A Dash of Gold

by Wise Cracker

The Thunderclad

Chapter 3: The Thunderclad

“Are you sure this is going to be alright?” Rarity asked worriedly.

With Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash setting up some thunderclouds in the sky, Twilight checked her calculations.

“I’m sure. I think Rainbow Dash is too focused to make any mistakes now. Maybe a new look did make it easier to change herself for the better.”

Rarity nodded.

“Indeed, I’ve never known her so composed.”

“Okay, all set. You ready down there?” Rainbow called out. Twilight put down her notes as her friends came in for a landing.

“We’re ready,” Twilight replied, ”any sign of trouble and we’ve got you.”

The golden mare nodded in thanks, then assumed her starting position. The section of the apple orchard they were in was quite clear, and what trees there were had been harvested a month ago, so if they knocked off any stray leaves or apples, it wouldn’t matter. Pinkie Pie was off preparing her own act for the try-outs, something she guaranteed would be a “bang those ‘Bolts would never forget”. The Apple siblings were getting their quota for the week, so that left the four of them a nice and quiet spot for Rainbow’s new act.

“Okay, so first I rush in.” She zoomed straight over the ground, landing directly behind the first cloud she’d set up close to the ground. ”Then I bounce off the first cloud, show my signature moves, then wrap up with the Thunderclad.” She looked up at the biggest cumulonimbus. "Then straight down to go into a High-Speed Strut.”

Rarity frowned a little at that.

“Something wrong, Rarity?” the dyed mare inquired.

“Well, I’m not sure, Dash. I’m not too familiar with stunt shows and the like but if you want to look like a professional and not just someone playing in a contest, you should put your most impressive move at the beginning, not the end. You want to captivate the audience’s attention right away, not finish with something that would make them forget the rest of your act. That’s more for amateur contests like the Young Flyer’s Competition, not a professional performance.”

Dash considered it. It was true: the fashion unicorn had no sense of stunts at all. But she did know a thing or two about shows, and had a lot of experience in taking centre stage.

Nopony ever upstaged Rarity, not in a fair fight, at any rate.

“Okay, so first the Thunderclad, then high-speed strut, then bouncing around the clouds. Got it.”

As Rainbow Dash took off straight up to practise her new move, the two unicorns whispered to each other.

“Twilight, have you noticed something off about our dear Rainbow?”

“You mean how she’s taking it seriously and accepting advice? Yeah, she err… hit a bit of a rough spot after she left your place. Couple of things pent up that just came crashing down on her. Don’t worry, it had nothing to do with you, and she’s better now. You should’ve seen her this morning clearing the clouds: fresh and peppy like a filly with a new toy,” Twilight replied slightly awkwardly just as a loud crack of thunder erupted from the sky. Fluttershy ducked in fear, then put on her headphones. This was going to be a loud and long afternoon for the poor pegasus, but never let it be said that she wouldn’t suck it up for a friend. At least, as long as there were no dragons involved.

Rainbow Dash, meanwhile, had gotten a decent-sized thunderbolt rushing behind her. It was the sort of trick pegasi could do, part of their innate magic that allowed them to walk on clouds and send out lightning with some degree of accuracy. Having it trail behind her was a simple matter of slowing it down and speeding herself up, and while it wasn’t difficult once one got the hang of it, it still looked quite impressive, and it was tricky to learn.

“My, I can see why she wants to do that.” Rarity stared in awe as she beheld her friend pulling up and letting the thunderbolt continue on and fizzle harmlessly on the ground.

“Actually, that’s not the Thunderclad. That was a Cloud Hammer. She took off right as she kicked, so the lightning never actually touched her beyond her tail. And she didn’t get a very big bolt, either.” Twilight pointed to the lack of singed earth where the bolt landed. ”She’s just practising the basics for now.”

“So what, then, is a Thunderclad like?” Rarity was more than a little worried now. The next thunderclap didn’t help much, either.

“It’s a pretty amazing trick, according to what I’ve found on it. First she bucks a cloud hard enough to get the lightning out, from below so she can control it from the source. Then, very important, she keeps contact with the cloud long enough for the charge to pass through and over her, flying backwards and upwards. Then she lets go and rides the wake of the bolt, spinning to stay stable as the lightning crackles around her, the vibrations of the energy would knock her off course otherwise. Then it’s a free fall towards the ground, and as she pulls up she makes this sizzling sound as the charge dissipates around her.”

Another thunderclap, and another dive towards the ground. Rainbow Dash wasn’t taking any chances.

“I see. And what happens if she does something wrong?”

“You don’t wanna know.” Twilight frowned.

