Griffon the Heave-ho

by CrowMagnon

Part 5 - A Challenging Friendship

Griffon the Heave-ho
by CrowMagnon

"Bwahahaha! Smooth moves, there!"

"Hey, Rainbow Crash, didn't anypony tell you flight camp's for ponies who can fly?"

"You keep eating the clouds like that, you'll turn into a blimp!"

The young filly growled as the taunts of the three stupidest colts in the history of ever rang in her ears. It didn't help that their mockery came immediately after she had slightly miscalculated her ability to pull a sharp turn at the speed she'd been going, planting her facefirst at the far end of a deep furrow her body had gouged into the cloudscape. Fuming with anger, she yanked her head free and spun around to shoot a challenging glare at the moron trio. "You wanna say that to my face? I can take on all of you!"

Instead of being intimidated by her bravado, or even accepting the challenge, all three of them took one look at her and erupted into uncontrollable laughter.

"Nice 'do, Lamb-bow Crash," Hoops said, snorting with laughter as he pointed a hoof at the white, fluffy cloudmass that had stuck to Dash's head.

"Yeah! You're a real baaaaaad-flank," Dumbell bleated.

Rainbow Dash fumed, her face heating up until the cloud around her head evaporated. At the same time, she dug at the cloud beneath her with one of her front hooves. As she got herself ready to launch herself at the colts, Hoops looked at her and immediately choked. He quickly nudged the other two, and their laughter died as they also immediately grew fearful. "Woah, hey, we were just having a little fun! N-no need to start any trouble," Hoops stammered.

Rainbow Dash was about to snap that it was too late for that, but instead a voice behind her whined, "Oh, come on! I haven't had a good fight in, like, forever!"

Dash spun around to see that bullies weren't afraid of her, but of the griffon that had set down on the cloud behind her. Gilda looked at the moron trio with a predatory gleam in her eye while she balled her talons into a fist and cracked her knuckles. "Just a little scrap? Come on, if you don't want to fight three-on-one, I'll let you bring more ponies!"

"Hey! Butt out, ugly," Rainbow Dash snapped, startling Gilda as the filly turned all of her ire from the colts onto her. "If anypony's gonna fight these dummies, it's gonna be me!"

Gilda snorted derisively. "Yeah, right. What were you gonna do, pint-size? Nibble their ankles off?"

"Shut up! I can take all three of them with my hooves tied behind my back!"

"Shyeah, and I'm Princess Naglestia!"

If Rainbow Dash had been angry before, now she was seething. "Oh, you take that back! Nopony trash-talks the princess!"

Gilda leaned in close enough that she and Dash were practically butting heads as they glared at each other. "Guess what? I ain't a pony! What're you gonna do about it?"

Rainbow Dash pulled back into a low crouch, making Gilda think she was backing off. She wasn't. Like a coiled spring, she launched herself at Gilda, headbutting the young griffoness in the chest with enough force to knock Gilda off her paws, and the two of them soon became a whirlwind blur of hooves and talons.

-----

Twilight blinked in astonishment as she accompanied Rainbow Dash back to her cottage. "Seriously? That's how you two became friends?"

Rainbow Dash snorted. "Nah, I was a real cocky brat back then, and she stole my thunder. I couldn't help but hate her. Friendship? That came a little later. Those three idiots slipped away, so when the grown-ups showed up, we were the only ones who got in trouble for fighting, and having to sit together waiting for our parents to show up couldn't have been any less exciting."

-----

Rainbow Dash crossed her forelegs as she sat back in the cloud chair she'd sculpted for herself while stuck waiting in camp counselor's office. She glared across the room at Gilda, whose tail was lashing around from side to side as she agitatedly pawed at the floor. When the griffon turned her head to look back at her, Dash huffed and turned away. This went back and forth several times until they eventually made eye contact and stared each other down for several seconds.

"This is all your fault," the two girls simultaneously snapped at one another, followed by a mutually indignant, "What do you mean my fault?!"

Rainbow Dash shouted, "I could've handled those guys! You should've just kept your dumb, stupid butt-face out of it!"

"Maybe I would've, if I knew you were gonna be such a whiner! Ugh, you ponies are all so lame!"

"Lame?!" Dash hopped off her chair and flapped over toward Gilda, where she hovered in front of the griffon. "I'm gonna be Captain of the Wonderbolts when I grow up! You can't get any more awesome than that!"

Gilda snorted derisively. "Who cares? I'm gonna be Captain of the Stormriders! They're waaaaay more awesome than your dweeby Blunderbolts!"

Dash recoiled as though Gilda had smacked her with that comment, but was quick to recover. "Dweeby? Have you seen the Wonderbolts do the Dragon's Breath formation?"

Gilda hopped up into the air and hovered along with Rainbow Dash. The two of them started circling each other in the air as she shot back, "That's cub's play! You wanna see real flying, watch Captain Shrike do the Triple Gotterdamerung!"

"Slipstream's Sideways Silver Strut!"

"Geralt's Golden Gust!"

"Ha, I could do that one in my sleep!"

Gilda scoffed. "Yeah, right, a puny pegasus pony like you could never get that kind of wingpower."

"I totally can!" Dash retorted. "I'm the fastest flier in this whole camp!"

