Day 0: Welcome to the Academy!
Rainbow Dash had never thought her rookie status would have earned her a pie-eating contest with Soarin.
The stallion sat back in his chair, empty pie trays scattering as he slammed his hooves down on the table. "Victory is mine!"
"Again." Spitfire remarked, slowly eating her slice.
Rainbow sighed, looking down at the two-and-a-half pies she had eaten. "Does he do this with everypony?"
Spitfire smirked. "Only the ones he deems suitable."
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It had been just past noon when Rainbow Dash surged into the foreleg of a security guard. His name had been Manerick, although she did not know that, and he took great pride in his work of keeping the Wonderbolts safe.
So it was really no surprise when he was able to catch the cyan blur's fore-hoof and flip her onto her back.
"What gives?" She yelled, flapping her wings as he kept a steady hoof on her chest. "Hooves off the merchandise!"
"What business do you have with the Wonderbolts?" Manerick asked.
"I'm the... rookie-track-something. Name's Rainbow Dash, fastest flyer in Equestri-oomph!" She broke off as something careened over Manerick, causing him to duck and accidentally punch her in the gut.
"Soarin! Soarin, the rookie's here!" A white Pegasus with a brilliantly yellow mane and tail landed behind Manerick, positively bouncing with joy. "Better tell Whiplash to get his buddy off of her!"
"She's here already? We only sent out the letter an hour ago!" Soarin, the world-famous blue Pegasus, landed nearby, grinning down at Rainbow Dash as Manerick backed away.
"Fastest flyer in Equestria." Dash winced, standing up.
"Well, come on then!" Soarin laughed, trotting ahead as the white Pegasus pushed Rainbow forward. "You've got to meet everypony!"
Manerick sighed and shook his head. "Good luck, little filly."
-----
From what Rainbow saw of the large halls and towering rooms of the Wonderbolts' mansion, it looked quite spectacular. But at the speed the white Pegasus was pushing her along, she didn't exactly have much time to look around.
"And heeere's the dining room! You're just in time for lunch! Or, in Fleetfoot's case, a midnight snack!" Leaving no further information, the Pegasus darted off down on of the hallways, humming.
It wasn't long before the Wonderbolts started wandering in, each being served by a rather stressed-looking colt with a crescent moon on his flank. In one swift motion, he dropped a set of hay fries down in front of a pale blue colt, spun around to toss a juice box to Spitfire, and grabbed Rainbow Dash by the ear and pulled her into the kitchen.
"Hey! What's with all you ponies and physical violence?"
"Sorry." He frowned, letting go and offering a hoof-shake. "It takes a lot to get through their skulls sometimes, and it's become a force of habit. Name's Crescent Moon, no, I'm not related to Princess Luna, and no, I'm not sure what my talent is. You are?"
"Uh, Rainbow Dash." She shook his hoof, smiling. "Related to my dad, Spectrum Dash, and my special talent is winning."
He snorted, flicking his mane. "Hmph. Have enough of you racehorses in here already. Anyway, rookie, you should've been in here in the first place! There's a reason we needed rookies!"
"Sorry! Some pony just shoved me into the dining room without telling me anything-"
"Surprise." He snorted.
"-and there wasn't even a job description on the application!"
"There wasn't?" Crescent frowned.
"All it said was 'how much do you like pie? Very much, a whole lot, or infinitely?'" Rainbow frowned. "I didn't get it, but it was officially marked."
Crescent Moon was fuming. "Soarin got into my office again! When I get my hooves on that colt I'll punch him so hard he won't even be able to-"
"Uh, Crescent?" A white colt pushed open the door to the kitchen, glancing anxiously behind him. "Spitfire and Soarin are throwing food at each other again."
"I swear, these ponies drive me to drink!" Crescent pushed past the other colt, shoving him into the kitchen, and his angry yells could be faintly heard through the thick cloud of the door.
"Uh, hi." The white colt rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "I take it you're Rainbow Dash? I'm Brolly, Crescent's assistant. And his," he flinched as a sound close to that of a table being tipped over echoed through the wall, "anger management coach."
"Great job." Rainbow deadpanned. "Who are all of these ponies anyway? The only ones I've ever heard of are Soarin and Spitfire."
Brolly took a deep breath. "Well, Soarin and Spitfire have been married for a few years now - not public knowledge, don't share it - and they have three foals here; Rapidfire, Blaze and Fire Streak. Blaze looks just like her mother, but without the lighter mane color. Fire Streak is a peachy-colored colt with an orange and slightly darker peach mane. Rapidfire has a pale yellow coat like her mother, but her mane is her father's color, so she doesn't like to perform much. All three of them have a tendency to set things on fire when they get excited, and we're not sure why. They carry flame well, though; stick a match on their tails and the hairs won't char at all. Soarin, on the other hoof, will do anything for pie, and Spitfire has been known to flirt with anypony of age.
"The other main relationship here is between Lightning Streak and Misty Fly. Lightning's a pale blue stallion with a yellow and orange mane, and Misty's a pale yellow mare with a sky-blue and pale blue mane, who can breathe mist no matter what temperature it is. They had a filly a while back, named Lightning Dust or something, but she was rejected from the Academy because she was being bullheaded. Mind you, the Lightning here isn't much different.
