I Dreamt to Fly

by MrDynasty

19: Second Chance.

“So you were allowed to get through because you only technically had 3 spots of paint?” Sweetie Belle asked Scootaloo as they were both trotting to the sides of Applebloom.

Scootaloo nodded, lifting her leg up. “Yep, tails didn’t count apparently! So I just barely got through to the next course,” she said as she smiled.

They were exploring the outskirts of Ponyville, seeing if they could find anything interesting together. They didn’t have any ideas to try and gain their cutie marks and even if they did, they probably couldn’t do it since of Scootaloo having to take it easy.

Applebloom raised an eyebrow. “Wait, so why don’t tails count? Would your mane count if tails don’t?” She asked, looking over to Scootaloo.

She shrugged to her in response. “I don’t know about the mane thing, but I’d like to imagine that it doesn’t count as well. From what I was told about the rules, tails don’t count because we barely have control of them when we’re flying. And I suppose we don’t feel them rubbing up against the paint if they do. Would seem kinda unfair if they did count,” she said, lowering her leg.

Applebloom nodded as she spoke. “I suppose that makes sense... but me and my sister can control our tails though, so is that an earth pony thing then?” She asked.

Sweetie Belle began swinging her tail around behind her as an example. “No, I think everypony can do that. I think that it’s because you’re flying at such high speeds that you don’t have much control over your tail. At least I’m assuming that’s the reason, right Scootaloo?” She asked, waiting for her to respond. “…Scootaloo?” She asked again before realizing that she wasn’t beside the two any more. It didn’t take her long to see that Scootaloo had stopped trotting with them and was looking over to a partly torn down house not far back.

Both Sweetie Belle and Applebloom turned around and went over to her, going by her side. “Did you find something interesting, Scootaloo?” Sweetie Belle asked, looking at the dirty old house.

Scootaloo hesitantly nodded and looked over to her. “Sort of, maybe. I just gained a deep feeling of déjà vu since this house looks a lot like where I used to live by myself. I’m pretty sure it isn’t it though since this one has large gaping holes in the sides; I’m pretty sure I’d remember if my old home had those” she said, beginning to push onto the front door to try and get inside. The door was jammed to the point that she was unable to make it budge, despite any efforts she made at pushing it.

Applebloom pulled Scootaloo out of the way and faced her back towards the door, preparing to kick it with her back hooves. With all the force she could muster, she slammed her hind hooves onto the brittle wood, causing the entire handle to break off and allow access to the house. “I ain’t the sibling of an apple bucker without a good reason!” Applebloom said as she gloated at her strength.

Sweetie Belle laughed nervously, rubbing her leg as she glanced away. “Isn’t this breaking and entering? I don’t think I want to get a cutie mark in burglary, Applebloom,” she said as Scootaloo peeked her head inside of the house.

It only took one glance of the inside for Scootaloo to realize that it WAS actually her old house. The same familiar set up of a room at each side with stairs leading to the second floor gave it away. There also seemed to be a lot of lighting in the house, which was then easily explained by the large gaping holes in the roof. She slowly trotted inside, looking around as she entered. “This IS where I used to live! Boy did this place take quite the beating. How did it get this badly damaged?” She asked curiously.

Sweetie Belle trotted in afterwards, looking around and wincing at the sight of such a dusty and dirty household. “I couldn’t tell you, but if I had to make a guess, maybe that big red guy Twilight defeated a while back? Could he have blasted holes though this place?” She asked as the loud crunching of broken tiles on the ground echoed through the house.

Applebloom came in after Sweetie Belle, picking up some of the rubble with her front hoof and examining it closely. “You know, I’m surprised my kick didn’t bring down the rest of this place. Better be careful you don’t cough too hard,” she said jokingly, throwing the rubble behind her and beginning to trot up the stairs to explore some more.

Scootaloo was going to go into the kitchen, but her attention shifted over to Applebloom as she heard her make a large gasp when she looked inside one of the second floor rooms. Scootaloo quickly trotted up the stairs and went over to her side, wondering what she was gasping at.

When she finally saw what she was gasping it, she couldn’t help but let her mouth drop in surprise. Her old room was a complete and total mess, with walls being torn to shreds and wallpaper sticking out everywhere. They would have gone in to have a better look, but the fact that the entire floor had also collapsed was stopping them from doing so.

Applebloom nervously stepped back and turned around. “I think we better leave before the rest o’ this place falls down. I don’t want to end up becomin’ an apple sandwich,” she said, trotting down the stairs.

Scootaloo couldn’t help but continue to stare at her near completely destroyed old room; it was barely recognisable anymore. She agreed with Applebloom, this building was a disaster waiting to happen. So she turned around and trotted down the stairs as well, following her friend’s hoofsteps. “I guess I won’t be sleeping in there ever again, and not just because the floor fell,” she said, looking up to the fragile roof.

