Haunted Wasteland

by forbloodysummer

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“So,” Lightning announced, breaking the calm silence they’d been cruising in heading away from the island, “having had several years to think about it, to grow, to appreciate other perspectives and so on, and see more of how the Wonderbolts work from the inside…”

Internally, Rainbow rolled her eyes. She could tell where this was going. But, since she needed Lightning’s help, on the outside she didn’t make a sign. At least she’d managed to get Lightning flying before she’d had a chance to drink much in the kitchen.

Lightning finished, just as expected, “D’you still think I shouldn’t have been made lead pony?”

And, just like before, you’re making my job more difficult. Thanks, Lightning.

“You went right to it, huh?” She tried not to sound annoyed, but it probably came through that she wasn’t too happy about it.

“It was just gonna be subtext the whole time,” Lightning shrugged and made a face, “might as well get it out of the way.”

The water sparkled as it rushed underneath them, and Rainbow’s wings ached after the overnight flight she’d landed from less than an hour before. But at least the weather was good, and the sea so calm that she and Lightning soared less than a wingspan above it, so she could cruise using ground effect with minimal effort.

“I dunno,” she grumbled, “it might have been nice to have a few minutes of pleasant catching up before we got into a fight.”

“So that’s a yes, then?”

And Lightning kept pushing. And would continue to do so until answered, Rainbow knew, so there was no way around it. Perhaps she could refuse to answer, but that would annoy Lightning, as well as making her answer kind of obvious. Or she could give the answer, and that might be even worse.

She could lie, too – that was an option. But could she actually do that well enough to be believable? Lightning might want to hear it, but surely she’d also question whether it was likely to be true?

She hadn’t saved Equestria a bunch of times by tricking ponies, though, lying to get what she wanted. She’d done it with friendship, and that meant doing it honestly. And if she could reconnect with Lightning through an honest heart-to-heart talk, she might be able to get the information she needed by encouraging Lightning to do the right thing.

A long pause stretched while she ran through everything again to be doubly sure before answering.

“Yeah.” Her heart was pounding away in her chest as she said the first, most important word, and she tried not to let that get to her as she carried on, explaining as much as she could before Lightning could get angry about it. “I get why Spitfire did it, I really do.” Oops, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned her, looking at how Lightning behaved towards her earlier.

But it was probably ok when doing so supported Lightning’s side, maybe? “And she was right,” Rainbow kept going; “Wonderbolts are meant to push themselves.” We might’ve disagreed about the direction, but yeah. There was never a ‘fast enough,’ it had to be ‘as fast as you possibly can, and then faster.’ “And you can’t really teach that to anypony, so you can’t take someone who’s more responsible and then train them into that, you have to start with somepony who pushes and hope that you can teach them to do it safely.”

She made sure she looked Lightning right in the eye for the next sentence, because if she was going to win her over with honesty, then the compliments had to be seen to be just as true as the criticisms. “You were the kind of pony the Academy are right to look for.” And even with everything she knew, admitting that still gave her a tiny sting.

“But?” Lightning wasn’t showing much reaction, probably not until Rainbow had finished her point.

Muscles tightened in her legs for a moment as she pressed her lips together before speaking, getting herself ready. No good way to say it, just get it over with. “But I think the rest of us would have been safer if you hadn’t been flying lead.”

“The rest of you?” Lightning snorted, turning away and covering her mouth with a hoof. When she looked ahead again, she was sneering. “The Wonderbolts are only after the best. You can’t slow down the fastest so the rest can keep up. A Wonderbolt is meant to be the best.”

“Actually they aren’t.” It felt kind of like talking to herself from a few years before, how she’d been back when she first met Lightning. She hadn’t realised how much she’d changed since then. And it really made it obvious how much Lightning hadn’t. “Wonderbolts, the whole lot of them, are the best. Anypony can fly fast, or slalom through an obstacle course; the thing that sets the Wonderbolts apart is how well they fly together as a unit.”

