ECRL: The Wonderhawks

by WildFire15

Apparently Electricity Hurts

Ratchett made his way across town the next morning to fetch Rainbow Dash. Fleetfoot had been concocting some sort of surprise for them at the practice track and wanted them all to gather at the house before heading over.

After what had been a successful weekend, all things considering, he was now actually not in the best of moods. He’d just met Derpy as she’d started her rounds and she was convinced he was Spanner, offering all his mail as well. She wasn’t the only one to somehow mistake them, but it was starting to grate already.

They may have shared a few interests, but they weren’t that much alike. If anything was near enough identical between them, it was that they’d both worked as analysts for racers who’d nearly won the ECRL Championship over the previous few years. With the recent shakeup of team sizes so top teams didn’t have an army of support staff, both he and Spanner had lost their jobs before Fleetfoot offered them a chance to act as Spotters for the Wonderhawks.

Ratchett hadn’t acted as a Spotter before, thinking it would be a pretty easy job next to in-depth analysis of a pony’s flying, but with so much information he could potentially flood Rainbow Dash with, it proved tricky to find a good balance, not to mention finding the right time to say it. Bother her mid turn or while in a close battle for position and it could result in a mistake and accident, or simply Dash not understanding what he was trying to convey.

The thought pushed itself from his mind as he looked up at Rainbow Dash’s cloud house, wondering for a moment if he’d gone the wrong way.

Dash’s house was a tall structure of clouds with typical Cloudsdale architecture and a few rainbows arching out of it, but what had once been a single structure was now spread out, each part some one hundred meters from what had been the front door and adjoining hall.

Rainbow shot out of one of the separated rooms, dragging a carpet of cloud which she shook out into a twisted shape before she attached it to the hall, disappearing from view behind the door.

“Rainbow!” Ratchett called, the mare opening the front door to see who it was.

“Ratchett!” Rainbow grinned before gliding down, doing a quick forward flip before landing. “What do you think?”

“What in Equestria are you doing?” Ratchett asked, looking at the now spread out house.

“I thought I’d have my own private practice track. From the living room, I can take that wide, tightening corner to get to the kitchen. That corkscrew to get to the bathroom. That zigzag climb to get upstairs and that tight little complex of corners to get to my bedroom.” Dash said, rattling off the modifications in quick succession as she pointed each out.

Ratchett looked over the modifications again. He’d seen racers get so obsessed they would train day and night without a moment’s down time with a fifty/fifty chance of actually improving, but he had a feeling Dash did everything fast anyway so adding a few corners would likely make little difference.

“Defiantly novel.” Ratchett mused, before remembering what he was here for. “Fleet wants us to go to our practice track now.”

“Sure.” Dash smiled, before rocketing into the air and towards the meadow they’d built the track in. Ratchett paused for a moment, wondering why she didn’t ask why Fleet would want them there so early, and then remembered who he was dealing with and gave chase.

***

Dash flew over the old Windmill house the rest of her team was living in and saw them grouped outside the front door. For a second, she considered zipping ahead and beating them to the track, but she decided she may as well see what they were up to.

“Weight lifting all night doesn’t help you at all.” She heard Spanner say to Dust, annoyed for some reason. Dust looked like she hadn’t slept much.

“Hey, I’m trying to keep as much strength in my wings as possible. The stronger they are, the faster I am.” She replied.

“Not to fault your logic, Dust,” Concorde injected. “But weightlifting yourself to exhausting and sleeping on the floor with a thirty five kilo bar pinning you down isn’t gonna do you much good.”

As Dash glided down, she saw Concorde and Spanner notice her. If she wanted to take advantage of creeping up on at least one of them, she’d have to be quick as she got behind Maffett.

Dash inhaled as Maffett turned around, and the split second she faced her she let out an enormous ‘Boo!’.

Maffett leapt into the air with a yelp of surprise in a way Dash really wasn’t expecting, which made her pull back in surprise.

“What was that for?!” Maffett asked hotly while Concorde just laughed.

“Hey, I was just kidding around.” Dash replied, annoyed she was being shouted at for a joke.

“Well, don’t do it again.”

“What a day.” Concorde chuckled. “First Dust needs rescuing from her own weights and now Maffett’s jumping for the stars.”

“Get stuffed.” Maffett grumbled.

“Rescued from her weights?” Dash asked, smirking at the annoyed and slightly hag-ridden Dust.