They didn’t take long in getting out of the building, noticing that Sweetie Belle had already left before them as she was waiting outside. Only now did Scootaloo realize how much of a mess her old home used to be back when she lived in it. Seeing the state it was in now only made her that much happier that she moved in with Rainbow Dash two years ago.

They all continued on with their exploration around the outskirts of Ponyville, feeling happy that they at least found something interesting before the day ended.

The remaining days until the fourth course seemed to pass by quicker and quicker, with Scootaloo’s physical state getting better and better along with it. She was hoping that she might be able to get some warm-up training before the fourth course started, considering she was probably going to be quite rusty at flying. However Rainbow Dash didn’t want her to; trying to stick with the doctor’s request that she should take it easy for the whole week.

By the end of the week, the back of her head no longer hurt to touch and she seemed perfectly fine again. Sadly she never had any time to actually practice flying again, so she felt that her rust might be her downfall on the fourth course. At least she could get some practice on the way to the course, right?

There were only 13 fillies left in the league, one of them being Scootaloo. She felt pretty weak compared to the rest of them, but she must have had some sort of talent if she was able to get this far despite just learning to fly.

She was sitting to the side of the group, who as usual, were chatting away with each other. She wasn’t socially awkward, if anything she was quite the opposite; she just didn’t want to interrupt their conversations just to try and fit in.

It looked like she didn’t have to interrupt them, as Rumble trotted over to her with a small smile on his face. “You could probably thank me for getting you back in, since I was the one who snitched about the colt that hit you,” he said, lifting his leg up. “You’ll probably be glad to hear that they stormed off in a tantrum after their cover was blown,” He said, chuckling slightly.

Scootaloo chuckled as well and nodded. “Thanks Rumble, I guess I owe you one for that. Sorry about the course being delayed because it had to wait for me though, I imagined it might have been frustrating,” she said, lifting a leg and looking somewhat sad.

Her mood was quickly lifted again by Rumble, who shook his head in response. “Not at all! If anything it allowed me and all the other contestants to get more practice than we already had! And it’s a good opportunity to take a small break and get your energy back, since these courses can be quite brutal on your energy after a while,” he said as she lowered his hoof and smiled again.

He saw Spitfire about to come over, so he quickly went back into the group of fillies to get ready for the fourth course. Scootaloo was upset she never got to have any bonus practice like the rest of them did, effectively making her competition even more skilled than they already were.

She nudged closer to the group as Spitfire landed next to them and called for their attention. “I hope you all had a good week of practice and rest, since I know a lot of you use the time to hone your skills. Either way, congratulations on making it to the fourth course, but for a lot of you this is where your road ends. No other course has taken out more competitors than this one has, even the final course can’t compete with this one. And they aren’t taken out by what place you finish in, they’re taken out by the course itself,” she said as a mobile chalkboard detailing the course was taken over and put beside her.

It actually looked like somewhat of a simple course, which was odd to Scootaloo. Spitfire pointed to the start section as she spoke to the fillies. “This course tests your ability to angle yourself during flight. The first 25% of it is going to be going at a 45 degree angle upwards, and when you reach the peak height, the course will change into a long 30 degree angle downwards, allowing you to pick up a lot of speed,” she said, running her hoof along the rest of the course on the chalkboard before getting to what looked to be the end. “At the very end of the course, you will suddenly have to do a 90 degree angle straight up. This part of the course has not only made a lot of fillies crash into the clouds from their high speed, but it has also made a lot of them slow to a snail’s pace for safety, causing them to finish in a higher place in the course than they originally were in.”

It looked like half of the fillies here had already encountered this course before, as half of them were looking worried while the other half seemed fine. It was quite an intimidating course, even just in concept. No obstacles, nothing to stop ponies from overtaking others, just a devilishly sharp turn at the very end that killed your speed faster than you might be able to yourself.

Oddly enough, Scootaloo felt like she could do this, despite how intimidating the course looked. Rainbow Dash had taught her about angling herself to either slow down or speed up, so she has done it quite extensively in her training. She was sure that she’d be able to curve up far enough if she tried, even if it meant slowing down just a little bit. She could already tell that it was going to be better said than done though.

Spitfire pointed to the starting line, signalling that they should all get ready to start. They all rushed to the starting line to try and get in a decently good spot before any other filly could. Scootaloo came in after they had all gotten their spots, not wanting to get involved with the sudden rush.