“But you only make the team if you’re the best to begin with.” Lightning was frowning and looking at her like she was stupid, which wasn’t helping.

Rainbow ran a hoof through her mane a few times as she flew, trying to ignore the hair starting to rise on the back of her neck. Lightning didn’t get it, but that wasn’t her fault, she just hadn’t seen the same things Rainbow had.

“Yeah, but… I’m the fastest Wonderbolt.” That had been kind of a shock at first, but it was true. “I literally am: I’m the fastest Wonderbolt the team’s had in years.” ‘You’re the most talented flier we’ve ever had,’ Soarin said, with his big green eyes. Maybe ‘most talented ever’ was going a bit far, but from him she wasn’t going to argue. “And that, uh, doesn’t actually bring as much pride as you might expect. I don’t really think about it much.”

Lightning’s eyebrows went up so high it was like they were trying to take flight all on their own. Did I really used to boast so much that it’s that much of a surprise?!

The whole reason she thought the honest talk might work with Lightning was that the two of them were quite similar, so she might be able to get through to Lightning where somepony like Twilight might not. That meant she had to get Lightning to believe her, so she kept explaining. “Spitfire’s the most manoeuvrable, Soarin has the longest endurance, Misty Fly remembers the moves better than anyone and Fleetfoot’s just a terrible pony.” The chilli in the massage oil had been the worst. “I’m the fastest there, and also one of the lowest on the pecking order. It doesn’t count for as much as you might expect.”

She lowered her head, but made sure she didn’t shake it, as that would look like she was accusing Lightning. And she was, but she didn’t really want to make a big deal of it. Lightning already knew what she’d done; this was more about the reasons behind it. “You put everypony in danger for something not that important.”

“But Wonderbolts are meant to push themselves, you said,” Lightning said hurriedly, jerkily pointing at Rainbow with a hoof which wasn’t yet shaking with anger, but was well on its way to being, “and that’s what the Academy is there to encourage.”

Yeah, but there was a ‘but’ after that when I said it, wasn’t there?

But then Lightning took a moment to cool off, and Rainbow found herself holding her breath at the hope of a more mature answer.

“Look,” Lightning said, “anytime you push the limits, there are going to be casualties.” She ran a hoof over her face, but she had a kind of strength in her voice like she wasn’t just arguing. “Being a daredevil isn’t safe, and can’t be made safe, so somepony is going to get hurt sooner or later. That’s inevitable.”

It sounded horrible, like something ponies should be throwing their hooves up about, but Rainbow had a feeling Spitfire would agree with Lightning on that one. There was probably a drawer of logbooks somewhere in the Academy of records going back the whole time it had been open, and looking through them would show that Lightning was right, and serious accidents did happen from time to time. How often did pegasi die during training? Suddenly Spitfire’s line about an Academy tryout once flying so hard their wings fell off didn’t seem as funny.

Although Lightning was flying with her forelegs stretched out it front of her, Rainbow thought she spotted her shoulders slump as she carried on, “Somepony was always going to get hurt at the Academy, but they keep it open anyway, so I figured everypony had accepted the risks.” She gave a sad smile. Rainbow had no doubts left about her taking it seriously. “I’m just sorry it had to be your friends who were hit. And maybe if it hadn’t been, you’d have been on my side.”

It would always have been somepony’s friends; would it really have been that different if Rainbow hadn’t known them? Maybe she wouldn’t have been as upset, or angry. Worried, sure, but worked up enough to march straight to Spitfire’s office? And then resign?!

“In a way,” she said, “I wish I could have been.” She felt a tightness at the back of her throat, but she tried to chuckle at herself through it. “I fly round Equestria solving friendship problems, but we were only friends for about a week, and look how that ended.”

“It must be said, it’s hardly Element of Loyalty stuff,” Lightning playfully criticised, “going behind the back of your lead pony and friend to complain about her to the pony in charge.”

