Chapter one: Hit the ground running
My name is Silent Charge and I am a big pony. Like, a BIG pony. When I look in the mirror I see a very tall, very muscular stallion. My coat is a mottled mix of black and white hues with a plate of steel shaped like a shield for a cutie mark. My most distinguishing feature would have to be my wings. Black and leathery, these damn wings have always made me look a lot more menacing than I really am, it’s hard to give a good first impression when they think you might try to eat them. Even worse than that is that because they are leathered and not feathered like they ought to be they are both more fragile and less useful than a feathered wing would be. But even if I did have so called “normal” wings, the probability of me being able to use them effectively would still be slim to none.
I am what the pegasus community so lovingly refers to as a “Dirt Kicker” or the less derogatory “Trotter”. In lay ponies terms this means I have the wings of a Pegasus and the frame of an earth pony. You may think that would be awesome, I mean I have wings and big muscles best of both worlds right? Oh how I wish I could be so naive. It may seem cool at first glance but in reality those two things don’t mesh well. Pegasus biology is all about being as lightweight and agile as possible. Lean and well-toned muscle supported by hollow bones allow them to flit between clouds with ease. Any pony with my affliction is born without these things. I have a dense bone structure and metabolism that doesn’t stop muscle growth that would inhibit flying. Because of these oddities in our biology we become steadily less and less able to fly over time without constant training or physical therapy. By the time we reach adolescence most of us are almost completely grounded, and so we are labeled as dirt kickers, Ponies that as my father so eloquently put, “…Are a shame to the proud Pegasus race.”
So flying, something that came naturally to everypony I grew up around and went to school with, has always been very difficult for me. My father always hated the fact that I was so different, sometimes I even wonder whether or not he hated me too. He seemed to go out of his way to ignore me, the only times he took an interest in me where when he was scheduling flying lessons. I think that he was just disappointed that his wife died giving birth to something “broken”.
Despite my unfortunate relationship with my dad I never really got persecuted until I got into flight school. Although I had failed most of the aptitude tests I got good marks on flight theory and weather patterning so my father was able to use his influence in Cloudsdale to get me into the famous Cloudsdale Academy School for Gifted Pegasi. In a school full of those who prided themselves on their ability to fly, a pony like me stuck out like a sore hoof. Not being able to fly for more than a few seconds at a time got me nothing but scorn and hate. If it wasn’t for my success on the hoofball team I probably would have gone through my while four years their without talking to a single pony.
After graduating I began to stop doing my regimented physical therapy, it was too much work for too little gain, or so I thought. Slowly but surely my ability to fly became more and more impeded, my body kept getting heavier and my wings stayed just as useless as they had always been.
Being a Dirt kicker meant that I wasn’t suited for normal pegasus work, being on weather patrol had never been an option, but I really needed a job. I’m sure that if he wanted to and if I asked my father could have gotten me a job at the drop of a hat. But to be honest when someone constantly shows that they want as little to do with you as possible, it’s only natural to begin to reciprocate those feelings. He seemed to truly believe that all I would ever be good at was throwing my weight around. So to spite him I found a job that let me do just that, I would be the opposite of everything he was. I began looking for a position as a farmhand. And within a few weeks I found one, it was a huge farm outside of Ponyville that was absolutely desperate for another set of hooves with only two ponies currently working the fields. It was a giant apple orchard called Sweet Apple Acers. I had my cloud house shipped there once I got the position and began working almost immediately.
And that, is where our story begins…
After working with Big Mac for a few weeks he noticed that I was having trouble just getting up to my house. The fact that I wasn’t doing my daily wing therapy compounded with the fact that I was gaining even more muscle than I had before meant that flying had become nearly impossible. Iknew that it was getting worse, but I never thought I would see the day when I couldn’t even make it back up to my own home.
As I tried once again to throw myself upwards and into my house, I got so close I could feel the moisture coming off of the cloud, but right when I thought I had done it, gravity said otherwise and I fell back to the ground.
“Hey Silent, you ok?” He asked me after I hit the ground, “because ya sure don’t look it.”
“Ah, yeah, I’m fine, I just need a running start,” I said while backing up.
As soon as I felt I had caught my breath and that I put enough distance between me and my takeoff point I bolted past
Big Mac as fast as I could, I may not be a flyer but I can sprint if I need to.
But the second I left the ground I knew that the boost wasn’t nearly enough, and I came careening back down to the ground. Not having enough energy to right myself I landed on my back with a dull thud.
“What the buck Silent?!” shouted Big Mac, “What’s going on with you?”