The potential for error was staggering: if Dash didn’t put enough force in the cloudbucking, the bolt would dissipate too soon and she’d have to contend with varying momentums. If she didn’t steady herself properly, the bolt would be launched and she wouldn’t have the contact with the cloud needed to get it around her. That would leave her in a position where she was not only falling down, but also having to outfly lightning she didn’t control anymore, which no one could do. Then there was the spin, the pulling up… but then, the rainbow-turned-gold mare did know what she was doing. This would be for the career, for the dream.

“You ready?” Rainbow Dash stood in position again. ”I’m gonna try it for real now.”

Fluttershy, for her part, steadied her nerves and called her butterfly friends just in case the unicorns’ magic was too slow. At the very least, they’d be able to dissipate the electricity for her insect friends to catch Dash safely.

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and went into her zone. With a firm thrust of leg and wing, she soared up towards the black cloud, then stopped for just a moment of weightlessness. With perfect control, she bucked the cloud and gave a firm flap of the wing to keep from flying forward. She grunted a little at having to fight both gravity and her own movement. Sure enough, the sparks washed over her as the thunderbolt enveloped her. In a split second, the energy was covering her, making her golden fur stand up and glow even more. Her wings groaned under the pressure, but she knew it was worth it.

She let go.

Rushing down, she started her slow, deliberate spin to keep the vibrations around her going without losing her stability or messing up her internal organs. Then, with ample time before hitting the ground, her wings flapped again and she pulled up, leaving what looked like faerie dust in her wake.

She turned and landed, then checked her friends’ expressions. They were looking at her funnily.

“What? How did it look? Did I miss anything?”

Fluttershy shook her head, for once the first to break a reverie.

“No, it was perfect.”

“Yeah, that was a textbook example, literally,” Twilight remarked. ”How are your wings feeling?”

The pegasus looked to her side and gave those flappers a little stretch.

“No sorer than they should be. I guess that bucking practice yesterday really paid off.”

“Not to mention going to sleep with your wings taped in to recover,” Twilight thought.

Looking back, she noticed a few small fillies had gathered… and their parents… and teachers. As a matter of fact, quite a few ponies had shown up to see Rainbow Dash train. Scootaloo was the only one brave enough to actually approach the mare herself, though.

“Hey, Dash! We heard the thunder and thought we might get a sneak peek.” The likewise golden-hued filly gave her idol a big grin.

Rainbow Dash grinned right back, but she stopped herself from her first response.

“Okay, you can watch, but remember: this is practice. You can’t distract me or my safety crew, and take care that you don’t damage anything. This isn’t my place, you know. If Applejack comes along and wants you to leave, you leave, got it?”

Scootaloo nodded, as did all the other ponies. Rainbow sighed as she got ready to practise some more. She did have a problem with performing in front of crowds before, might as well make sure she could handle it now.

To their credit, no one present ever so much as gave a “Woohoo!”, not even Derpy. Granted, there were five ponies, three rabbits and a fully grown alligator keeping watch on her to make sure she didn’t even move. But all in all, everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing: don’t mess it up for Rainbow. As she went through the motions of her routine time and time again, perfecting her technique step by step with the zeal they’d come to know and love from the speedster, no one dared to distract her.

Slowly but surely, her launching cloud was lowered to the point where the safety measures wouldn’t cut it anymore. At best, they’d be able to cushion her fall, but they’d have to be really fast to react properly. Of course, Dash herself knew what to do in case of an emergency; she was fast enough to compensate.

“Okay, I’ve gotten it all down now. Who wants to see the whole thing?” she called out to her audience. She’d mastered all the pieces, only thing left was to put them together.

As quiet as they had been, they all cheered her on. Dash gave her friends a brief look, just a reminder she wouldn’t let hubris get the better of her, not this time. They nodded back, they wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her. One could almost see Twilight running over the many things on her mental checklist and giving the ‘all clear’.

The cloud she’d be bucking hung a lot lower now, but she’d practised enough to get the transition into a High-Speed-Strut down even with a short reaction time. Something in the back of her head told her she shouldn’t, though, that she was missing something important. She pushed it aside and went into the zone as she took off again. Like clockwork, she hung in mid-air at perfect distance.

She wasn’t sure what happened, but next thing she knew she was hurtling towards the ground with a lightning burn on her right flank and ringing ears from a far louder bolt than she’d gotten so far.

She panicked, heart racing and breath nearly stopping. Her wings were locked from the shock, and she’d drawn her legs in close. The ground was rushing in to meet her, and the crowd gave a hushed gasp in unison. She was spinning, but she wasn’t riding the bolt, it had already struck her. She stopped herself from worrying about what had happened and concentrated as best she could on limiting the damage.

Her panic reflex allowed a moment of clarity. As she spun, she stretched out her legs before she opened her wings, making sure to slow her rotation first. A leg's length off the ground, she pulled up clumsily, but still in time to stay in line with her act. She was too unsteady to strut, but she lined up her blow on the first bounce perfectly. With a loud cotton pop, she bounced off the first cloud into a summer sault, gritting her teeth at the pain still shooting up her right hind leg. Without the concentration to properly toughen herself up, she had to keep her momentum, otherwise the sudden stop could cause some serious damage to her joints.

