ECRL: The Wonderhawks

by WildFire15

Making it Look Easy

As fit as Rainbow Dash was, struggling to stay on a track while maintaining some form of speed was tiring even for her. She’d long since lost track of how many laps she had done, were left or even where she was in relation to Lightning Dust and was simply praying to Celestia for this torment to finish.

Several times, she had attempted to follow Concorde in order to see what in Equestria he was doing to make him so much faster, but each time she ended up missing the next corner and losing track of him.

Even maintaining enough speed to do the loop had become difficult as the laps wore on and she had intentionally missed it a couple of times in order to maintain what strength she had left.

Thankfully, almost mercifully as she rounded the hairpin after nearly failing the loop again, she saw that Maffett was waving a chequered flag, signally the end of this humiliation. Dash allowed herself to glide over the line, where she flopped down onto her hind and sat still, breathing heavily as the sweat poured and sleeked her body fur.

Lightning Dust soon joined her, puffing and panting and sweating to the same degree without either of them noticing Concorde wasn't there. He was busy allowing himself to glide around for one more lap in order to cool down more gradually. By the time he had completed that lap, the mares seemed confident enough to trust their legs to hold up their weight.

“How was that for you?” He asked as he landed between them, a grin on his face. While breathing slightly heavier than normal, he didn't look like he had exerted himself much, which made Dash and Dust even more annoyed.

Dash had an almost overwhelming urge to tell him where to stick it, but she opted get her breath back fully first before berating him. Dust, for all their similarities, didn't share her restraint.

“What sort of freak are you? How did you fly that fast?!” She demanded between breaths. Concorde looked as if he was about to answer when Spitfire, Hurricane and Echo landed on the clouds in front of them.

Dash and Dust quickly jumped to attention, looking slightly surprised Echo was there as they hadn't noticed her earlier. Concorde simply stood back.

Spitfire paced up and down in front of the two mares, glancing at them from time to time with a look of disappointment in her eyes. She eventually stopped and looked at the pair of them.

“Ninty three laps.” She stated. “I did tell you to do one hundred but it didn't look like either of you would make it.”

“I can do a hundred laps!” Dust exclaimed, standing as if ready to go.

“Lightning Dust, I could send you on a thousand laps and you still wouldn't get any better!” Spit exclaimed back, scaring Dust back into line. Hurricane kept a straight face while Concorde looked like he was resisting the urge to laugh.

Spit waited a moment before carrying on.

“I rated you both as the best of your training group while you were at the academy and while I don’t think my faith was misplaced, it’s clear you both still have a lot to learn about precision flying.”

“Er, Ma’am.” Dust cut in again, this time with her hoof up as if she was in class. Spit sighed and looked at her, awaiting her question. “What’s flying in a circle got to do with precision flying?”

Spit looked at Dust for a moment before looking over to Echo, who stepped forwards.

“Flying precisely in close formation is vital to good performance flying.” She said. “When you two flew in a formation made up of more than two or in a position that wasn't at the head of the formation, we noticed you both struggle to remain in position.

“I had exactly the same problem when I was in the Academy, so I decided to go to a place where precision flying was even more important, as was an ability to second guess what others around you would do, even if you couldn't see them.

“Concorde, you were able to maneuverer around both Dash and Dust when you lapped them.”

“Aye.” Concorde nodded. “Was easier to get around them then I expected.”

“Considering you were hardly in control, Lightning Dust,” Spitfire chipped in. “ I'm surprised you didn't fly into him.”

“Seeing as these two are building up to saying I'm mentoring you mares, I might as well say rule one is ‘speed isn't the be all and end all’.” Concorde injected.

“How does that work?” Dash found herself asking. “ Isn't speed everything in a race?”

“It is, but only if you’re in control of it. If you just go in guns blazing as you two were, you’ll be eating the barriers in no time.”

“Wasn't that phrase coined for you?” Maffett suddenly asked, causing Concorde to go quiet for a moment.

“Sort of, yeah.” He replied, looking away. Dash and Dust both laughed at his awkwardness.

“So the perfect racer loved to leave a few dents in the wall, eh?” Dust remarked.

Concorde shrugged in response. “We all make mistakes. It’s what you take away from them that’s important, really. I had to take my teeth to the dentist, though.”

