And you think you have it bad...
“Hey! Dash!”
Derpy lifted her foreleg again, waved it at her happily.
Rainbow Dash turned slightly, then smiled at the grey mare. Excusing herself from the rest of the Wonderbolts signing autographs, she waved as well. “Derps! Over here!” She shrugged slightly, adjusting the flight jacket she was wearing. The others had stuck to the flightsuits, but hers was in burned tatters on the floor in the medical tent, and she had left both her spare and her Reservist suit in her locker at the Academy.
Stupid. She should have brought the spare as a matter of course, but she had been so excited…
She had smiled throughout the routine; a ridiculous, happy grin epoxied on her face as they worked the presentation. Even during the tailslide whipstall, three others placed echelon right of her in the line, a stunt she hadn’t done much before; and yet she was grinning like Pinkie Pie on an especially intense sugar party rush.
And it never left…until that stupid stunt with the storm cloud. Just to try to shake her old/new nickname.
She stood with her teammates, and confessed. Took the hit as Spitfire ripped her for violating safety rules, endangering others, and not informing her teammates of the changes…
And felt her eyes tear up, as they let her know they still wanted her. Even after that screw-up.
Then, they let their greatest secret out. Soarin’s wing smacked against a flagpole on the way to a messy landing the first day; hence, ‘Clipper’. Fleetfoot became ‘Flatfoot’ after touching down on Spitfire’s hoof while practicing touch and go’s…
Misty Fly and ‘Dizzy’. That one from testing the Dizzitron, messing up the settings so bad she couldn’t walk straight most of the day. At least the vomiting and nausea let up some after three hours…
‘Slowpoke’ for Surprise, who originally came from a background in Cloudsdale competitive flight figures; where getting loops, rolls and such absolutely perfect counted more than how fast you did it. Doing that sort of precision at high speeds had been a daunting challenge…
High Winds and ‘Hoof in Mouth’. The constant commentary she made talking herself through routines, until Spitfire had had enough. She then stuck her left front hoof in her mouth, and told her to leave it there until the routine finished and she landed. She could still be seen doing it on occasion, if you watched closely.
Then came Spitfire. Pretty, awesome Spitfire…
Rainbow Dash couldn’t believe the moniker somepony stuck on her…
Dash smiled hugely as Derpy walked up. “Hey, Derps! Like you to meet my friends, the Wonderbolts! High Winds, and this is Surprise, Misty Fly, over there is Fleetfoot from the Equestria Games; you know Soarin, and of course, Spitfire…”
Spitfire tossed her head in recognition, a big smile on her muzzle. “Hey, Wobble. How’s it hangin’?”
Derpy smiled back hugely as she hugged the yellow mare. “On oblique angles…”
Derpy glanced around quickly, noticed the usual fade from ponies a little uncomfortable being around her. They were mostly out of earshot, leaving them standing alone, but she decided not to say it.
“Still smoking the nuggets, I see. Not too bad a group this time, Spits, even with chromatically challenged here.” She peered closer at Rainbow Dash’s jacket, and the name patch.
“Ooooh, nice! ‘Crash’ huh? That is so correct on so many levels, though City Hall was my fault. And nice job on the whipstall; you broke nice and clean on the stall and the pull through with just the right amount of tailsliding. Took me four days to get it right.” She reached over and gently closed Rainbow Dash’s mouth, which had been hanging open from the moment Spitfire said ‘Wobble’. Her eyes stayed wide, though.
“I guess you haven’t told her, have you, Spits?” Derpy said calmly, the big smile now replaced with the cheerful, calm one of long term friends.
“Nah. Figured you’d like to pop that one on her, Wobble, when the time was right. Slowpoke backed me on it.”
“Wha…” Rainbow Dash managed, her eyes shifting back and forth between Derpy and Spitfire.
“Brilliant as always, Dashie. You think you’d have learned some eloquence from Twilight by now. I told you that you needed to come by my house after I got the job from Princess Celestia to be the Royal Messenger. Right after we all fought the Angel, remember?” Derpy said, chuckling softly.