"The two guards, Manerick and Whiplash, are brothers, and work better alone than as a team. You might have noticed they're pretty good at what they do, which is protect the Wonderbolts. There aren't any other siblings here, at least that we know of.
"We do have our romance, though. You met Crescent Moon already, but he's doting on High Winds. He doesn't know this, but High Winds is doting on Wave Chill herself, and I think I'm the only one that notices, but Wave Chill acts very different around Crescent. Oh, I guess I should tell you some more about the two Wonderbolts there, as I'm sure you'll get to know Crescent yourself. High Winds is a white mare with an insanely crazy curly navy and blue mane, and she's a crazy adrenaline addict; she flies anytime, anywhere, no matter what kind of natural disaster is going on. Wave Chill is a colt with a slightly darker coat than Soarin's, and a solid dark blue mane. He has no truer love than the one he does for water. If you can't find him, check the showers.
"Then there's the rest of them, all just as strange. Surprise is the one who probably brought you in. She's the white mare with a yellow mane, and she greets everybody no matter how many times she's met them before. She's also the fastest upside-down-backwards flier we have, and she's Pinkie Pie's cousin. Then there's Silver Lining, the gray colt with the pale gray and white mane. He's horribly claustrophobic, and sleeps, eats and lives outside. The strangest of the bunch is Fleetfoot, the blue mare with the white mane. She kind of looks like you, actually, minus the rainbow. Anyway, she was abandoned as a foal, and was... well, raised by a bat-pony couple. Don't look at me like that, she was! She's also the fourth member of the 'official' Wonderbolts, with Soarin, Spitfire and Surprise.
"I think that's all of them." Brolly finished, tapping a hoof on his chin.
"Spitfire and Soarin are married?" Rainbow asked incredulously.
Brolly nodded before continuing. "So, prepare yourself for lunch. It gets crazy in there." He flinched as a plate phased through the clouds of the door, continued through the room, and vanished through the other wall.
"I think you better go help." Rainbow advised, pointing a timid hoof at the door.
"Yep." He sighed, ducking as he shoved the door open. Rainbow darted after him.
They realized, as the door swung shut behind them, that they had entered a war zone. Tables and chairs were tipped up against opposite walls, and assorted food items flew back and forth as various Pegasi popped up from behind their barricades.
A white blur shot out of one of the barricades, condensing into a mare holding two extremely large cream pies. "Eat frosting, enemies!"
Brolly shoved Rainbow behind one of the abandoned chairs as the first pie exploded across the wall, accompanied by a mournful cry from one of the colts. "That was Surprise, I think. And Soarin's the one crying, I think he was saving that."
The second pie smacked a golden-coated mare in the face, white cream dripping down her neck. "SurPRISE!"
"And that was Spitfire." Brolly whimpered. "Take cover."
"Oopsie?" The white mare whimpered.
"I'll save you, Surprise!" Soarin threw aside one of the tables, charging towards Spitfire. They collided, falling back to the ground.
Spitfire flapped her wings, growling. "This is an abuse of power! Crescent, tell him he's cheating!"
The caretaker poked his head around the small table he had pulled aside. "You married him, you tell him!"
"It's not cheating, is it?" Soarin sat up, looking around at the other Wonderbolts. "Are there rules for this?"
"Awkward and slightly sexual attacks aren't in the rulebook!" Surprise called out.
"Neither is sabotage!" Spitfire yelled back. "But we all agreed not to do that!"
A set of three pale-coated heads popped out from Spitfire's barricade. "Mo-om, you always end the fight when you and dad do that."
"Shush, Blaze. Now you can eat your lunches."
"But mo-oooommmmm..."
Spitfire silenced the three with a stern glare, and they obediently put the table back in place and sat down. The other Pegasi slowly followed suit, until Crescent looked around the room with a sigh.
"Brolly, could you help me get another round of daisy sandwiches and a platter of the cherries from the garden?" Crescent spun, trotting down another hallway to - presumably - get someone to clean up the mess.
Rainbow Dash turned to ask Brolly what she was supposed to do, but he had already vanished. She looked around the room awkwardly, not seeing any spaces.
Spitfire shoved Soarin off of the edge of a bench - "You can eat on the floor, heaven knows you've done it before." - and waved her over.
"Uh, am I really allowed to sit here?"
Spitfire grinned. "Why shouldn't you be? You've got the longest stay record of a rookie so far!"
"Most of them run away during the food fight." Fire Streak admitted. "So, congratulations! Surprise, time-check!"
"Sixteen minutes and forty-eight seconds!" She called back.
"There you have it." Rapidfire finished. "You're beating the record with every second."
"Do you always do that?" Rainbow asked, waving a hoof towards the three siblings. "Talk for each other?"
They glanced at each other, before nodding in unison. Spitfire ground a hoof into her forehead.
A pale blue mare trotted in, a fuzzy nightgown tied around her belly. She shook her head, white mane poofing up as the hood of the gown fell off. "Hey guys." She blinked, eyes only half-focused. "My alarm clock didn't go off. I woke up to Crescent banging his head on my wall. Did I miss anything?"