“It’s fine,” I reply with heated breath. I didn’t want him to see this; I didn’t want anyone to know about that. “I am fine, I’m just a bit-“ the words caught in my throat, “I-I just need to catch my breath.”
“Now we both know that’s a load a’ sour apples.” That’s Big Mac for you, he seemed to always have just the right apple related saying for any situation “You’re coming back to the barn and you’re spending the night with us,” Big Mac said, and I didn’t have the energy to argue with him.
Big Mac was definitely not what I had expected in an employer. When I first met him I immediately noticed he was the only pony I had ever met besides the princess’ who had a stature that could rival my own. It was intimidating yet exiting at the same time. I quickly found out that size wasn’t the only thing we had in common, we both enjoyed the physical labor of the fields, we both were relatively quiet, although Mac was a bit more so, and we both respected each other for who we were. To be totally honest, Big Mac was probably the first pony I think I ever had that much of a connection with.
As we were walking back to the barn he asked why I didn’t get anyone to help my with my flying. I had to go through the painful ordeal of explaining just how looked down us “Dirt Kickers” are in the Pegasus community. You see, getting a flight coach as a dirt kicker is nearly impossible. If the stigma against us isn’t enough to drive them away than the frustration of constant failure will very little chance of success nearly always is.
"Well ah can’t help you much with flyin’,” Said Big Mac with a bit of a frown, “and ah don’t know too many pegasi, but mah sister knows a few of em. Maybe one of them can help you out.”
At that point I had never met Applejack before, Mac was a bit overprotective when it came to his sister but apparently by that time I had proven that I was a nice enough guy to not go after my friend’s sis. I believe that I had seen her once or twice in the orchard kicking trees but I had never actually gotten the chance to even call out to her. Whenever I was about to do so Big Mac always seemed to be there to shuffle me off to another part of the farm.
When we got back to the barn it was pretty late.
“We don’t have a guest bedroom in the house, but ya’ can sleep in the barn if you’re up to it.” Big Mac clearly felt bad about having to put me there, but to be honest I really didn’t mind. There was plenty of hay to rest on and I was never very picky about where I slept anyway.
“This will definitely do, but if it isn’t too much trouble could I ask you to lend me a blanket of some sorts?” I asked him.
“Of course partner,” He quickly responded, “I’ll be right back.”
As he left the room I took a moment to think back on the past couple of weeks that I had been working here and how much things had changed. When I first got here Big Mac seemed like he had to ration his words out carefully, as though he could have run out at any moment. His answers to my questions rarely ever stretched past one word. I eventually realized that it wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to me, but instead he just hadn’t ever had anyone to talk to before. He was completely secluded in the fields, the only times he ever had help with the plow was on winter wrap up but that was one day a year. Even when he was at home he was one stallion in a house with three mares.
After about two weeks of me working there he really started to open up, not in any great emotional way, just in a stallion to stallion way. I was pretty worried the first time he ever initiated a conversation with me, I thought for sure I had done something wrong. But instead it quickly became apparent that he was dying for someone to just talk to. Eventually he became somewhat of a brother to me, we could shoot the shit in the fields for hours, after all there isn’t much to plowing than just pulling it along.
“You there Silent?” a voice brought me back to reality and I saw that Bug Mac had come back with the blanket I had asked for.
“Oh… yeah sorry about that.” I apologiesed and took the blanket from him. I had the awful tendency to get lost in thought sometimes. I just zone out and my body goes on auto pilot, I swear I could walk right off a cliff and not even realize it if I was thinking about something when it happened.
We said our goodbyes and goodnights and soon I found myself alone in a barn lying down on some hay with nothing but a quilt to keep me warm. I had gone from my own house to someone else’s storage space in just under one day’s time.
“This is going to be a long week” I said to myself. And slowly but surely I eventually fell asleep.
* * *
I was sitting at the table at the Apple family’s house the next morning. There were three other ponies at the table with me and I could hear a fourth one coming down the stairs. One of wich was Big Mac, but I had only just met the other two.
One of them was an adorable little filly named Apple Bloom. She was as small as small could be but she had the exited energy of twenty fillies. Her coat was a bright yet soft shade of yellow, and her hair was the same red as the bow she sported on top of her head. It was almost as big as her noggin and I couldn’t help but wonder how it didn’t fall off despite being so large.
The other mare was the elderly Granny Smith. She had a faint green coat and her mane had grown white with age. Despite being so old she was certainly still kicking and I could tell she still had a few tricks up her sleeve. One thing that did worry me was it was hard to tell if she was going a bit zany from her age or whether or not she was just kidding around.
One thing that struck me was the lack of a mother or father in the house. I had never met my own mother and my dad was never too much of a parent so I understood that bringing something like the missing parents up would probably not be the best idea.