“You mean…?” Dash stammered.
Spitfire took pity on the boot noob.
“Derpy was my element leader, Crash. She’s a Wonderbolt.”
“Former Wonderbolt. And who do you think was helping the ‘Bolts keep an eye on you, filly?” Derpy said warmly.
And for the first time in a long while, Rainbow Dash, newly minted member of the EUP Wonderbolts, was rendered completely speechless…
Spitfire had a mildly pained expression on her face. “Aw, c’mon, Crash. Surely you had hints. Listen, I’m gonna bed us down here after dinner at the hotel. Why don’t you drag Crash off to your place, Wobble, and spin her up to speed. She’s gonna swallow a bug or something with that mouth hanging open.”
“No problem. Has she been briefed in?’
“All the way, Wobble, though I know you’re too nice to say it. You can use the PG version…”
“Okay, Poops. Come on, Crash, and I’ll fill up that nice hole in your head for you…”
“I don’t believe it,” Dash said quiely, although she had the proof right there in her hooves.
The uniform was slightly different, with Derpy’s name embroidered on both shoulders of the forelegs, the zigzag pattern on the leg cuffs a bit wider, and a numeral “3” on the flank where the Wonderbolt emblem was now. The material wasn’t as slick and low porosity, either, with smaller cooling vents and a thinner, less robust zipper. Rainbow Dash also figured it didn’t take a can or two of cornstarch to lube it up and get it on, either.
“That one was my last. I was leading the second section in the Group, just after Wind Rider retired. The Team Leader was still flapping, and Rider was tired of waiting for him to flare out so he could get the spot. Surprise was dancing in ‘2’. Spitfire was running the ‘4’ position in the diamond formations, usually Tail-End Charlie. ‘5’ and ‘6’ were the nuggets back then, pulling some of the solo duties until they fully settled into their spots. We didn’t have seven out there like you do.”
Derpy sat down at the kitchen table, her forehooves wrapped around a nice cup of hot milk chocolate. It was still chilly on occasion as the weather team adjusted Spring, and she was grateful for the warm liquid. She had brought out a small bottle of “Wing-Aide”; the blue flavor kind, whatever that was, for Rainbow Dash, who had accepted it with a beaming smile, and was now ignoring it completely as she stared at the old flightsuit.
Dash’s hoof traces the gilt embroidered letters on the left breast. “Wobble”, in shiny gold.
“Is that why they don’t do this anymore? Because of Spitfire?”
Derpy smiled. “Nope, though Spits is probably eternally grateful. I still get the newsletters. That low-porosity fabric in your suits nowadays doesn’t take too well to direct embroidery. Appliqué details aren’t too bad if the stitch spacing is wide enough, though. Word is, Flare d’Mare doesn’t care for the new suits, preferring the comfort and individuality of that one, but the Pegs like the friction coefficient of the newer model much better.”
Derpy sat back. “So, boot…you wanna hear the story as to how Spitfire got her callsign?”
Nodding, Rainbow Dash sat down, reverently draping the flightsuit on a chair opposite, and picking up the bottle of Wing-Aide as Derpy thought back...
They managed to shut down the bar; the whole team together. The Pegasi all wended their way to the hotel, some with marked staggering. One was half flying, half being dragged by her wingmare, and contributing a tiny bit of actual walking on her own hook when she could, which was not very.
The yellow mare had eschewed the usual “Catapults”; a blend of amaretto, cranberry juice, vodka, and jagermeister. Some of the team had played around with the recipe; changing the vodka for the heavily infused cinnamon vodkas, and squirting it into the drink with a syringe from the medical clinic, calling the concoction a “Hot Cat-Shot”.
Instead, she had been working a noxious blend of sake and wasabi sauce, with a tiny slice of cucumber to ‘take the edge off’, all the while blazing through the five-alarm burrito appetizers. There was great speculation that ‘Spitfire’ actually referred to her ability in consuming fiery foods without apparent ill effects, rather than the mercurial mood swings she had.
