Writer's Training Grounds Entries

by Yukito

Prompt #4 - What is Flight? Baby Don't Kill Me (Trixie Lulamoon, Lightning Dust, Spitfire) [Slice-of-Life, Comedy]

Lightning Dust soared through the air as fast as she could, narrowing her eyes and grinning as she felt the heavy wind resistance pushing against her. Three hoops ahead of her, in a straight line… amateur stuff.

But when you introduce a scolding beam of magic spontaneously shooting upwards directly in front of her, suddenly it becomes interesting. In just a split-second, Lightning Dust had to rear up her forelegs, extend her wings and close her feathers, and swerve to the side. She had no time to waste though, and in the next second had to resume her streamlined position and pick up speed.

As she closed in the on the final three hoops, it seemed that the race was going to end swiftly… until her wing clipped against the sides of all three hoops. Lightning Dust clicked her tongue as she checked her wing. It seemed fine; nothing more than a few fallen feathers. Circling around, Lightning Dust slowed herself down as she landed gracefully onto the ground beneath her.

“Eighty seconds,” Trixie said as she checked her stopwatch. “Add eighteen seconds for the six hoops you touched, and that gives you ninety-eight seconds. Two seconds less than your previous!”

“Still not good enough,” Lightning Dust muttered as she glared at the stopwatch in Trixie’s magic. “The Equestrian Record is eighty-four seconds, and that was with only one clipped hoop! If I go any faster, I won’t be able to maneuver right…”

“Nopony’s beat that record in over five hundred years,” Trixie said with a grin. “You really think you got what it takes?”

“Next Captain of the Wonderbolts? Duh!”

“Anyway,” Trixie continued, “The real thing won’t have me firing my magic at you or bringing the obstacles to life. Your time would be much shorter without all those distractions.”

“No it wouldn’t. Your stuff is lame, I barely even notice it,” Lightning Dust returned. “You gotta step up your game, too! I can’t get better with weak courses like this!”

“Just trying not to kill you,” Trixie said calmly. “If you died and had to miss the Games, Trixie would never hear the end of it.”

“Well, let’s go it again!” Lightning Dust flexed her wings as she prepared to run the course one more time.

“Hey,” Trixie said, examining Lightning’s wings as they flapped up=and-down slowly.

“Yeah?”

“What’s it like to fly?”

“Huh? Where’d that come from?”

“Trixie was just curious. In case you hadn’t noticed, she’s not a pegasus.”

Lightning put a hoof to her chin. “Uh, well let’s see… It’s like… awesome?” Trixie gave Lightning Dust a flat look. “Uh, well… you know that feeling you run so fast you almost break the sound barrier?”

“No.”

Lightning felt like her head was going to burn out as she tried harder to think of a suitable analogy. “Then, you know when you stick your head out of a train window when it’s moving?”

“Trixie is not five years old. Or a dog.”

“… You ever do it when you were five?”

Trixie sighed and put a hoof to her face as she shook her head. “Never mind. Let’s just get back to training.”

“Hey, what can I say?” Lightning asked with a shrug. “I don’t waste time thinking how to describe something, I just do it.”

“Yes yes. Trixie should have known better than to ask a high school dropout such a question.”

“I didn’t drop out!” Lightning protested. “I just… missed a few exams…”

“Like all of the essential ones,” Trixie returned with a smirk.

Lightning Dust glared and grit her teeth at Trixie, thinking of a witty response to the cocky showmare… when an even better idea popped into her head. “Okay, tell ya what… I’ll show you what flying’s like!”

Trixie’s cocksure grin suddenly fell. “Pardonne moi?” Before she could teleport to safety, a cyan blur swept into the air at an alarming speed, causing the showmare to scream involuntarily as the ground moved further and further from her eyes.

“Hold on tight!” Lightning – now floating below Trixie with the showmare on her back – instructed.

“W-Wait. What are you-”

Lightning Dust kicked off and soared through the skies, leaving a lightning trail behind and a panicking Trixie gripping her throat tightly. “T-Trixie! Hard to… breath!”

Trixie loosened her grip slowly as she gradually got used to sailing at dangerous speeds many miles above the ground without any safety precautions whatsoever on the back of the most impulsive flyer ever-

“Trixie wants off!” Trixie demanded. “AND BY THAT, SHE MEANS GENTLY, ON THE GROUND, AND WITH ALL OF HER BONES INTACT!”