“From the number of mistakes you made,” Spit came in, causing Dash and Dust to stand to attention again. “you’ll have a lot to take away. After Heath Warming, I'm moving you, Dust, to Ponyville, along with Concorde so the three of you can train together.”

“Is that really necessary, ma’am?” Dust asked.

“Yes, it is. The three of you will learn from each other and push yourselves as far as you can go. Maybe then you’ll appreciate when and where to push, Dust.” Spit added to Dust’s face, before stepping back and smiling warmly at the two mares. “Now, go and enjoy your holidays.”

***

Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust stepped out of the hanger into the now still night, wearing their hats and scarves. The freshly fallen snow had added at least two inches to what was already there and the pair could hear ploughs being pulled along the runways nearby.

Dust looked like she wanted to say something but was desperately holding it back. Dash was somewhat lost in thought, wondering exactly what she should be aiming for.

“For a first attempt, you weren't that bad.” Concorde remarked as he followed them out. He wore a deep red jacket with furry collar.

“What’s that meant to mean?” Dust shot at him.

“Exactly as it sounds. You’re both good in the air, but I’d hazard a guess that you’re more for hooning around then racing.”

“I like to race, just not in the way you do.” Dash commented. “How fast can you fly, anyway?” She added with a grin.

“Fast enough, I can break the sound barrier. Why?”

“See that mountain?” She asked, pointing at the silhouette in the distance.

“Aye.”

“There and back?”

Concorde regarded Rainbow Dash for a moment, rubbing his chin before pulling the cords around the neck of his jacket tight so it fit him snugly.

“Go on, then.” He smiled.

Without waiting for anyone to tell them to go, Dash shot towards the peak of the distant mountain. Within moments, Concorde had flown past her with his different method of flying, pulling over 10 pony lengths on Dash. She pushed hard, watching him change his wing flaps to a more familiar up and down pattern as his momentum seemed to taper.

Dash beat her wings harder, slowly wheeling Concorde in before, in unison, they both hit the sound barrier. The deafening boom propelled them both forwards, leaving pure scarlet and multi-coloured trails in the ponies’ wake.

Concorde’s speed soon seemed to reach a plateau, at around Mach 2 by Dash’s reckoning, as half way to the mountain; she drew level with him and went past. She smiled broadly, beating her wings occasionally to keep her momentum up as she altered her angle of attack to corner around the mountain peak.

She thought for a moment, considering how she had seen Concorde corner earlier and considered slowly down slightly, before casting the thought from her mind and turning. Her speed took her into a wide, looping turn, almost fifty feet away from the mountain. She looked towards it and saw Concorde turning, seemingly inches away from the mountain and now back in front.

Dash brought herself to a near complete halt, re-directed herself and beat her wings as hard as she could to get herself back up to speed. Concorde seemingly had dropped below supersonic speed as he broke the sound barrier again on his way back towards the air field, but Dash was still gaining on him.

Dash beat her wings with all her might, over taking Concorde again as the ploughs on the runway came into view. They were both going so fast that they’d have difficulty stopping, so Dash looked for runway with the most snow on it and aimed for it. It seemed two of the plows had just been dragged out onto that run way, so Dash aimed to land on one, angling her wings to scrub off speed and her body to land on the closest edge of the top of the plough.

Almost perfectly, she landed, her increased momentum taking the plough off the Earth pony pushing it and causing it to rapidly slide down the runway, hurling snow out of the way. Gradually, the plough came to a halt at the far end of the runway, leaving a perfectly clear section of runway behind her.

Dash brushed the snow off her hat and scarf as Concorde landed in a similar manner, the plough he was on sliding to a halt right next to her as two confused Earth ponies at the other end of the runway watched.

“That was f***ing awesome.” Concorde said to Dash when the plough he was on came to a halt, causing Dash to suddenly freeze in shock. After a moment, Concorde added: “Sorry, force of habit.”

“Really?”

“Well, in the docks in me home town, swearing’s practically punctuation and me granddad used to work there.” He shrugged. “But that was still impressive, I've never seen a Pegasus fly that fast.”

“Not bad for a hoon, huh?”

“Not bad in the slightest. I'm looking forwards to this even more now, Dashie.”