Then, about halfway through breakfast Apple Jack trotted in; she looked stunning despite having quite the case of bedhead. She had a sort of home-girl class to her; she was all country with her sun-kissed orange coat and her straw blond hair. I could tell why Big Mac wanted to keep stallions away from her, she was quite the catch.
“Hiya Big Mac,” she yawned greeting each one with her eyes still closed, “Hi Granny Smith, mornin’ Apple Bloom.”
“Well Good morning to you too,” Granny Smith said in reply.
“Mornin’ Sis.” Apple Bloom chirped.
Then she turned to me saying, “Mornin… wait who-” Her eyes shot open and her face gained a panicked expression. She yelped and jumped up into the air then shot into the next room dragging a wide eyed Big Mac behind her. As he rounded the corner I could have sworn I saw him mouth the words “help me”.
I could hear a very unhappy Applejack and a somewhat confused Big Mac. Poor guy, it’s too early in the morning for a stallion to have to deal with that. He had a long day ahead of him and nopony should have to deal with an angry mare before he even finishes his breakfast.
About four or five minutes later Applejack came back into the room with a much less messy mane with a confused Big Mac trailing behind her.
“Mornin Silent, mah brother here tells me that you’re the one who’s been helping around the fields lately, sorry I never got to meet you before now,” she shot Big Mac a stare that could burn holes though metal, “But Ah’m sure we can get along just fine.”
“Very nice to meet you Applejack—”
“Mah friends call me AJ…” she interrupted. I thought it was kind of weird for her to call me a friend when I hadn’t even introduced myself yet, but I have always known better than to turn down a friendship when it’s offered.
“…AJ, my name is Silent Charge.” I said after a pause, “Big Mac tells me you may know someone who can help me out with a certain problem I have.”
“Alright?” she said giving me a look somewhere between confusion and concern
“Oh, it’s nothing weird or anything, I just need to know if you know anyone who can help me with my flying.” I told her, causing her to adopt an almost more confused look than before.
“Why would you need help with flyin’, you sure look strong enough to me, heck you’re like Big Mac with wings!” She
replied. I can’t really blame her for thinking that, for its pretty common for non-pegasi to think that muscle means flying power. I couldn’t really expect her to have taken a course on Pegasus biology could I?
So, to rid her of any unnecessary confusion I took a quick fifteen minutes to explain everything about my predicament, down to the very last detail. And I have to say, she was great. When I told her what my problem was I have to say I was surprised by how pissed off she was about some things that had never really bothered me that much. I got an extra dose of this when I explained to her about how and why “Dirt kickers” were discriminated against.
“Ah mean what in tarnation is so bad about earth ponies that you gotta be mean to somepony for lookin’ like one! That’s just ridiculous!” Applejack burst out in a sort of rage.
“It’s the same as any type of discrimination; some ponies just aren’t willing to except the differences in others. It’s a shame that it has to be that way but it’s just the way things are.” I told her trying to calm her down.
I guess I should have expected something like that though; I was talking to a very proud earth pony about being discriminated against for being more like an earth pony than normal pegasus.
After everypony had calmed down the conversation drifted back to where it had started, getting me a flight coach.
Apple Jack had to think about it for a few seconds but eventually her eyes lit up and it became obvious that she had an idea.
“Ah think I know the perfect pony to help you out here, her name’s Rainbow Dash, fastest darn Pegasus this side of
The Everfree, she is. I'm sure she could help out with your flying problem.” AJ said, much to my surprise. I was sure I’d heard her name somewhere.
“Say,” I ask with a bit of apprehension, “is this the Rainbow Dash that won the Young Flyer’s competition a while back?”
“Sure is sugarcube, were you there to see it?” She asked eyes brimming with pride for her friend.
“No, I wasn’t able to get tickets, but there was a whole page and a half on her in the Cloudsdale Chronicle after she won.” I answered her with a hint of disappointment, from what the paper had said it was quite the once in a lifetime event. “Is it true she saved four ponies at the same time?”
“Yup, three of them were Wonderbolts. She is training to be one herself you know,” she proclaimed proudly.
“What about the fourth one?” I asked with a confused expression.
My only answer was AJ muttering under her breath about some show off. I'm pretty sure I heard her say the word diva as well.
“Anyway, not to doubt you, but are you sure that she will be able to take the time out of her training schedule to help a trotter like me?” I figured this was an innocent enough question but AJ’s face definitely said otherwise.
“Silent, Ah’m an awful liar, isn’t that right Big Mac?”
I turned to see Big Mac with a slight grin nodding in his approval of her statement.
