The Challenge
Ponyville was abuzz with chatter.
“Did you see her?”
“What a beautiful thing she is!”
“Have you ever seen such a dazzling flier?”
“I can’t believe it! I’ve never seen someone so…fast!”
Applejack watched Rainbow Dash, literally afloat with glee, drift over to the nearest table, where a yellow colt and a green filly were sitting. “Alright, alright, I’ll sign your autographs,” said the Pegasus, pencil already in hoof.
The yellow colt gazed at her strangely. “We weren’t talking about you, but you can sort of…fly.” He snickered a moment later. “Oh, who am I kidding? Compared to Gazelle, you’re an Earth pony! Ha hahahahaha!”
Rainbow Dash frowned and crossed her front legs, sinking back to the ground. “I haven’t heard of her. And for your information, I recently won the ‘Equestria’s Best Young Fliers’ award.”
The green filly gasped. “Oh, wow! Gazelle’s only won thirty or forty chariot races!” Then she made a ‘kindly leave us’ motion. “Now, please go away. You’re in our line of vision.”
Dash slunk back to her table, where her hay fries sat untouched. “Geez. Some ponies can be so rude!”
Applejack smiled at her. “Don’t listen ta them, Dash. They’re just jealous o’ your wings.”
“If you say so…”
Later in the day, when the duo was walking through town square, they noticed a group of fan-ponies clustered around a golden chariot on a pedestal that shone dazzlingly bright. Scootaloo was part of the group, and Fluttershy was too, along with several other pegasi and unicorns. “Who’s this here chariot belong to?” asked Applejack.
Fluttershy thought for a moment. “Well—”
Dash frowned. “Let me guess. Gazelle?”
Scootaloo nodded. “They say she’s the best flier in Equestria! I hope my cutie mark’s a chariot, so I can grow up to be like her!”
Rainbow’s mouth hung open. “She can’t be the best flier in Equestria! I’m the one who won the award!”
“Does she actually carry that there thing around?”
“No, Applejack, that’s a statue they erected in her honor.” Scootalooo seemed really proud that she knew this. “This is much lighter than the actual thing. Oh! Here comes Gazelle!”
A tan blur shot overhead, followed by a blue blob. Both touched down right next to the statue after making dazzling turns and flips, and ponies rushed forward to greet her only to be repulsed by a force field of magic. “Make way for Gazelle, Haytona’s champion chariot racer thirty-two times over!” This was proclaimed a red unicorn who was seated in the gilded chariot.
“Oh, Rizza, I really don’t think I’m that good. Although, my trophies say otherwise.” Even Rainbow Dash had to admit it. Gazelle was…beautiful. Not like Rarity beautiful, with all those ridiculous outfits, but simply beautiful. She was light brown and lean, about Dash’s height, with startlingly pink irises, a tan mane and beautiful, beautiful wings. If Rainbow had been a colt, she would definitely grab her and—wait a minute! What in Equestria am I thinking?! She shook her head to clear those insane ideas and pushed her way through the ecstatic crowd. Rainbow Dash was going to have a little chat with Gazelle.
“Hey, you there!” She came face to face with the magic barrier.
Gazelle noticed her and said dryly, “Hello there, fellow Pegasus. What did you want?”
“I challenge you to a chariot race!” Everypony nearby gasped and backed up, leaving Gazelle and Rainbow to stare each-other down. “Two weeks from now we’ll really see who’s the best flier around here!”
“Really? Well, everypony already knows it’s me, but I’ll humor you…what’s your name?”
“Rainbow Dash. Fastest young flier in Equestria, and don’t you forget it.”
“Well, I imagine everyone else will soon, so I’ll try to remember you when you’re lying in the dirt exhausted.”
“Ooh, you!” Rainbow Dash fumed for a moment, but then calmed down. “Do you accept my challenge? Or are you too much of a chicken to participate?”
Gazelle laughed. “Of course I’ll participate! And I am not a chicken.” She flapped her wings once and crouched. “I can fly, after all.” The pegasus shot off into the sky, disappearing in under three seconds flat. Rainbow Dash stared after the flier, when suddenly the tan blur reappeared next to her, smiling. “I suppose I could say that you would ‘eat my dust,’ as the foals say, but I don’t really think I need to.”
Gazelle took off again. For about fifteen seconds, everypony was silent. Then they all came rushing forward, each and every pony asking questions. Rainbow Dash could barely hear herself over the shouting:
“Why did you take that challenge when there is clearly no way you can win?”
“When you go up against Gazelle, could you get her to sign my baseball cap?”
“Who is going to be your trainer for this event?”
“Where is this even going to take place?”
“Has anypony seen my muffins?”