“But this is what you wanted, right?!” Lightning shouted over the strong wind.

“Trixie was just asking, you didn’t have to-”

“Just be quiet for a second and look!”

“Look at what? There’s nothing-” Trixie stopped as she raised her head to look directly in front of her. The wind rushing through her mane and her coat. The amazing, deep blue azure sky that she had never really noticed before. The fact that she was above the clouds, and that the ponies below her looked like mere ants to her… moreso than they did before. The mountains in the distance, the bright sunlight, the chilling temperatures, and the rush of adrenaline through her system.

She had never felt so alive. She had never experienced anything so exciting since her magical ‘episode’ as a filly. She wanted to go faster. She wanted to go further. She wanted to conquer the wings and break the sound barrier!

“Alright, goin’ down now.” And just like that, Lightning Dust had shattered her joy. Like a mother pulling her child out of a ball pen. And Trixie was the child.

“No! Not yet!” Trixie demanded. “Just a little longer! And go as fast as you can!”

“Hey, you’re not exactly light, y’know?” Lightning didn’t need to look up to feel the heated glare to the back of her head. “Besides, I waste any more time not practisin’, the captain will- Oh, crud.”

As the two touched down to the ground and Trixie leapt off of Lightning Dust’s back, Spitfire tapped her hoof impatiently, waiting for an explanation. “… It was a new training technique?” Trixie offered. It didn’t seem to fly.

“The entry examinations are going to start in just a few hours,” Spitfire reminded the two, “And you two are messing around in the sky instead of perfecting the course! Not to mention all this I’ve been hearing about you two altering the course!”

“Relax, Captain!” Lightning Dust said as she approached Spitfire. “My time’s less than a hundred seconds! I got this in the bag. Lightning Dust will be representing Cloudsdale in this year’s flying obstacle course, you can count on it!”

“What were the two of you even doing up there?” Spitfire asked with an exasperated sigh.

“Trixie wanted to know what flying’s like,” Lightning explained.

“And it was great!” Trixie commented. “Until Lightning had to ruin it by landing. Honestly, Trixie thought that you pegasi were unlucky with not being able to use magic, but she never realised that flying was such a rush!”

“If you like it so much,” Spitfire started, “Why not use one of those magic wing spells?”

Trixie waved a hoof dismissively. “Because Trixie has already checked every major library in Equestria, including the Royal Archives – which has literally no security – and has found only one document on said spell… and the page is smudged.”

“Huh… Well, that new princess, Twilight Sparkle, I saw her friend use the spell just a year ago.”

Trixie’s eyes widened. “You don’t say…” The wheels in Trixie’s head began to turn, and an idea took shape. “You’ll have to excuse Trixie. Something urgent has come up.”

“Hey, wait!” Lightning shouted after Trixie as she ran away. “What about my training?!”

“You’ll have to do it by yourself,” Spitfire said. “Using the actual course! Not some stupid death gauntlet!”

Lightning kicked the ground with a huff as Spitfire turned and walked away. “Ugh! Why does everypony have to be so lame?!”

Author's Note:

I was so disappointed at the lack of Lightning Dust in this episode. With all them background/minor character cameos, not one hint of Lightning Dust? Not even her in the background just flying through hoops? Seems like such a waste. I'd love to see her come back as like a friendly rival to Rainbow Dash, and it would have also been a good chance to provide some closure to her very vague punishment in WA, but sadly, that did not happen in this episode :(

They almost missed a good chance to sneak Gilda in with the griffons, but I'm not quite as fussed about that one. We don't really know if she's an athlete or not, so it's more excusable.

Anywhom, so I wrote this to compensate for the lack of Dusty, fastet flyer in Wonderbolt Academy! (My headcanon stands that she was simply demoted to wingpony, not kicked out)

Was so tempted to finally make this the story where I sneak a DT fic into EQD, but maybe next time. In fact, I'm already cookin' up some ideas based on the synopsis of next week's episode. Let's just hope the episode itself and the prompt work in my favour

Check out the other submissions by various authours here: http://www.equestriadaily.com/2014/01/writing-training-grounds-004-rainbow.html

Comments

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Would've been interesting as a background character, but considering her behavior in her debut... definitely excusable to not have her there.

[djthomp]

That was fun.

[Seether00]

Yay, Lightning Dust!