Second cloud, standard ram with her left flank. It should have been a clean swoop with a tail swish for a Buccaneer Blaze, but there was no time for proper technique now. Third cloud, tense up the stomach muscles for a belly flop and a spread eagle jump… then the landing.

The whole thing was over in a matter of seconds. As she neared the ground, she could scarcely believe she’d managed it. But now for the painful part. She turned to meet the ground with her shoulder, giving the soil a firm whack with her hoof as she landed before skidding to an ugly, dusty stop.

Her friends came running. She could almost hear their suppressed outcries, how they hadn’t dared stop her because she just kept going, how they feared that they’d only wind up hurting her if they tried to catch her. They were right: a misfire was simply not on Twilight’s list of “Things We Need to Stop from Killing Rainbow”.

The whole thing had blindsided them. This wasn't supposed to be even possible.

The speedster gave them an embarrassed smile as she got to her hooves. "It’s always what you’re not prepared for that gets ya," she thought. At least they had the first-aid kit ready this time. And aside from the lightning burn, there wasn’t so much as a scratch on her.

“I’m alright, folks!” she waved her hoof at the crowds, who promptly erupted in applause.

“Wow, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo came running before anyone else got a word in, ”I didn’t know you did comedy acts, too!”

“Yeah, comedy acts… tadaa!” she added that last one with a blush. Applejack had joined the fray by now as well.

“What happened? You were doin’ so well the whole time. Are you sure you’re fine?” AJ asked. She’d probably staid out of sight to avoid distracting her friend.

“I dunno,” came the reply. ”About what happened, I mean. I’m really fine, though. I know how to break my fall. I just don’t know what went wrong. The cloud just… went off.”

Twilight pondered it for a moment. She turned around to check the crowds, then noticed one pony was shuffling away…the wrong way, in fact, opposite from where every other pony had come from. She didn’t recognise the figure due to a hooded cloak, but the cloak itself was slightly familiar.

---

Twilight teleported blindly to try and catch up, which didn’t close the gap much since her target could apparently do the same.

“Hey! Stop!” Twilight wasn’t very good at playing police, but she tried.

Fortunately, right at that moment, the cloaked figure bumped into a tree. On closer inspection, it was a red tree. One with several trunks and an angry face, even. It took some time, but eventually she realised she’d run into a stallion, not a tree. There was just very little difference concussion-wise.

“You again,” Big Macintosh loomed over her as Twilight came running. The pony’s hood had been knocked off, revealing a blue unicorn.

“Trixie,” Twilight confirmed, ”what are you doing here?”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie will be competing in the try-outs, naturally. It will be the perfect chance to show that I am the greatest pony in all of Equestria,” she boasted.

“Uh huh,” Big Mac interjected, ”I saw that dirty little trick you played. You had that cloud blow too soon and nearly sent poor Rainbow straight down.”

Trixie scowled.

“As if it matters. The Great and Powerful Trixie will be crowned winner no matter what that loser tries to prepare for her show.”

The red stallion took one menacing step forward.

“Now you listen here, missy. That’s twice now you come around and hurt my sister and her friends. You ain’t gettin’ away with a third one.”

Trixie frowned at the hillbilly’s attitude. Even Twilight had trouble taking it seriously: Big Mac just wasn’t the threatening type, big though he was.

“Is that a challenge?”

“Nah,” came the stoic reply, ”that’s a warnin’.”

With a twinkle of her horn, she conjured up a thundercloud and gave the big lug a firm bolt to his hind quarters.

Big Mac didn’t jump, he didn’t even flinch. He just glared at her even more menacingly. This finally broke the unicorn’s composure and sent her into a bit of a panic. She gave him another bolt, and another, and another. He never budged, except to lean in closer. Twilight was sure that sort of abuse would have to leave a painful burn, even for a workhorse like him.

“I was raised big and strong on Zap Apples. Takes more than a little prestidigitation to shake me up. So you listen: I want a fair competition this Tuesday, ya hear? I catch you cheatin’ again, and I’ll kick you outta town so fast your tail will be sendin’ postcards to your mane. Is that clear?”

Now both unicorns were shaking in their hooves. Twilight had never seen Big Mac so angry before. He got upset, sure, but mad? Really mad? It was hard to imagine things that stuck around long enough to get him that far. Trixie, true to form, hid her fear with the usual bravado.

“I don’t have time for this. The Great and Powerful Trixie needs to prepare for her act.” She turned her back on him.

“Git!” he snapped, which sent the show pony running scared.

Twilight walked over to the guy, his expression softening up with the blue arrogance on legs gone.

“Wow, that was… scary,” she followed Big Mac as he walked towards a nearby shed with a puddle of rain water.

