Supercrusin' Chapter 1

by Rainbowflash

Part 2 - Backstory

Scootaloo rolled her hay fries around on a plate. The skies were dark; Clouds were starting to roll in. Nopony was outside; all the Pegasi were in their cloud homes, admiring their handiwork and imagining the thanks from all the pony farmhands who had ordered the rain tonight. Scootaloo was sitting at the dinner table, quietly thinking about the day’s events. It was all a blur after the incident.
A few hours ago, she had locked herself in her room and told Applebloom and Sweetie Belle, who frantically came knocking 5 minutes later, to go home.
She remembered them shouting a resounding, “Are you sure Scootaloo? You know that quitters never win.” In her sadness, all she could respond was an adamant, “Leave me alone.”

Am I grounded forever?

The question echoed in her mind.
Her parents, who had already finished their dinner, were upstairs talking, leaving Scootaloo downstairs to think in silence.

There was a sudden, light tapping on the door. “Go get the door, Scootaloo!” her parents yelled. Scootaloo slowly eased herself off the chair and sulked to the door. She opened the door, and to her surprise, saw Rainbow Dash there, sporting a smug grin and awkwardly pounding her hooves on the welcome mat below.

“Uh, hi Scootaloo. Can I come in?“ Rainbow asked.

* * *

Shock Diamond was Rainbow Dash’s classmate and rival. Even from the point the two ponies met, she was always the better flier. Although aged a bit older, she had the perfect mix of speed and strength. Her body and wings were thin and curved, perfect for complex aerial stunts. In both wing and leg strength, she excelled. Rainbow still remembered the first time she met her, in an introductory course in getting airborne at the Filly Flight School.

“Remember to flap your wings vigorously, but maintain control,” the instructor intoned. Shock was able to get it on her first try. Rainbow, slightly shy at the time, didn’t mind. Ignoring her initial difficulty in hovering, and practicing for a full week, Rainbow was soon able to maintain the same altitude as Shock initially did.
After a month, Shock was able to glide, swoop, spin, dive, and loop. Rainbow could dive, but even her dexterity in that was incomparable to that of Shock, who set a new record in the school by turning 90 degrees from a straight vertical to horizontal a mere 15 feet off from the ground. In every event, from weight lifting to speed tests, she always outperformed Rainbow. The competition was starting to tear Rainbow apart. Rainbow trained, asked her parents for extra lessons, and practiced in her free time, but in every single grade throughout her time in Filly Flight School, she could never beat Shock Diamond. It was only during one fateful summer flight camp did Rainbow Dash finally clear some territory for her own, by being the first in her class to perform a Sonic Rainboom in front of her peers.

As if on cue, Shock Diamond performed one in a Filly Cup race a week later, emanating bigger and brighter rainbow that cleared the skies around Cloudsdale for weeks. Pegasi had to go miles in each direction to bring back the scattered clouds. The ground below suffered a brief drought. Rainbow never got over the event.

This “cold war” of sorts between these two titans of aviation came to a peak at a race in Manehattan seven years later. That’s when the accident occurred.

By that time, Shock, merely a 19 year old mare, enjoyed a large media following, and she was hailed as a new aviation luminary by the latest magazines and tabloids. Some praised her ability and control. Others were more curious in which colt she was having a relationship with. She began sponsoring aerodynamic socks and body suits for the large clothing companies headquartered in Canterlot. Carrot juice companies began seeking her out for advertisements, and soon Shock’s face was plastered all over the billboards, holding a bottle of good ol’ Carrot Infusion.
A certain nervous anxiety grew in Rainbow, who had never been bested so thoroughly by another. Before the Filly Flight School, little Rainbow was always used to destroying the competition in the ground races or wing-lifting challenges that she and her neighborhood friends held weekly.
Shock’s break into stardom culminated in one event, that Manehattan Stakes, which involved both an exhibition event and a race. Although steeped in popularity, and admired by colts across Equestria, the trick she was attempting was completely new. Succeed, and she would earn her place among a select few in the Aviation Hall of Fame. Fail and the media would tear her apart. Fully consumed by her fierce audacity which was bordering on condescension, she had yelled loudly for everyone’s attention. With all eyes on in the press conference, when the photographers and media specialists had all settled down, she announced that she had a new trick that would revolutionize aviation forever. It was a state of supercruise, or sustained supersonic flight.

