MLP Movie: Equestria's side of the story

by tzening

Chapter 3: The Wonderbolts' Greatest Mission!!!

The skies between Canterlot and Cloudsdale
15 minutes after Canterlot Occupation

The Wonderbolts. An elite team of paramilitary flyers that mainly serve as air show flyers while being called for disaster relief on the side. However, ever since the founding of the Elements of Harmony by Twilight Sparkle, their track record hasn't been the brightest in the land. While not suffering from as much scrutiny from the ponies of Equestria as the Royal Guard due to crisis handling being treated as a lower priority compared to their other duties, failure after failure in matters that required their aid has wavered the faith the ponies have in them regarding matters that aren't doing air shows. So when Spitfire recruited Rainbow Dash, she was hoping that having her in the team would help get the Wonderbolts back to it's former competency by learning from each other.

Sadly, it has been a mixed bag. Rainbow Dash may have the talent and even the care for collateral that not even Lightning Dust had, she still has to learn to work in a team instead of going solo. Acting like jerks to her even when you put in the rookie hazing routine as an excuse combined with earlier said incompetence has put her in this train of thought that she somehow must act the way she is to help get their groove back by being herself instead, effectively giving her this subconscious thought that she is the only competent and sane flyer among the dozen. Thankfully, over time both sides cut down on their respective downsides (Wonderbolts would stop acting like jerks and Rainbow would be more of a team player) to earn each others trust.

It finally worked and it shown that during the Friendship Festival, Rainbow Dash finished clearing her portion of the skies ahead of time before politely requesting to help her friends which she was allowed to.

Then, it all fell apart when the Strom King invaded. Rainbow Dash saved Princess Twilight from being captured the same way as the other 3 princesses but left the Wonderbolts to fend for themselves in her hurry to escort the Princess to safety. Not that the Wonderbolts could have minded since the Princesses are a higher priority after all. However, there is no time to dwell on the past, now there is a more pressing issue at hand.

Upon regrouping in the skies, Captain Spitfire, Soarin, Fleetfoot and Thunderlane are flying towards Cloudsdale. To say that their morale is low would be the understatement of the century.

"So the Wonderbolts, the greatest flyers in Equestria, only 4 out of the main 12 managed to escape excluding Rainbow Dash. I take it that all of the Reserve members who happen to be there are caught as well?" Spitfire asked her colleagues.

"Afraid so sir, those steel nets that came flying towards the pegasi that tried to escape by flying. Blaze pushed me out of the way and got herself caught." Soarin replied in shame.

"The others all got caught in the initial attack. Even I was captured, it took those team of misfits to bust me out. Same situation goes for Fleetfoot." Thunderlane added.

"Now what are we going to do? We aren't simply going to just run, I mean fly away are we?" Fleetfoot asked her captain.

"No we're not!! The Wonderbolts may have started as a flight team by General Firefly that celebrated the first year Princess Celestia's solo reign but after that, we started branching out to keep ourselves occupied and fit for the next show!! Disaster relief, fireponies and help bringing water to Cloudsdale so that we can ensure that the next season come just to name a few. Thanks to our military beginning, we have also been asked to help out the Royal Guard as a paramilitary force. That's what we are doing right now. The main dozen may be here or captured in Canterlot, we can still go to Cloudsdale rally the Wonderbolts reserves that couldn't make it to the Festival. I'm considering DRAFTING civvies if absolutely we have to!! There's no way Canterlot could have fit literally everypony in Equestria!!!" Spitfire told her teammates.

"You are saying like that this isn't just some friendship crisis that keeps getting solved in half an hour and an ACTUAL WAR!! What in the name of Tatarus gave you that idea??" Soarin called out his captain.

"Because of this." Spitfire showed Celestia's Royal Proclamation to her fellow Wonderbolts. "It poofed up right in front of me shortly after the first unidentified airship landed RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY!!!! How did we not see it and the rest of it's friends coming from afar is pretty much the very reason all of Canterlot is in this mess right now!! This is our chance to make things right!!"