“It’s not, is it?” Rainbow scratched the back of her neck, wincing as she grinned at Lightning. “But then it was loyal to the rest of the ponies there, and to my friends who came to visit. Although –” she laughed awkwardly and felt blood rushing to her cheeks “– after stepping onto the runway without looking on my first day on the squad, I did start to realise how dangerous it was for my friends to be flying where we were on training exercises.” She shook her head, eyes widening as she really thought about it. “I have no idea why the Academy isn’t in restricted airspace.” Yet another thing she’d have to ask Spitfire.

Lightning looked just as confused, rubbing her chin. “...I guess they never thought anypony would be stupid enough to try flying there?”

This is probably the closest we’re ever gonna come to laughing about this together, isn’t it? “Could be,” she shrugged. And if they were seeing it from the same side like that, then there was another bit to mention, too. “And that also kind of hammered home that Wonderbolts have to be tough, because it’s a dangerous job, and it’s very demanding on your body. So I once thought” – in the months following the all the trouble with Lightning – “that if the Academy is for encouraging pushing yourself then cadets need to be monitored more closely.”

But then she’d actually joined the squad, and begun to understand the proper reasons for the Academy rookie programme, and her plans of how she might change it if she someday became captain pretty much fell apart. “But they also need to toughen up, which means not holding their hooves.”

“Maybe there’s a middle ground,” Lightning said after thinking for a second. Then her nostrils flared. “Maybe if Spitfire had supervised us personally, instead of hiding in her office reading letters from her adoring fans.”

Yeah, that wasn’t fair, or true. Rainbow had seen the stupid amount of paperwork Spitfire sometimes had to deal with, and the way it would mount up on top of all the other stuff she had to do every day until something like trials week came along and gave her a chance to catch up. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t going anywhere either.

Figuring it was best to just ignore the insults at the best captain the ‘Bolts had had in a century, she kept talking as if she hadn’t heard Lightning. “And, also…” She made a face. It was difficult for her to say, and she felt a lump in her throat. “...They need to mess up. They need to learn what happens when they push themselves too far, so they don’t do anything stupid when they’re on the squad and put the rest of the team at risk.”

“I don’t recall that doing me any favours.”

I knew you were going to say that! And when I was trying to be serious and admit something embarrassing, as well.

“You didn’t see it as doing anything wrong,” she said, trying not to snap, “so you were hardly gonna learn from it. Hopefully most others would.”

Lightning looked at her for a moment, eyes going from side to side like she was trying to wriggle her way out of it. “I might’ve learned to get better at controlling tornadoes?”

Snorting, Rainbow caught herself before she lost altitude, as close to the water as they were. “You might,” she agreed. If Lightning was pulling that sheepish face, then Rainbow could push through her own awkwardness and talk about the things she’d prefer not to, but knew she needed to. “Look, my first show with the ‘Bolts, I nearly got a lot of ponies hurt. Myself, my teammates, even the crowd.” She could feel the blush on her cheeks like it was burning, but Lightning had to hear it, and had to hear it from her. “My whole first week there, the main thing I did was try to show off.”

She hung her head, losing herself in the clear waters stretching out beneath her. “That’s why I walked blindly across the runway: I was showing off. I messed up, and everyone teased me for it.” She looked up at Lightning again. “And they were right to, because I should have grown out of that behaviour by then.”

The look she got from Lightning said ‘I think you’ve missed the point,’ which probably meant Lightning herself was the one who’d actually missed it. “Are Wonderbolts meant to grow up?” Lightning asked.

“I didn’t mess up at the Academy,” Rainbow said as plainly as she could, “and that only gave me a bigger ego for when I made the team.” The shame didn’t feel so bad when she was using it to help somepony else, but she still spoke quieter than normal. “If I’d failed at something back then, I might’ve been more level-headed by the time I was on the squad. A team player from the start, and much safer to be around.”

Maybe Lightning understood? She looked like she was thinking about it pretty hard, screwing her eyebrows up as she looked one way and then another.