“S’okay, Derps…I’s got diss. No problemmm…” she mumbled, as the grey Pegasus propped her up and kept her moving forward.
“Sure you do, Spitfire. I’m just on overwatch, making sure you make it safe,” Derpy said, as she finally gave up and put Spitfire on her back. The Pegasus was lighter than she looked.
“Lissen, Derps…less go find a cuple cute stallionsss here in Cu’nterlot and get laid. I gotta enuff horny to light up Fillydelphia…”
“Not tonight, Spits…”
“Nah. I swallow, not spits,” she said, rather pleased with herself at the very nasty off-color joke. Then she belched impressively.
Derpy’s eyes teared up immediately. Blessed Celestia, Derpy thought, …what in Tartarus was in those burritos?... as her fur began to curl.
“Neverminnn…tummy sore. Home now…” the orange maned mare said, just before she started to snore…
Derpy awoke with a start. The party last night had been impressive, as the team celebrated Derpy’s and Spitfire’s promotion out of the newbie slots at the rear of the formation into the more visible, and more dangerous formation mass. She wasn’t a big drinker, but the ones she did have she was definitely feeling even now.
It had happened fast. They had barely a month in the team when the two previous ‘Bolts in 3 and 4 “Fox-Foured”, crashed into each other during the Icaranian Sun Salutation maneuver and were out, at least for the season, and possibly permanently, depending on physical therapy rehabilitation.
Altius volantis! Derpy thought with a groan. She wasn’t all too keen on the way the Wonderbolts dealt with losses, barely mentioning the mare and stallion at all last night; she had liked them, and felt their loss keenly.
She sat up.
“Spits! On the deck, nugget! Steel your haunches, kick heels, and fluff them puppies up! Briefing at 07:20 hours!” She wadded up and threw a pillow at the yellow lump in the next bed.
“UUUhhhhhnnnh…” groaned the lump as the pillow hit and bounced off. “Five more minutes, Mom…”
Derpy let her mood have a little more steam. “My dimpled rump, Spits. You said you’d turn to if I gave you a couple more hours at the bar. Clock has run out. UP!”
Spitfire threw herself into a sitting position on the bed. “Okay, Training Instructor…I’m up…”
Her face twisted uncomfortably, and then she belched.
Derpy swore she saw a glowing green gas cloud escape her, before it dispelled into an incredibly awful smell.
“Spits…seriously. Are you up for this?” she said, her voice muffled by the hoof over her nose and mouth. “You could…”
“Naw, bubblebutt…I’m good to go. Minor aftereffect. Let’s do this.”
Spitfire was still a little green, but getting more eager by the second. Derpy let it go.
They lined up on the road they were using as a runway in the vee, 1 in the point, flanked by Surprise as number 2 on the left, Derpy as 3 on the right, Spitfire as 4 next to 2, and 5 next to Derpy. 6 would hustle to catch up with the vee after they were airborne.
They barely cleared the ground, moving fast…then each pony on the wings of the vee snapped two rolls outboard. Then everypony standing on their tail, firewalling power and breaking for the sky like homesick angels…6 rolling continuously as she trailed after them…
The Wonderbolts were flying!!
And so it went, maneuver by maneuver…
Celestia, I love doing this! Derpy thought, as she tightened her belly against the ‘G’ she was pulling, grunting with the effort to keep blood in her head against the forces trying to make her black out. Primaries warped as she forced her wings to twist her even harder.
She spared the breath as a shadow flashed by. “Check nine, Spits!”
Spitfire twisted a bit harder. Damn, she was drifting. The tiny ache in her belly was starting to get uncomfortable and distracting. She lined herself back up where she was supposed to be, bore down, tightening her belly even more against the growing throbbing.
They were almost finished, as they pulled into the diamond; 5 and 6 moving to the corners, forming a broad triangle. Pale as a ghost, Spitfire pushed on gamely, sweating profusely as they came over the top, Spitfire swinging right into the tail slot position from the echelon left spot, as the formation pulled positive, lining up parallel with the crowd and Celestia’s Royal Box…
And it happened. The contents of her bowel abruptly made their demands rather pointedly.