“We found her this morning on her bedroom floor with the weight bar across her stomach and a laptop still on next to her.” Spanner explained, Concorde chuckling to himself.

“Look, I was keeping myself warmed up for training today, alright?” Dust sighed, still annoyed. “Would you rather I sit on my hind and read comics all night instead?”

“That’s what I tend to do, relax after a race and then get back to training in the morning.”

“You mean sit and read those stupid Tin-Can books?”

“Tahntahn.” Concorde corrected, though Dash had no idea who or what that was.

“Tintin.” Maffett answered Dash’s question, having noticed her slightly perplexed expression, though it didn’t answer anything in her mind.

“Who?” Dash asked.

“What? You haven’t heard of Les Aventures de Tahntahn!?” Concorde exclaimed, shocked.

“Tintin’s an adventurer and reporter who foils criminal plans with the help of his dog Snowy.” Maffett explained.

“Milou!” Concorde almost cried in disappointment. “He’s called Milou.”

“Corde reads the original French versions.”

“Well, aye.” He sighed as the team started subconsciously following Spanner away from the house and through the trees towards the track. “It’s how my grands-parents helped me learn the language.” He added, pronouncing ‘grand parents’ in French.

“Surprised you’ve forgotten about Captain Haddock.”

“No I haven’t, just thinking of how to say how brilliant he is without spending hours explaining.”

“I’m still surprised you stop. Isn’t racing your dream?” Dust injected.

“Yep, but you have to relax sometimes, you know. Can’t be all on, all the time.”

“Well I will be, because I’m getting into the Wonderbolts no matter what.”

Concorde was about to answer back before a sudden rumble of thunder caught their attention.

“Was that thunder?” Concorde asked, looking around the clear blue sky beyond the tree canopy they stood under for a thunder cloud.

“Oh, she can’t have.” Dash mused to herself as she flew forwards into the clearing to get a look at the track.

The infield layout of their small track had been completely surrounded with barriers of pitch black, thundery clouds that crackled menacingly as the eight ponies entered the clearing.

Fleetfoot was thanking the somewhat charred Cloudchaser and Flitter before she noticed the rest of her team had arrived.

“Good morning, my little ponies.” She smiled, as if nothing was wrong. “What do you think?” She added, indicating to the electrified near-death trap above.

The team stood in silence, looking up at it as exhausted Ratchett ran into the clearing.

“Sorry I’m late, I couldn’t keep up with-” He started, before looking up and seeing the track. “Are you mad? You’ve electrified the whole track?”

“Yep.” Fleet grinned. “Seeing as Baltimare’s a street track, lined with metal barriers with a few air barriers to cushion crashes, I thought it’d be a good idea to try and simulate that to some degree here.”

“The difference is that street track walls aren’t electrified.” Ratchett felt like pointing out.

“I know, but a quick electric shock is less likely to leave lasting damage then hammering into a wall at full speed.” She said before turning to the racers. “We’re going to practice with the infield track for the next two weeks ahead of Baltimare, starting with some long runs today.”

“Don’t forget, Fleet, me and Maffett need to go get our acts together before catching the train this afternoon.” Concorde added. He and Maffett had been the only ones to take Octavia’s offer of free tickets to see her show in Canterlot.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t forget. In fact, I want you to go first and show these two how it’s done.” Fleet smiled.

“Fair enough, I’ll grab my suit.” Concorde said, flying up to the platform where they’d left their practice equipment.

Spanner looked at Ratchett for a moment before approaching Fleet.

“Shouldn’t they all be on track?” He asked.

“I thought it’d be more helpful for them to observe for a while first. Not to mention, Concorde usually hangs his wing over the edge of the track while cornering so this should prove amusing.” Fleet said with a wicked grin.

***

Once Concorde had his white practice suit on and was ready, he set off to start lapping the track, the rest of his team watching from the platform.

The black clouds looked oppressive to him as he glided around on an exploration lap, mentally editing his slowing and turning marks now he couldn’t see his old ones. What peaked his interest most was how close he could get to the ‘walls’ before getting electrocuted.

A street track’s walls were always unforgiving and left next to no room for error, but it was possible to glance them with the tip of a feather and get away with unscathed. Thunder clouds, on the other hand, were finicky and likely to strike without warning.