---

Cloudsdale, Wonderbolts Academy
30 minutes after Canterlot Occupation

When the Wonderbolts return to the city of Cloudsdale and delivered the news, the city went into a complete panic. There hasn't been much situations that involved actual warfare after thousands of years, with Tirek's escape being the closest and shortest attempt at heroism in pegasus history. In hindsight, firing lighting bolts from clouds from afar would have been a better idea instead of flying straight to a magic-sucking demon at full speed.

"This is bad. Most of the Wonderbolts' reserves only signed up for the primary purpose of being an airshow pony with the other aspects of the job being an afterthought. They have no experience nor the desire to fight in combat. The only pegasi that want to help us are ex-Royal Guards or retired Wonderbolts like Fire Streak. Our numbers are too low to take back Canterlot. Should we order a mandatory draft on the population?" Thunderlane reported to Spitfire.

"No, I managed to cool my head. Ignore what I said about drafting, I'm not throwing lives away. We need quality not quantity. The sonic glider that allowed us to fly as Rainbow Dash's rainboom speed was refitted to armor due to poor design. We just need twelve able pegasi to use them." Spitfire replied.

"Mind if the two of us join?"

Spitfire turned around and saw the two pegasi that she though she would never see again, Lightning Dust and Wind Rider.

"The two of you clowns are one of the biggest reasons for the Wonderbolts' decay. How would I know you guys won't screw up by giving a damn about others?"

"Because I know that pushing oneself without the regard for others is the mistake I made. That cost from me from being in the Wonderbolts. Let me prove myself to fix my mistake. I'm not even asking to let me re-enter, I just want to protect Equestria!!" pleaded Lightning Dust.

"Same as this fine mare here. I went through dishonourable discharge just because I don't want my record to be broken. However, I still love Equestria and you ponies need all the help you need right now." Wind Rider explained.

"Considering our options, very well. Consider yourselves drafted!!"

---

Cloudsdale, Wonderbolts Academy
45 minutes after Canterlot Occupation

"So this is the new and improved Sonic glider, actual battle armor for the Wonderbolts should there be quick deployment required to urgent situations?" Fleetfoot inquired.

"Yeah the old ones looked like hoverboards rather than actual gliders." Spitfire replied.

"What are the names on the armor?" Soarin noticed some runes on the armors in various patterns.

"Just some cool names Rainbow Dash, Fleetfoot and me came up with. Feel free to take them yourselves. Hands off this one though. This ones mine. " Spitfire told the other pegasi. The runes read "Zeus-1"

Soarin took "Bellerophon-2", Fleetfoot had "Athena-3", Thunderlane was "Perseus-4", Fire Streak was "Hermes-5", Lightning Dust was "Astrape-6" and Wind Rider was "Bronte-8". "Apollo-9", "Medusa-10", "Chrysaor-11" and "Geryon-12" were taken by other pegasi who answered the Wonderbolts call for help.

"This one's for Rainbow Dash right?" Asked Fleetfoot. The last armor named "Iris-7" was repainted until it looked like it's an extension of Raindow Dash herself instead of looking like armor.

"Yep, whenever she comes back with her friends to save our flanks like always, we'll give her this so that she will fight as a Wonderbolt too." Thunderlane answered.

"Listen up!! Aside from the original function which is to allow us to fly at rainboom speeds, we modified the glider-turned-armor so that it gives us more protection and allow us to fight vertically easier on 3 dimensions. Watch your above and below as well. The tips of our hoof guards have miniature cloud generators, perfect for stunning the enemy with thunderclaps or shooting lightning out or hooves like in those Star Wars books." Spitfire briefed her fellow pegasi.

"We use this time to get used to fighting in this armor. I will rally Cloudsdale into a state of emergency and try to see if we can get some useful stuff from the Weather Factory. Briefing is at 1145 hours. Are we clear!!!??"

"YES SIR!!!!"