There was a powerful puff of escaping alimentary gas. One forward position away at 120 kts, Derpy almost gagged on the smell, a horrid blend of limburger stuffed into used athletic socks, dunked in primary septic tank inflow, and sewn into the mouth of a timberwolf sunning itself in one hundred plus degree weather for two weeks…
Spitfire’s eyes went wide. She clenched down as hard as she could, felt her ponut tighten…
To no avail. A thin stream of khaki-colored liquid began to leak out. Her flightsuit began to bulge abaft as the fluid accumulated.
Then her elimination system pulled the ejection handle completely. Completely, and for all eternity…
Just as a flightsuit zipper not designed for such a situation blew out…and a huge, disgusting gout of vile liquid and colon content spilled free. The flow then thinned back into the dribble…now streaming behind her into her cloud trail. Concealed for the moment, the stream expanded and aerosolized, infusing into the cloud…
The blob fell in that precise way dictated by the laws of physics, descending unerringly toward the Royal Box. It struck ground just in front, bursting into thousands of miniature gagging drops, completely overwhelming two EUP Earth Pony Guards leaping to Celestia’s defense against the biologic attack with their own bodies. An alert Unicorn caught most of the rest. All except for the rancid streak that splashed onto the Alicorn’s pristine white barrel and haunch.
Stoically, unemotionally, phlegmatically, Celestia calmly took off her crown and peytral, everything all the way down to her shoes. She then hooved them over to a stunned Pegasus sitting nearby as the horrified onlookers watched. Suddenly, a bright, actinic pulse flashed from the Princess of Benevolent Light.
Celestia gave a little shake, as the ash dropped away from the dazzlingly white coat. Just as calmly, she reached over to the Pegasus, and with a lifted eyebrow, took and put her trappings back on...
“Like this is my first rodeo,” they heard her mutter under her breath, as she adjusted her crown…
The light passing through the thin greenish-brown, now almost invisible cloud wavered and flitted like hot air rising off runway tarmac. Organic gasses twisted and blended with the air surrounding it. In the meantime, the team had turned on the downwind run and break, spacing out for landing. The noobs had already flown the pattern and landed, being critiqued along the way by Lead. Derpy and Spitfire were still very green, but they already had their landing quals, and were being shown minimal acceptance that they weren’t going to kill themselves or anypony else with a boneheaded mistake.
Spitfire was in considerable pain. The solution was caustic, and the irritation was expanding exponentially when she spotted a small rain cloud just outside the downwind leg midpoint. Pregnant with moisture, it floated lazily, tantalizingly within reach. Spitfire waved off immediately, signaled a go-around, and then made a beeline for it. With a soft pomph, she disappeared into it.
Her eyes sagged in teary relief, as the raincloud’s high moisture content softened the burning pain of her backside. She had heard of “The Scours”, the sort of extreme diarrhea ponies could get, but until now, had never experienced it personally. Her head popped out just below the crown, as she sat down inside it with a groan. She hadn’t quite figured out what to say about her little performance, but her mind was working mightily to come up with something…
Just as life decided to tell the end of its little joke.
Spitfire suddenly sensed it. The cloud’s electrical potential unexpectedly changed. Changed drastically.
The lightning bolt really wasn’t all that big. About 1.21 gigawatts. It stung, especially as sore and excoriated as her rump was. But it was the cap to what was already an epically bad day…
The bolt also unerringly obeyed its physics, and lanced through the concentrated, oxygenated cloud of flammable hydrocarbons just behind her already sorely abused nethers. It ignited instantly.
The flame front then travelled backward through the vapor trail to the large condensate, which detonated spectacularly with an impressive ball of flame and a deafening BOOM!
Celestia’s Mother, the yellow Pegasus thought sadly, as she sculled herself and the now placid wet cloud through the sky to her landing. Fat, slightly stinky raindrops fell in a desultory drizzle from beneath it. No matter how many years I’m alive, nopony is EVER going to forget this…
“Shitfire…” Rainbow Dash said quietly.