“So, when I tell you that I think that Rainbow Dash will be able to help you out, you can trust it really is the honest truth.”
“Ok Apple Jack-” She gave me a stern look, “Ok AJ, I believe you.” I told her. I still not completely convinced that her
plan would work, but honestly I had a lot to gain and almost nothing to lose so I figured I might as well go with it.
“Well, it’s still early, do you mind if we go see her now?” I turned to Big Mac, “that is if you don’t need any help in the fields Mac”
“Ah tilled those fields before you got here and ah can till them now, you go talk to Rainbow about helping you fly better.” Big Mac paused before saying with a grin, “Anyway, the faster you get flying, the faster I can get you out a’ my barn.”
"Alright Macintosh, don’t get all riled up now,” Applejack began to motion toward the door for me to follow.
During the walk to town Apple Jack and I talked a bit and got to know each other a bit better. I told to her about how I had found out about the farm through an ad in the paper and how I liked working on the farm but I tried to steer away from much of my life before then. My life story isn’t exactly tragic but it still is a lot to unload on a pony after just meeting her.
She, on the other hand attempted to give me a synopsis of her whole life and still somehow evaded the topic of her parents entirely in doing so. She was absolutely in love with her farm. She really couldn’t think of living her life any differently than how she was living it then and I couldn’t blame her. Sweet Apple Acers had such a good and home-like feeling to it, even I was starting to see it as more of a home than a workplace and I had only been working there for a few weeks.
Eventually we arrived under what I presumed was Rainbow Dash’s house. It was huge, even more so than a regular Pegasus home. The clouds used to make houses are pretty much free so you didn’t have to be rich in order to have a big house but what I found myself standing under bordered on the extreme. It was also completely out of my altitude, seeing as it was nearly twice as far of the ground as my own home was. Because of this, me and Apple jack had to yell for what felt like half an hour before the Pegasus who I had to guess was Rainbow Dash, if only because of her Rainbow colored mane, finally opened up the door. And I’m not going to lie, the first time I saw her, I didn’t like her.
She hadn’t done anything wrong to justify these feelings, but what made me resent her was that she was everything I wasn’t. She was short, light, had perfectly proportioned wings, she seemed to be made solely for the purpose of flying. She was everything the jerks at flight school lorded over me for all those years bundled up into one light blue Pegasus. What made things even worse was the way that she looped around at a pace far greater than was necessary during her decent. It was almost as though she was showing off her ability to fly.
When she reached the ground and saw me her eyes got about as big as dinner plates.
“Everything ok there Dash?” AJ asked, apparently this wasn’t her usual reaction to meeting new ponies.
Then Rainbow did something that I can honestly say I have never had done to me. She backed up about ten feet from me and got into a starting position as though she was at a race.
“Psst, AJ, what is she doing?” I asked the earth pony standing next to me.
“Ah got no idea sugarcube.” She responded… sweet mother of Celestia, I absolutely loved that country drawl.
Then without warning Rainbow Dash rocketed from her crouched position and slammed into me. Back in the Academy when I was on the hoofball team I had gotten used to people crashing into me, my ability to almost never go down even after the worst of hits is what netted me the nickname Ironsides. And because any of those stallions were a lot bigger than she was, It was no surprise that after she impacted me I had to help her get back on her hooves.
“I-I thought I recognized you, I think you went to… the same flight school as me… played on the… hoofball team…
really hard to push down,” she said dizzily as her head rocked from side to side, “but I think you graduated… like a year or so ahead of me.”
“I went to Cloudsdale Academy, the names Silent Charge.” I figured that I might as well try to get as many brownie points as possible, before she found out that I was a Dirt Kicker asking for help flying.
“But most of the people in Cloudsdale Academy called me Ironsides—”
“Wait, YOU’RE IRONSIDES!?,” she said, a lot more excitedly than I thought she would.
“Yeah, have we met before?” I asked, not knowing exactly where she was going with this.
“Dude, you’re a LEGEND!” She replied seeming to completely ignore my previous question.
“What?” This was definitely new to me.
“Um, duh, you had the most scoring punt returns in the Academy’s hoofball teams history, all without ever leaving the ground. I remember watching a game against Hurricane High school where you literally carried three of the defending linemen forty yards, you were a monster!” She practically beamed at me.
“Yeah, I also remember having the rest of the team hate me for doing those kinds of things,” I said. I was never the most popular one on the team, but most of them accepted that while my way of doing things was unusual, most of the times it worked.
She leaned in to ask “Is it true you broke Magnum’s hoof with your jaw?”