Spitfire trotted behind all of the fillies, examining how prepared they were for the course. She withheld her signals for a couple seconds, leaving nothing but the concentrated silence from every filly at the starting line. “If you finish in 9th place or higher, you will not progress to the final elimination course. If you go face first into the clouds at the 90 degree turn, you will also not progress to the final elimination course,” Spitfire said.

“Ready… set…” Spitfire said, making all of the fillies’ wings tense up in preparation.

“GO!” She shouted, with a sudden large draft sweeping her mane afterwards as every single filly had bolted into the course.

The course looked to be just one long batch of cloud made rings that directed them to where they needed to go. There were no obstacles at all, so it looked like this was going to be another test of speed and control.

The start of the course was fairly easy, since all they had to do was follow the large rings to the peak height of the course. Scootaloo was flying around the back of the group, finding it somewhat tough to try and consistently fly upwards without any prior speed bonuses.

Some of the fillies had already reached the peak and began to dart down the rest of the course, already gaining quite the considerable lead on a majority of the other contestants.

Scootaloo pouted upon seeing that she was already at a huge disadvantage compared to the others who were ahead of her, so she flapped her wings harder to try and quickly get to the large dip in the course where she could gain as much speed as possible.

It didn’t take her long before she reached the dipping point, suddenly dashing down into the extremely long tunnel made of rings. Her speed began to accelerate tremendously, eventually allowing her to overtake some of the other fillies who were originally ahead of her. Suddenly she started to feel excited from her increasing speed, as looked like she wasn’t going to stop accelerating any time soon.

She was flying faster than she had ever flown before, making her blood begin to jump around in her body. A feeling of exhilaration coursed through her mind as she saw ring after ring become nothing but a blur in her vision as she passed each one. She quickly began to try and concentrate again, not wanting to be taken off guard by the brutal 90 degree turn that she could reach at a moment’s notice.

She could see at least five other contestants in-front of her, either going faster than or just as fast as she was. She might not have been able to make them out correctly, but she swore she could see Rumble in third place.

Her concentration suddenly snapped back onto the course as she saw the filly in first place crash into a a cloud wall, obviously showing that the 90 degree turn was closer than they expected. Realizing she had only a couple seconds to react, she began to slow down just enough so that she still had speed, but wasn’t going to end up in the same fate as the filly that crashed.

She quickly curved up and into the harsh turn, suddenly having some small struggles with flying straight up. Her wings felt confused in what direction they were meant to flap, causing her to slow down quite considerable compared to the contestants ahead of her. She continued to persist, using most of her energy to push herself all the way up to the top and land on the finish line.

She was exhausted where she stood, her wings stinging a little from the immense work they had to be put through in the final part of the course. She moved away from the finish line and sat down, just to get out of the way of the remaining contestants who still had to finish.

She noticed that most of the fillies that had finished ahead of her seemed to have no problem flying upwards, with one of them being Rumble. She got up and trotted over to him, raising an eyebrow. “How did you do that so easily? My wings were burning!” She said, tilting her head.

Rumble flapped his wings. “Did you fly straight up? Or did you fly up at a small angle?” He asked, lifting his leg up.

Scootaloo tilted her head and rubbed her neck. “I went straight up. I’m guessing I shouldn’t have done that.” She said.

Rumble nodded, giving her a small smile. “It makes it slightly easier if you’re at a small angle, but this is advanced stuff when it comes to flying. The hardest part for me was the big change in direction and not the direction I was going in,” he said, lowering his leg and closing his wings.

Scootaloo frowned slightly. “Oh, well I wish I had known that before I started. But wait, how come ponies like Rainbow Dash and the Wonderbolts can go straight up so easily then?”

Her question was quickly answered by Spitfire, who trotted up behind them both. “It’s because we’re professional fliers, that’s why. But I suppose I better tell you both what places you came in. Rumble, you came in 2nd place. You haven’t come in a single course above 5th place so far, quite impressive. Scootaloo, you came in 7th place, which could have been better, but at least you made it through,” she said before trotting over to the other fillies to tell them of their scores.

There was such a gap in-between their scores that it surprised Scootaloo, almost making her feel rubbish compared to him. “…Wow, I uh, never knew how much of a good flier you were, Rumble,” she said, laughing nervously.

Rumble shrugged to her. “I’ve entered into every single league so far, so I always know what to expect for the courses. On the first league, I got all the way to this course before I failed. On the second league, I made it to the semi-finals. And now I’m waiting to see how far I get on this one, since I know I have what it takes to win if I try hard enough!” He said, seeming very excited.

His self-confidence was somewhat inspiring for Scootaloo, more than she could say for her own confidence. While she was always confident in a lot of other things, flying obviously wasn’t one of them.

Either way, she made it to the final elimination course! If she gets through that one, she goes through to the semi-finals.