After half a minute of that, she spoke up again, sounding curious. “Why did you abandon me in favour of the others? Why take their side and have me publicly stripped of rank?”

Nope, Lightning hadn’t listened to a word Rainbow had said, had she? I might have known. “Because you were acting like an ass.”

But perhaps Rainbow had misjudged it, because Lightning stayed a lot more calm than expected and held up her hooves between the two of them instead of getting more angry. “No, no, I get why you think that,” she said, “and why that would lead anypony else to do what you did. But I don’t get how it fits with the loyalty thing. Loyalty is…” she paused to think, eyebrows pressing together and one hoof on the base of her neck, “something that happens almost in spite of the evidence, not because of it.”

Her eyes flicked across to Rainbow, like she was checking she was thinking along the right lines and Rainbow was following, “It’s trusting those you know even when others doubt you should. So why did your old friends and the other tryouts get your loyalty, and not me?”

Like many things, loyalty wasn’t something Rainbow thought about, just something she did. How could she give an answer when she’d never had one before? It had obviously felt like the right thing to do, both at the time and looking back now.

“I guess I thought they needed it more.”

“They were both groups,” Lightning said. “Your friends, and the other recruits; they all had someone they could turn to except me.” The curiosity in her voice was overtaken by accusation. “I only had you. I needed you.”

“And they needed protecting,” Rainbow said straight back. “It didn’t matter how many others they each had on their side when it was me who had to bring it up with Spitfire. I was the one who had to decide.”

“You could have decided to save me.” As well as the anger when Lightning stared at her, Rainbow could see the pain in her eyes. “You could’ve said I was worth another chance, that I could have learned to put more focus on safety if I’d known that was what Spitfire wanted, instead of her encouraging and rewarding me for doing it my way right up until she threw me out.” Lightning was panting, now, and her flight pattern peaked and dipped as each wing beat became more powerful but further apart. “A warning first would have been nice.”

It felt like hitting a turbulent patch of air, but on the inside, as Rainbow’s confidence wobbled. Spitfire had gone from saying Lightning made the better lead pony because she pushed herself more to kicking her out all in one move. How much of that had been because Rainbow had resigned? Before that, Spitfire had said the tornado was excessive; would she then have mentioned that to Lightning and suggested pulling things back in a more gentle way? So how much of it was her own fault, putting pressure on Spitfire like that to have only one of them or the other.

But then, Rainbow had done things on the other side, too; her own attempts to bring Lightning around. “I gave you plenty of warnings,” she said, the words coming out as more of a growl than she meant them to.

“She didn’t.”

From that angle, Rainbow began to understand why Lightning had such a problem with Spitfire. Lightning was wrong, of course – that was just how it had worked out, and Rainbow was at least partly to blame. But she could see how Lightning would think that.

I need to set things straight here.

But Lightning kept going, “Even if not keeping me as lead pony, you could have argued I should be made wingpony rather than expelled.”

And if Lightning blamed her for that already, then taking some of the extra blame she’d dumped on Spitfire was only going to make her want to help with Fluttershy even less.

“You would have hated being a wingpony, even mine. You wouldn’t have stuck it out, and might have disobeyed my lead and done your own thing anyway.”

Had that been too blunt? It felt true, though. And maybe that was part of why Spitfire didn’t offer Lightning a second chance; knowing she wouldn’t accept less than leader?

“Does telling yourself that make you feel better about it?” Lightning was breathing hard through her nose, hard enough to hear a wingspan away. She didn’t take her eyes off Rainbow, daring her to look away and check what was heading towards them. Luckily, Rainbow’s last glance had revealed nothing but smooth waters for miles around.

“Does telling yourself the opposite do the same for you?” Not exactly Rainbow’s most original response, but she gave it a different tone. Even if Lightning was right, and she would have made a great wingpony, that kind of made it worse, as she’d still been kicked out. “I’m not sure it should.” At least if Lightning realised that she was a lead pony or nothing at all, she could get used to just not being a good fit with the ‘Bolts. But if she kept kidding herself…?