“Well, not exactly, the rumors were pretty exaggerated, his hoof did break but I didn’t come out of the fight nearly as well as everypony seems to think I did. I had to eat through a straw for a week after that.”
“This is so cool!” she said jumping into the air once again completely ignoring what I was saying.
Ok, now I was getting a bit embarrassed, “Trust me, I’m really not as impressive as a lot of ponies made me out to be. Most of those crazy rumors were just put out there to scare the other hoofball teams. For instance, I never really flew through a concrete wall during gym class; in fact I can barely fly at all.”
“Oh yeah, ah almost fergot!” AJ said, remembering why she had introduced the two of them in the first place. “Rainbow, Silent here needs a flying coach. He is a bit heavy and his wings aren’t that strong. Sometimes he has a hard time even getting back up to his house after working in the orchard and fields the whole day.”
Ouch, even though it was true, too hear it said so bluntly still hurt.
“Yeah, that makes sense” she said looking me over again with a chuckle, “I remember my dad had the same problem, thought he was a bit smaller that you are big guy.”
“Hmm?” That sure wasn’t what I was expecting, “You’re dad was a trotter? But you’re tiny! And from what AJ tells me you’re training to be a Wonderbolt!”
“Yeah, he says that I take after my mom,” Rainbow says with a small smile, “I like to think that I can fly for both of us, he is one of the big reasons I got into racing in the first place. He never missed a meet!”
Wow, this is the first time I have ever had anypony, much less a speedster like Dash, actually sympathize with me about being a trotter.
“So, what do you say, can you help me out?” I ask sheepishly
“Pffft” she began to laugh.
I knew it, not to say that she was a bad pony or anything but why would she take time out of her Wonderbolts training to help me get off the ground. She seemed like a nice mare but it took more than just being nice to sacrifice that much time from doing something you loved to help out a random stranger.
“Oh well thanks for your time, sorry to bother you.” I smiled politely and turned around to start my walk back to Sweet Apple Acres. I had been used to letdowns like this for a while now and honestly it didn’t bother me that much. Though I did really think she was going to say yes for a moment there.
“Hey wait up!” I hear from behind me causing my ears perk up. “For a stallion nearly the size of a chimera you act a lot more like a filly. Anyway you didn’t let me answer” She tells me with a smile.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I say feeling a bit confused.
Rainbow gives me a knock on the noggin, “What it means is," followed by a quick smile,
“You’ve got yourself a flying coach."
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I like this... and the terms.
For some reason, I don't know, but that image gets me every time
Now if you want my harsh review of spelling errors, formatting, and other stuff I can etc about in a giant wall of text, well..... I'll do it a bit. Honestly, your first shot at a fic was pretty good compared to what most other writers would dish out.
What I think happened was that you were excited about writing and rushed through a bit, as some of the errors involved capitalization, a comma splice I think (I really don't know I make them quite frequently to notice much), some punctuation, and basically some general formatting issues.
I could tell it was written fast with excitement bcause the story progressed fast and jumped around very quickly like if Pinkie was on some kind of caffinated beverage (an author's curent mood can alter their writing, just a random mind-set trick I figured out from before), sometimes it's better to just slow down and describe what's happening than rushing through everything like an action scene.
I especially liked the use of diction and the occassional ...
Working on editing and slowing down to catch those mistakes would help a load.
Nonetheless it was quite enjoyable to read and the more you write then better it becomes, and I can't wait for more chapters in the future
And now I'll leave with an inspirational quote:
"There are more ways to get into the air than by flying you know..." - Shadow Mark
>Sees story about what seems to be an OC.
>Sees no OC character tag when there is still room for one.
1940272 hahaha pretty much 100% right on all accounts, don't worry though, thats not going to be a trend. Some good friends of mine offered/agreed to be my editors and pre-readers. future chapters will be much better written than this one, i am going to clean this chapter up grammar wise as soon as tomorrow and i my also actually expand/ elaborate on some parts of the chapter so it doesn't feel so rushed
1940322 Woops!!! hahaha, I'll change that right away, I knew I forgot something while I set this up
but aside from that, what did you think about the premiss of the fic, (i know the writing was kinda rushed and crappy but did you like the idea of the story?)
1940477
I haven't read it yet, I just wanted to let you know the problem I saw so people didn't go down-vote crazy
Nothing against you or your writing skills, I just don't read OC stories
1940507 thanks for the heads up :)
I was disappoint with you stopping your first fic but now I can read this one.
1943686 to be honest, so was I, it just became too hard to write in the manner I was writing, this type of story is much more me
1943734 cool, looking forward to the next chap.
Still waiting to see where you take this. Gonna be interesting.