“The trick is unperformed and extremely experimental. This is the first time I will be attempting such a feat, and history WILL be made today,” Rainbow remembered her saying.
The trick, according to Shock’s explanation, was extremely hard to pull off. Not only did they pony need to achieve the necessary speed to break the sound barrier and produce a Sonic Rainboom, she or he had to have the discipline to maintain that speed and fight the air resistance. The trick had been written in the books for years as a possible new frontier, but nopony had ever attempted it, until now. All of the media, in bated breath, considered the possibilities. Pegasi could travel faster than before, speeding mail delivery and communication. The cloud-clearing industry would benefit greatly as clouds could be cleared for weeks. Natural Disasters such as tornados or hurricanes could become mere gusts, if there were ponies that knew how to endure both high temperatures and fierce winds, and could deflect or counteract the spinning motions of such disasters.

Shock had invited multiple other ponies, including Rainbow, to attend. By this time, Rainbow was happily living in the skies above Ponyville, minding her own business. Shock had moved on, and Rainbow was enjoying her own regimen of training to join the Wonderbolts. However, the old competitive racer in Rainbow itched for glory, and was insatiably curious about Shock’s new trick. At the time, seats in the stadium were sold out; Rainbow accepted not for the competition, but for a front-seat view of this new trick.
Shock had invited 7 other robust mares, with many awards and honors stacked on their heads, to participate. Ultimately, this competition was not a race at all. It was just an exhibition of Shock’s repertoire of tricks. Even Rainbow, a top competitor by most standards, was just another pawn that Shock was going to beat for the media to gobble up and spit out on the newspapers.

All of the other ponies tried valiantly to pull off of their tricks. Rainbow Dash likewise gave her best effort.
Shock Diamond performed her tricks flawlessly, shattering the standards Rainbow Dash had stringently imposed on herself and setting a new bar. The crowd cheered her on. The round was over, and the winner was apparent.

Round Two was the race. It began like any other. It was a simple stretch of airspace above Manehatten that would involve flying off from a skyscraper below the Cloud Stadium, going through a stretch of clouds, turning a U-turn at the bay, flying through a stretch of the Everfree forest, returning to the skyscraper, and crossing the finish line at the tip of the structure.

Rainbow stood at the ready with all of the other ponies. Once the shot began, the others, now unmotivated and apathetic, flew at a comfortable pace while Rainbow Dash and Shock Diamond shot out of the skyscraper in a seemingly 1 on 1 match. The beginning was interesting, with the ponies neck and neck, but Shock Diamond stretched ahead to take the lead with a tired Rainbow Dash trailing. Rainbow wouldn’t give up and picked up a bit of speed, attempting another Sonic Rainboom. She formed a small shock cone around her, but she was much too tired. The sweat was blinding her and she slowed, letting the shock cone ricochet her backwards a few meters. She watched as Shock Diamond picked up speed ahead, pulling off a Sonic Rainboom flawlessly, and then maintaining her speed to supercruise. She turned into an orange-yellow streak moving across the sky, dazzling her fans above.

The original calculations made by her advisors and coaches showed that Shock Diamond would have enough space to perform her trick without colliding into any other skyscrapers had she tried to pull it off at a certain area away from the starting line, after the third turn. In her haste to impress the media, she attempted the trick much too early, only after the first turn.

Shock Diamond was now faced with the problem of multiple tall, metal objects obstructing her flight path. She swerved the best she could, but a small mistake on her part resulted in her wing clipping a metal window-washing platform hanging from a skyscraper.

She lost control. Her speed and altitude dropped steadily, but it took her to the outskirts of the city. The crowd watched in horror as she spiraled slowly down towards the horizon. Her body became a small orange dot, a speck, and then nothing. The other ponies returned to the finish line. Without all of the ponies returning to the starting line, the 2nd round was never truly finished, and the final placements were then based on the scores of round one. Not surprisingly, Shock was announced to be the winner, right as the police and paramedics quickly began searching for her in the outskirts of town. She was never found.