“Yep! We had to tone it down all of the time in amongst the civilians. Nopony understands what it means to pick up your callsign from your teammates. They think it’s all hazing, or belittling, or some other ridiculous thing. And that one…even Celestia makes a face when she hears it, and she was right there watching when it happened,” Derpy concluded cheerfully.
“Didn’t Spitfire hate it?”
“With a passion. But something happened because of it.” Derpy pushed the cup away from her on the table, sat back and looked at Dash critically.
“Crash, Poops was a pain. She was a lot like that idiot Lightning Dust I heard about. ‘Me, me, me.’ Harder and harder. On duty, and off. That last bar trip had been one of many. She didn’t just believe in burning the candle at both ends. She clamped it in place and turned a blowtorch loose on it.”
Derpy sighed, leaned back. “Dashie, you’re just discovering the ‘Bolts. It feels like heaven, and you’ll never want it to end. But sometime…sometime, you’ll have to make a decision. Whether to push it, and risk yourself and your teammates, or let it go, and deal with the hurt. “Wobble” wasn’t by chance; I already had a slight tendency to ‘hunt’ around while lining up properly, letting my eyes get slightly different perspectives as I moved. It wasn’t very noticeable yet, but it was getting worse, and it took more and more effort and concentration to compensate for it. And flying formation in the ‘Bolts is all about position and precision. I was cleaning the compound more and more often…”
“So I went to a doctor in Chicacolt, as far away from the Flight Surgeon as I could get, and had a real expert check my peepers. I knew it was over the minute I saw the long face. I flew back to Cloudsdale and the Academy, pulled my flight status, emptied my locker and started packing.”
She shifted in her chair. “Normally back then, the team respectfully leaves you alone, let’s you figure out on your own your feelings about it. But that isn’t Spitfire’s way of dealing with things, Good or bad, she’s ‘hooves on’. She pushed past the team, wrapped me up in her forelegs, and let me ball up like a little foal as I cried my rotten eyes out. When I finally stopped, she wiped the tears away, and rather testily informed me in no uncertain terms that my eyes were beautiful; they were just independent thinkers that couldn’t make up their mind what I wanted to look at, so they tried to take in everything.”
She sighed again, a slight smile on her face. “Luna’s Mane, how can you stay mad when somepony says something like that? The pain fell back as I grinned and giggled. She brushed the top of my head with a hoof, and walked me to the door carrying my duffle bag. She put it on me, and told me that she expected me to get my degree at college, and it better be a damn good one, or she was gonna drag me back and make me the permanent compound janitor.”
Derpy sighed once more. “So, I left. Suddenly, Poops is now a section leader. One of the new guys is subbed to her. Firestreak. And a new nugget foal gets their dream shot. That was Soarin.”
Rainbow Dash stared at her.
“She changed things, Crash. Suddenly, she’s moving the ‘Bolts to take personal interest in each other. She gets noticed for it. She stood out from the pack. No more booze and hard living. It's all yoga, gym, and macrobiotic shakes with her. And now, she’s the Boss.”
“Oh, she still stumbles. That business with you at Rainbow Falls…I was glad she figured it out. Of course, after I finished talking to her afterward…”
“You did?”
Derpy’s face subtly but markedly shifted. A thin, very cold, slightly evil smile materialized as her eyes narrowed. “Dinky calls this my ‘Scary Mommy’ face…”
Dash’s head drew back from Derpy noticeably. Derpy’s eyes were only slightly cocked out of alignment, but they enhanced the chilly villainy Derpy was radiating. Rainbow Dash imagined that face delightfully pulling the wings off of butterflies, as the owner sat on a cloud while shocking small animals with lightning bolts over and over again…
The unnerving effect quickly got to her. “D-derpy…” she said, with a slight stammer, eyes wide.
The face brightened into cheerful warmth again. “Yeah. Learned it from my ex. Can’t quite get the glassy lifeless disdain he could, though. Probably a good thing. But that’s a story for another time.”