“I just don’t like anyone hurtin’ my kin, is all. Stallion’s gotta step in when a stallion’s gotta step in.”

“Well, I think she got the message.” Twilight glanced at his flank, which had taken four bolts of lightning without so much as fazing him. ”I didn’t know Zap Apples made you immune to lightning.”

“They don’t.” And with that, he plunked his rump into some cold water, his face contorted in that unique mix of pain of relief only seen on those cooling off burned hindquarters.

“Let me just get you some burn cream for that.” Twilight put up as serious a face as she could, which didn’t amount to much in this situation.

“That’d be lovely,” he replied dreamily.

---

“Fancy flying you got there, Dash,” Fleetfoot walked up to the golden mare, out of that tight costume for now, ”Nice coat, too. Didn’t think you’d be taking my advice so literally.”

“Eheh, yeah. I just want to make it look good on the big day.” She averted her gaze, not wanting to embarrass herself in front of her idol.

“Well, you managed to get half the town deserted, so I’d say ‘Mission accomplished’. Good of you to go for a comedy act, too, by the way, gave everyone a right chuckle.” She nudged the dyed mare in encouragement.

“Right. Comedy act. Gotta leave’em laughing, you know.” Rainbow wasn't about to admit that crashing wasn't part of her act, even though everyone could understand accidents happening. She wasn't sure where Twilight had run off to, either, but Dash was sure she'd hear about it later.

“Exactly. Not everyone can change how ponies look at them over the course of a few days.”

Rainbow Dash looked up in confusion. Fleetfoot leaned in a little closer.

“That is what you’ve been doing, right? Getting into character, like your comedy act at the Best Young Flyers Competition? First you make it look like you can’t do any proper tricks, then do something awesome to blow the audience off their seats. I’ve only heard of it, sure, but hey: you look all set to repeat that success; first check out all the safe routes, then surprise everyone with a thought-out crash. And you are really pulling out all the stops for this, aren't you? You’ve got a shiny new golden coat, blonde manes that’d make the boys in Canterlot just drop like flies, and now a funny new act as… well, a stunt ditz. You’ll be the talk of the town for weeks, and if you win, you could get fame all over Equestria.”

That hadn’t occurred to Dash yet, obviously. She’d gotten a new look because she wanted to be rid of what she felt was her reputation as a trouble maker, of an arrogant, overconfident wannabe. Somehow, she hadn’t thought this would actually work. The looks on some of the ponies’ faces as they went home were those of mirth, not admiration.

She wasn’t setting a good example of how to be awesome, she was making sure everyone would remember her as ‘the fake blonde who crashes into clouds’. The fact that Fluttershy was rubbing anti-burn salve on her flank didn’t help her dignity much, either.

“Anyway, you keep that up and you’re sure to win. Everyone likes comedy acts,” the Wonderbolt offered as she walked off, ”and with that sense of showmanship, you could make it to the elite, you know.”

The words kept echoing in Rainbow’s head.

Comedy act. I flew Ghastly Gorge a million times, pushed myself to the limit, trained like crazy… for a comedy act.

I’m gonna make it to the Wonderbolts… on a comedy act.

I risked my life doing all those crazy stunts… and all it amounts to… is a comedy act.

Rainbow sighed, but kept her smile up as the salve eased her minor burn.

She’d have to go through with this now. Crashing like a ditz, the embarrassment would have driven her out of town just a few years ago. But now, it didn’t matter as much. She could make it to the Wonderbolts, a Wonderbolt had actually confirmed it in person. She could live out her dream at last. And her friends would always help her feel better, no matter how much embarrassment she’d have to bring on herself to get to where she needed to be.

She made up her mind right then and there that she’d do anything to finally make the cut, to get the attention of the finest flying team in all of Equestria at long last. It was right within her grasp.

And all she’d have to do to get it, was to make a complete fool of herself.

Comments

[Wise Cracker]

I just want to make it clear right now that this chapter is mostly setting up the finale. I know it's not as funny as the others, it's not supposed to be. Anything that doesn't seem to make sense in this chapter...I assure you, it will make sense once chapter 4 comes rolling around. Or at least try to.

Also, can you catch the Flemish film reference in this chapter? I'll give you a hint: it involves someone fearless.

Things to look forward to: well, the actual competition (see if you can guess what Pinkie's entry will be, subtle hint is dropped), a little bit of flirting between AJ and somepony else, Big Mac being awesome, and another Aesop that I feel needs to be addressed. Also silly character building for Rainbow Dash, but that's a given.

[SkyStream]

Big Mac awesome? I feel like Trixie won't take the warning seriously...

poor Rainbow Dash.... entering the Wonderbolts.... with a comedy act....

[jszellmer]

Takes more than a little prestidigitation to shake me up.

Big Mac's using Big Words! This is serious.