• Published 23rd Jul 2020
  • 2,489 Views, 33 Comments

Going out with a boom - Shaslan

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Prologue

Rainbow Dash stood at the edge of the cloud, the tips of her hooves poking into empty air. The sun had just risen, and the morning air was damp. But the clouds were small and sparse, and the light was good, the air clear. Conditions were as close to perfect as they could be.

She peered out again, over the fluffy white tip of the cloud she stood on and into the depths below. The ground was barely visible. Just a hazy suggestion at the edge of her vision. Rainbow knew that her eyesight wasn’t eagle-sharp anymore, but even she could usually see more than a distant blur. The air was thin enough to confirm it; she had made it out of the troposphere, the limit of an ordinary pegasus’ endurance, and into the stratosphere. It was higher than even she had ever been more than a hoof-full of times, but Celestia knew she needed the extra height for what she wanted to achieve today.

It had taken three days to make the journey up here, much to her chagrin. She could have made it this high in an afternoon, once, but her wings weren’t what they had been, and she’d had to stop for a rest on nearly every cloud she’d passed. But she had made it, thank the Princesses. In the higher regions, where the clouds were sparser, there had been a few close calls — a wing cramp, a little seizure of the muscles, aching bones — all normal for old age, but nearly enough to kill a pony with this far to fall.

Rainbow shook herself. No, it was not a good time to be thinking that way. Of course she had made it. She was Rainbow freaking Dash, longest-serving Flight Captain of the Wonderbolts, holder of six all-time Equestrian Flight Records. She could fly anywhere. Maybe not quite at the speed she used to be able to, but Celestia dang it, she still got the job done.

She raised a hoof to brush gently over those six medals, all pinned securely to the lapels of her leather flight jacket. She numbered them, left to right, as her hoof moved across them. Longest vertical dive from greatest height, fastest one-mile flight, fastest two-mile flight, fastest non-stop flight from Canterlot to Appleoosa, strongest wing power from a lone pony — boy, that had been a day, when she’d broken the twenty-five wing power barrier. They had to make bigger scales on the measuring devices now. She called that extra little segment ‘the Rainbow zone’. Nopony else called it that, of course. But she did. And AJ always had too, bless her.

Finally, her hoof came to rest on the sixth medal. Creation of the sonic rainboom. Her cutie mark, her unique ability, her greatest achievement. Rainbow remembered keenly the building of that incredible cosmic power, that beautiful explosion of raw light, and her wings quivered at the memory. It had been so long.