"Fastest pegasus maybe, but I'm, like, twice as fast as any pony here!"

"Yeah, well I'm three times as fast as you!"

"And I'm ten times as fast as you!"

The duo had been circling each other faster and faster in the confined space. Their eyes stayed locked on one another, both of them determined to not be the first to look away. Even when the air followed them, forming a small tornado between them, neither broke their impromptu staring contest. Neither of them cared when the whirlwind they had created reached up to the ceiling and tore open the cloud to let the light shine down. Instead of sparing a single thought to it, they simply shouted, "Alright, prove it," at each other, then took off through the hole as fast as their wings could take them.

-----

A few hours later, filly and griffoness both lay on their backs atop a cloud, their chests heaving as they stared up at the bright blue sky above.

"You sound... pretty tired..." Gilda taunted between gasps for air.

"Just... giving you... time... to catch your breath..." Rainbow Dash wheezed.

They were quiet for several more seconds, until Gilda said, "You were... kinda cool... back there..."

Dash blinked and turned her head toward the griffon in disbelief. "Wha...? You making... fun of me again...?"

Gilda took a deep breath and looked back. "Seriously. I've seen you around. Most of these ponies... they run and hide, soon as something challenges them. You don't back down. You don't give up. Heh... those three jerks were ready to make yellow rain, soon as I showed up, but you didn't even care. It was cool."

Rainbow Dash looked back up at the sky and admitted, "You were kinda cool, too. I mean, it's not like I needed any help, but it was pretty awesome seeing the looks on those dummies' faces."

Gilda snorted with laughter as she and Dash started to pick themselves up despite the protests of their aching bodies. "It totally was, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, you've got some speed, too," Rainbow Dash said with a smirk. "You almost caught up to me a few times there."

Gilda scoffed. "Puh-lease! What're you, blind? You were practically eating my tail the whole way out here!"

"You just didn't see me because I was so far ahead!"

"You're hallucinating from all that cloud you ate earlier!"

Gilda and Rainbow Dash glared at each other again, growling and baring their teeth. Both expressions faded into a determined grin as they turned back toward the camp and settled into a starting posture. "Loser has to hoof over her desserts for an entire week," Gilda said.

"You mean talon over. Three..."

"Two..."

"One..."

"GO!"

-----

Rainbow snickered to herself as her cottage eventually came into view. "We still got in trouble for taking off like that, but convinced our parents that the fight was just a friendly scrap. Gilda's parents were cool about it. Guess it's normal for griffon cubs. And my folks... they were dealing with their own stuff, so I got off light."

Twilight nodded. "Well, I guess I can see why you two get along so well. So, did you keep in touch at all after you started living with Zecora?" When her friend didn't respond right away, she looked over to see Rainbow Dash looking down at the dirt path as they walked. "Rainbow...?"

Rainbow Dash didn't look up as she replied, "I... didn't want anypony I knew to find me when I was living in the Everfree, Twi. I especially didn't want to have to face Gilda. She didn't..."

Dash trailed off for several seconds before turning to look at Twilight with a hopeful grin. "Look, just promise me you'll give her a chance. I know most ponies think she's a lot to take, but she's cool. Just don't be lame and start going over spreadsheets or anything, and you'll get along great."

Twilight furrowed her brow. "Spreadsheets aren't lame! They're a very valuable organizational tool, and--" When Rainbow Dash cut her off by drooping her head and faking snoring while they walked, the unicorn let out an exasperated groan. "Okay, fine. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, and I'll make sure Sunburn and the others do the same."

Twilight then turned her attention up the path again, and tilted her head at what she saw. "Rainbow... is that a bunny riding on top of a bear's head?" She squinted to get a better look. "And... what's that the bear's holding?"

Rainbow Dash looked up to see what Twilight was referring to, and groaned as she galloped ahead. "Hey! Harry! Twi and I have got this, so set them down! Hey, stop jabbering at me, rabbit! You know I don't speak demon-spawn, so just get down from there! I just don't want those three waking up and seeing--"

The pegasus was cut off as the screams of three timid earth ponies regaining consciousness in the arms of a large bear once again rang out, shaking the leaves of every tree for a quarter mile.

Comments

[Hopeful_Ink_Hoof]

So far, in all three stories, the cruelest, most sadistic thing you have done in this series is make Angel poor Rainbow Dash's responsibility.

In seriousness, it's a pretty good chapter. The entire scene of their youth is something that I could fully imagine happening even in the actual canon of the show. Makes me all the more curious about what happened though.

[RanmaChaos]

Great

[djthomp]

That's a really great take on Dash and Gilda meeting. As it has already been said, it could slot into canon very easily.

[CrowMagnon]

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4754885

Thanks, guys. Making the flashback a believably in-character kicking off point for their friendship was my main concern there. I'm really glad to hear that it worked.

[ZealousChristian24]

4755381 It most certainly did!

"Yeah! You're a real baaaaaad-flank," Dumbell bleated.

.. Did one of those three just make a joke that was almost vaguely clever?... THE APONYCLYPSE IS NEIGH! FLEE! FLEE FOR YOUR LITTLE HORSEY LIVES!

You know I don't speak demon-spawn

You could always hire Diamond Tiara to translate.