Rainbow Dash saw the trick. She wanted to know how it was done. After Shock’s supposed death, it was assumed that the secret died with her. The event inspired Rainbow to fly harder and train harder. Rainbow wanted to learn the art; it was the ultimate form of speed and a surefire way to get herself inducted into the Wonderbolts.

* * *

Rainbow Dash sat down with Scootaloo by the table. “Listen… uh… there’s something important I want to tell you.”

Rainbow knew that within this filly was the secret in its entirety. Not only would the secret give Scootaloo something unique to herself that separated her from her pegasi peers, but Rainbow, after learning it, might actually impress the Wonderbolts enough at the Grand Aviation Expo next year to earn herself a place.

Scootaloo just needs the right training.

“Scootaloo, today got you down, but whatever. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is this. There’s a flying event above Ponyville in seven months and I think I can train you to fly fast enough to get you a spot in there to compete.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” Scootaloo replied.

“No. I know you like to fly. I saw you try. Reminded me about myself when I was younger. C’mon, let’s do it.”

“I’ll get back at you tomorrow.”

“Alright, alright. Just take what I said and think about it. Then tell me tomorrow. I’ll probably be out, but… uh… ask Pinkie Pie. She always knows where I am for some reason.”

“Alright.”

Rainbow Dash backed out of the room and hastily left the house, quietly closing the door behind her. Scootaloo remained sitting at the table, tumbling her vegetables and hay around...

Either take this opportunity, or remain grounded forever
What would Sweetie Belle and Applebloom say?

Her inner mind responded.

They would say, “do it”. They would say, “You’re the bravest, roughest, toughest filly around! You’d never let this thing keep you down.”
Sweetie Belle and Applebloom look up to you, Scootaloo, for support during hard times. You’re Scootaloo! The greatest scooter rider in Equestria!
You want to fly, but that doesn’t mean quitting upon initial failure. If you want something really badly, then will you do anything, even take the greatest risk, to achieve it?

Scootaloo understood.

Comments

[BlankFlankBrony]

Hmmm... my trope awareness senses are tingling...

I have a hunch who Scootaloo's mom is. Like mother, like daughter?

[mbpony 512]

Interesting back-story on the OC rival for Rainbow Dash.

If it is related to Scootaloo in a way, this could make things both awkard and interesting in the coming chapters re-examining Rainbow's relationship with the little filly.

Please do keep up the good work upon such a great tale like this one as I cannot wait to see what happens next.

[PonyBlue]

Nah, I think it would be best if Shock Diamond was dead.... a testament to the dangers of supersonic flight. Rainbow Dash is putting a filly in a very dangerous position and she needs to be able to stand back and say "Stop, we shouldn't push the envelop any further," which I believe is a difficult thing for Dash.

A ghost and memory is the hardest thing for Rainbow Dash to equal or beat. A ghost will always be better, because you remember it being better than you , so it will always be better. By being dead, Shock Diamond says it can be done but offers no clues how it could be done.

scootaloo is shock diamonds reincarnation

[Cheezy805]

The thought seems to be occurring that Scootaloo is Shock Diamond. She seemed to shrink into the horizon, so I'm wondering if supercruising reverses one's age, or if it was part of the stuff-up. Either way, I probably won't read this any further. It's a passable effort, but doesn't seem to be worth the trouble of reading, to me. Good try, though.

[NimbleBolt]

scootaloo's mom is shock diamond I just know it. after the race they couldn't find shock's body, I wonder why? she most likely left and went and settled down and had a filly and thats where scootaloo comes from.

[crazy-asian]

Y U NO RELEASE MORE CHAPTERS?!

[Rainbowflash]

93326 Patience, my friend. I have recently been acclimating to DAH SPRING. And now I need to start writing again.

[bcsnakeeyes]

this is defenitly a story that needs more chapters.