---

Cloudsdale, Wonderbolts Academy Briefing Room
1 hour after Canterlot Occupation

"Ok everyone!! This is the rundown of the situation. Canterlot is captured by this Storm King or to be more precise his army since we never actually saw his ugly mug in all the initial fighting. Main objective: Liberate Canterlot, rescue the captured populace with the Princesses and anypony that have the capability to fight back like those misfits that freed Fleetfoot and Thunderlane at the highest priority." Spitfire proceeded to describe the four ponies that fought Tempest Shadow. "We will try to create a 'safe zone' in the city for the non-combatants to evacuate to after we busted them out of their cages. I've sent out a distress message to the Griffons, given that they sent their chicks/cubs to train with us at flight camp. Sadly, I wouldn't count on it anytime soon. According to Rainbow Dash, the nearest Griffin kingdom is so bankrupt that they would offer themselves up as mercenaries with a huge price tag, which is the last thing we need right now."

"As for the state of Cloudsdale, we always have been to the east of Canterlot. So we will break off the Academy from the rest of the city and use it as a forward base, then we will move the ENTIRE COMPOUND (Cloud buildings after all) to the east to block those Storm airships from invading Western Equestria. According to our latest lookouts, no ships have left Canterlot since the occupation one hour ago at least to the west, which makes this the perfect opportunity to do so. We will ask our best cloud shapers to make thundercloud walls surrounding the academy for any spare pegasi or even the Reserves that wouldn't sign up for live combat to use to blast away at the enemy. Siege warfare 101."

The Equestrian Map is formed with Cloudsdale to the west of Canterlot. The Wonderbolts Academy broke off and started moving until the two are next to each other.

"So are we actually going to advance on Canterlot or are we just going to hole up in this place and just besiege the city?"

"I was getting to that. The Princesses' orders are to advance on Canterlot but the poor turnout meant that trying to liberate the city with just the 11 of us is suicide. The best thing we can do now is to follow Plan B: Siege Canterlot and stop the Storm King's army from invading the rest of Western Equestria."

"I have a question. How long do we intend to keep this up until the part where we liberate the city? You saw happened to the imprisoned ponies, you can't possibly leave them like this!!"

"I don't like this any more than you do, but this is the best we can do right now with our numbers and those pesky steel nets. Wonderbolts have always been damage control aside from air shows. Stopping what happened to Canterlot from happening to the rest of Equestria is our highest priority now."

Suddenly, an unidentified scroll appeared with a bottle right in front of Spitfire. It says:

Use this spell bottle to communicate with our allies. They all received this note as well.

Signed, Pillar of Sorcery, Starswirl The Bearded

To be continued...

Author's Note:

Sure the Pegasi may be too scared to fly initially during the attack freezing them in panic which locked their wings like actual horse behaviour, but once they regained their wits especially the ones from Ponyville who pretty much go through shenanigans every week thanks to the Mane Six and the ones that are already in the air, there doesn't seem to be anything stopping them from just flying away. So I came up with the steel nets to explain why they got caught.

Once again, the 'Sonic Glider' again is from the "Guardians of Harmony" MLP Annual 2017. The refitting Spitfire is talking about is referring to the difference between the comic version and the actual toy while actually making look like actual armor instead of a hoverboard. After that, the suit was modified to cover the forward part of the body as well.

Like the Greek names? I tried to have the characters listed be involved with the original Pegasus in some way. Iris is because she is the Rainbow goddess and messenger of the gods, which is perfect for Rainbow Dash.

Well, Shining Armor has the north and the Wonderbolts has the West, let's see who covered the East and South shall we?

Comments

[Ri2]

Yeah, the sonic gliders were dumb. I like specialized armor better.

Why do they have Star Wars?

Similar nitpicks to before. If Spitfire is self-aware enough to recognize that Rainbow will probably save them all like usual, exactly what use does she think she and the other pegasi will be if they'll inevitably be saved by the girls like always?

[zzzzzz]

Spitfire turned around and saw the two pegasi that she though she would never see again, Lightning Dust and Wind Rider.

"The two of you clowns are one of the biggest reasons for the Wonderbolts' decay. How would I know you guys won't screw up by giving a damn about others?"

Ponies who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. After all Spitfire encouraged Lightning all the time instead of correcting her behaviour early.
She should be very, very, VERY grateful that Dusty wants to help.