“AAAAAGH! I can’t take it anymore!” That last one was Rainbow Dash. “Come on, Fluttershy, Scootaloo, Applejack! We’re getting out of here!” Dash grabbed the orange earth pony while Fluttershy picked up Rainbow’s idol, and they flew as fast as they could away from town square.
***
A little while later, Rainbow Dash and Applejack sat at a table in Twilight Sparkle’s home. “Oh, what am I going to do, Twilight?” whined Rainbow Dash. “There’s no way I can beat her…I’ve never even pulled a chariot before!” The pegasus sighed.
“Well, we can always help you prepare.” Twilight levitated two cups of tea on saucers over to Dash and AJ and set them down on the table, returning to her task of diligently searching through the endless bookshelves for one tome in particular.
“How?” asked the cyan pony, ignoring the drink offered to her. “I’m the only one who can fly.”
Twilight flipped through several books, scanning one page and then the other. “Well, I was practicing that wing spell again, and I think I’ve fixed it so the wings are less for show and more for speeding around.”
Dash perked up a bit. “Really? You’d do that for me?”
“Of course we would! You know we help each-other whenever we can.” Twilight closed her books and turned around. “Unfortunately, according to what I’ve read, the change is permanent, and it also uses up so much magic that it can only be performed once. I just need to figure out who to use it on before I—”
Applejack’s hoof shot up. “Ah’ll do it!”
“Wha—are you sure, Applejack?” Rainbow Dash stared at the earth pony. “There’d be no going back once you’re a Pegasus.”
“Ah know. But if ya think about it, ah’m the best choice. Fluttershy already has wings but she can’t fly very fast, I doubt Rarity wants wings thanks ta last time, and Pinkie Pie can already defy gravity and that whatchamacalit physics. Ah, on the other hoof,” continued Applejack, “wouldn’t be affected. Ah could still do mah job and go about mah life.” She knew the real reason why she was volunteering: so she could be closer to Rainbow Dash.
“Well, when you put it that way…” said Twilight, trailing off. She saw right through the ruse, but the unicorn knew Applejack was right. “I could perform the spell right now, if you want, but we should do it outside, just to be safe.” The three made their way into the backyard, and Twilight stood at one end, RD at the other and AJ in between them. “Are you sure about this, Applejack? I’m not entirely sure what’ll happen when I perform this spell.”
The farm pony nodded, swallowing what little nervousness she had. “Let’s just git this over with…wait, did you just say you don’t know what’ll happen? A-ah’m having second thoughts…” Twilight’s horn started to glow purple, and Applejack floated a ways off the ground. “Whoa! Twi, are ya sure—”
“Shush! I need absolute concentration to do this!” Screwing her eyes shut, Twilight concentrated all her being on this one spell. The sky thundered and AJ stopped flailing, getting a far-away look on her face. Tendrils of pure, orange magic started wrapping around Applejack as Twilight’s horn glowed even brighter and there was a discharge of sparks from her horn, followed by an explosion of light and color that was much like a Sonic Rainboom but without sound.
When Applejack opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed was her wings. It felt strange to have the additional appendages, and she felt lighter than she used to, like she was about to float away. Well, actually, she realized, she was floating. More like flapping her wings to stay in the air, but yes, floating. “Wow,” marveled the earth pony. “Ah’m actually flying!”
Rainbow Dash glanced at her. “You’re not really flying yet. That looks more like hovering to me.”
“Well, then, whaddya call this?” Applejack shot up into the sky and did a flip before zooming around the tree-house three times and touching back down in front of Dash. “Hah! Pretty good, eh?”
Dash’s mouth hung open. “Wha…how? You just got your wings! You shouldn’t know how to fly yet!”
“Eh, it just felt natural. Like I’d always known it.” The farm pony turned to Twilight, who hadn’t said anything about AJ’s wings yet. “Twilight! What did ya think of that?”
Twilight wasn’t paying attention to anyone. She was overjoyed that her spell worked, and she was bouncing around more than Pinkie Pie did when the party pony was hopped up on sugar. “Wow! I can’t believe that worked! I wasn’t really sure that I’d figured out the perfect way to do it, but now I know that that spell works! This is an absolutely amazing discovery! I’d better write everything down that I’ve done in the past few years so I know what to put in my autobiography.”
“Uh…Twi?” interrupted AJ, noticing that the unicorn was starting to scribble on a piece of paper that had appeared out of nowhere.
Twilight's head shot up, not in the least bit happy that she’d been snapped out of note-taking. “Yes Applejack? What is it?” she growled.
“What do we do next?”
“How should I know?”
Rainbow Dash pointed to the list lying on the kitchen table.
“Eh-he-he…that…” Twilight grinned sheepishly. “I think the next thing on the list was to find a chariot.”
“Chariot?” Applejack scratched her head. “Where in tarnation would we find a chariot?”
The cyan Pegasus suddenly grinned widely. “Have you ever been to Detrot?”