“Maybe you’d have done more to defend me if you hadn’t had your sights fixed so firmly on that lead pony badge yourself.”

Silence – the really tense kind of silence, like when waiting for thunder to follow lightning – took over the conversation as Rainbow thought about how to answer. It was only years of flying that kept her wings going completely by themselves.

She had been crushed when she’d been made a wingpony. And even after she’d spoken with Spitfire about it, and understood the reasons behind the decision, she’d still thought it was the wrong one. Even if she and Lightning had made the best team, there was always something second-best about being a wingpony that just didn’t feel like her.

Not only could they have swapped roles on their team, but, if the team itself wasn’t working out, then they could have been split up, and each been a lead pony with a wingpony of their own. Somepony else would have been upset at being demoted, but Lightning was right that even when they’d stuck to the rules, they’d been better than the others.

And Rainbow hadn’t thought of any of that. She’d never exactly said to Spitfire ‘it’s her or me,’ but she had said that Lightning was reckless, and that if recklessness was what the Wonderbolts rewarded, then she was out. And that was kind of the same thing.

Which had left Spitfire having to choose between two ponies, both of whom had recently broken Academy records. But only one of them had ever pulled off a sonic rainboom. Only one of them had ever saved the three top ‘Bolts from an unconscious fall while a full stadium crowd watched. She tried to keep her ego under control instead of letting it control her, but even Fleetfoot – Fleetfoot, of all ponies – had mentioned that Rainbow had saved Equestria more than once. How much choice had Spitfire really had? How much choice had Rainbow given her?

She looked away from Lightning, and her voice cracked when she spoke. “That might be true.” She made herself look back again, with a tight feeling in her chest as she did. “I stand by everything I’ve said today, but if anything I did back then was unfair, and influenced by that, then I’m sorry.”

Lightning said nothing. Not with words, anyway. But the smile she gave Rainbow, that said something. For years, Lightning must have waited for some sign from anypony involved that it hadn’t been entirely her fault, and maybe somepony else shared the blame even a tiny bit, and that smile had been waiting all that time. It said, ‘we could have been such friends.’

Author's Note:

No sirens in this one! None of them are even mentioned by name

This isn't a chapter which would originally have been in the story. But it felt bad using Lightning solely to discuss Aria, and the question became whether the sirens should be the only villains given focus, or whether all the villains mentioned deserved a bit of exploration.

Filthy Rich we've probably seen more of in the show since season five than we have his daughter, so there aren't many great unanswered questions there. But I think it's fair that after not seeing Lightning for three seasons we'd ask how she's holding up.

As of this chapter, this is my longest published story on this site

Comments

[zzzzzz]

Lightning Dust is absolutely right.
And this is why Wonderbolt Academy is a horrible episode.
Like.
https://orig00.deviantart.net/dcb3/f/2013/109/5/0/_request__rainbow_dash_and_lightning_dust_by_vladimirmacholzraum-d62amj9.png

[Boltstrike58]

My main beef with Lightning Dust is that she constantly deflects. It's always "You didn't do enough for me," and refuses to acknowledge "I made a stupid mistake because I was impatient and nearly killed five ponies and I should be sorry." Gimme a break.

[forbloodysummer]

8782289 As in in the actual episode, or in this chapter? She definitely does it here I figured she was rather consumed by it all and absorbed in her own perspective, hopefully that will make more sense by the end of the movement, so I will come back to this reply once all six chapters of Act II are out

[forbloodysummer]

8781258 Thanks, glad you liked it!

I tried writing out various analysis-type responses, but I think I'm going to leave the chapter to speak for itself

[forbloodysummer]

8782289 Sorry, I've only just realised I said I'd come back to this once the whole arc was out, even though the last bit went up two weeks ago

So, (spoiler for the last chapter of the movement), does Lightning's perspective of only thinking of herself regarding the situation make more sense now that we know she'd been reliving it over and over roleplaying it with Aria?