a scream of fury, frustration, and sorrow. But most of all it was a scream of agony. The agony of having to know that she had failed once again.