He cleared the thought from his head as he went onto a fast lap, gently tilting into the first sweeping corner and onto the back straight. Without thinking as he followed his usual line to get ready for the first hair pin, the tip of his feather glanced one of the thunder clouds and he was hit with a massive jolt of electricity.

“Ow! Bloody Nora!” He swore to himself, looking over for a moment before slowing for the hairpin.

He couldn’t have been that close to the barrier, he thought as he exited the first hairpin and arranged himself for the second one.

He tilted as he normally would into the hairpin, another spark of electricity jumping out for the tip of his wing as it got a little too close.

“Dammit!” He said through gritted teeth, his radio suspiciously quiet.

He changed his line slightly for the next two hair pins, keeping slightly more distance between himself and the barriers and getting away without a surprise electrocution. The same couldn’t be said of the barrier at the exit of the last corner, which struck him on the flank as he went by.

“Oh, Mère enfer saut p*****, I was nowhere near you!” He actually shouted at the cloud before carrying on, fuming. He took a moment to glance at the platform and saw the rest of the team were laughing their heads off. He just shook his head and carried on.

***

Concorde continued to lap the track, occasionally getting too close to the thunder cloud barriers and swearing at them in frustration. He was intentionally getting as close to the barriers as possible because he needed all the space he could find to go fast, but his outbursts still amused the team.

“Ta mère!” Concorde shouted with full blown fury as he clipped the thunder cloud on the exit of the last corner again, ruining his current and next lap. Maffett had set his radio to loud speaker so everyone could hear it and they were rolling around on the platform laughing.

“Was that rude?” Dash asked between laughs.

“Not as rude as I was expecting.” Maffett managed once she’d stopped laughing.

“Well, if anything, you can see what frustration does.” Fleet smiled, wiping a tear from her eye.

“Encourage creative swearing?” Dash offered.

“Well, that and-” Fleet started, before noticing Concorde clip the inside of the second hair pin again and getting such a jolt, he was practically thrown into the opposite barrier, right inside the cloud.

The cloud sparked and rumbled furiously, Concorde’s radio transmitting nothing but static as the team watched.

After a few moments, a blackened Concorde fell straight out of the barrier and landed spread out on the ground with a thud, his team crying with laughter as they wondered if they should go and help him or not. The radio crackled for a moment before Concorde’s voice growled over it.

“For the record, Fleet; you’re the evilest witch I’ve ever met.”

***

Concorde finished flying around the track a few hours later after a short recovery, completing roughly sixty seven clean laps, without touching the barriers, out of seventy nine.

Once he and Maffett had left to get ready to go to Canterlot, Dash and Dust took to the track. Dust had been slightly more focused then her team mate in watching Concorde fly, watching for where he tilted or threw himself into a corner closely.

Dust gritted her teeth as she went onto her first hot lap and hurtled into the corner, slowing and throwing her hind out to turn tighter. At this angle, she’d clip the inside wall, so she re-angled herself so she came gradually back into line, thrusting forwards and tucked her inside wing in at the last second, avoiding being electrocuted as she positioned herself for the next corner.

The fiddly little hairpins had annoyed her throughout their practice ahead of Cloudsdale, but Concorde’s approach seemed to make them look easy. Dust slowed for the first one and flicked herself into what was akin to a controlled slide, her hind turning her on the tip of her wing as she angled herself into the corner. She was close to the inside wall, perilously close in fact, but the threatened shock never came as the corner ended and the short straight opened up for Dust to thrust her way out, into the second hairpin where she did much the same.

She saw Dash ahead clip the inside of the third hairpin, the shock making her jolt to the outside of the track and opening a clear way through for Dust, which made her entrance into the fourth hairpin perfectly clear and without distraction.

Throwing herself through the last corner in the same manner she threw herself into the first, she thrust herself towards the line as fast as she could.

“Time?” Dust asked as she crossed the line, not slowing as she started the next lap.

“Forty nine, two. Which is six tenths off Concorde’s best from early, that’s excellent.” Spanner replied “Try and keep your wings tucked in around the first and last corners.”

Spanner’s advice fell on deaf ears as Dust carried on with the next lap, pushing the slowing area further and further. She had to find another second and put that stupid pony in his place.

Comments

[Piano pony]

This is the first of my 9 favorites to get updated in about a month or 2. Anyways, these are awesome! They deserve WAY more views! Can't wait for the next one. Keystroke out!

[WildFire15]

Thanks for the comments Piano Pony, glad you're enjoying the story :)