Wonderbolt

Chapter Three- Through the Ringer

By Feather Scratch

“You’re doin’ what now?”

“Building a Pegasus catching machine,” I said nonchalantly as I scrutinised the various ropes on sale a Stinkin’ Rich’s general goods stall.

It had been a few days since that night at the cliff. I hadn’t been able to talk to Blue or take my rig out for another test in that time. Privacy was a scarce commodity in a small town where everypony knew everypony, and, despite my best efforts, my nocturnal excursion hadn’t gone unnoticed. Luckily for me, my nosey neighbour had assumed I was sneaking out to meet a mare which, in a roundabout way, was true, though it had opened the flood gates to a seemingly endless barrage of good-natured ribbing from everypony I knew.

“You know, most stallions would try to get their attention with flowers and chocolates first before pulling out the ropes.” Stinkin’ Rich snickered. “Both of which, I can provide.”

I rolled my eyes and selected several lengths of sturdy lasso rope. “You’re hilarious, Rich. I’ll be sure to tell the competitor I’m helping out that you sent your regards.”

Hoofing over a few bits for my purchase, I cantered back to the workshop before the opportunistic salespony could glean any more gossip to add to his eclectic inventory. I had a lot of work to do if I was to make good on my promise to help Blue, and I intended to make good. When I was done, she’d be the most agile creature on two wings.

~~~

“It’s a what now?”

Blue and I stared up at my Pegasus catching machine. A slalom of lasso hoops, each with a coloured flag dangling enticingly in the centre. The hoops protruded from box-mounted, hollow pipes, each cut to a different length, each laid out at uneven intervals.

It had taken me all morning to haul the entire slalom up to the racetrack and set it up. It meant missing my lay in on my only day off, and the early morning racers were none too pleased with my getting in the way. But it was worth it, just to see the look on her face.

“It’s an... agility trainer.” I smiled the biggest, goofiest smile I could, fighting hard not to snicker. Blue narrowed her eyes, looking from my face to the several lengths of string wrapped around my right forehoof connected to each of the boxes, and back to my face.

“You’re up to something,” she said slowly, suspicion dripping off every syllable.

“Of course I am.” I held my head up high and posed proudly. “It wouldn’t be clever if it was obvious.”

Blue giggled and elbowed me, playfully, in the shoulder. “Alright, Mister Smartypants, don’t get a swelled head.” She hoofed me her stopwatch and flitted over to the starting line, calling back. “So, how does this oh-so-clever contraption work exactly?”

I smirked and pointed to the first hoop. “It works exactly the way you think it would,” I said innocently. “Just fly through all the hoops as fast as you can and get the flags.”

“That’s it?” Blue quirked an eyebrow. “That’s your clever machine?”

“That’s it.” I added under my breath, “For now.”

She shot me another suspicious look before shrugging and fixing her gaze on the first flag, spreading her wings in preparation for takeoff.

I pulled out my clipboard and an old quill. I wasn’t about to use my blue quill in front of Blue. “Okay, first one’s a test run. Let’s see how fast you are under optimal conditions.”

She nodded, bending her knees, not taking her eyes off the first flag.

“Three, two, one, GO!” No sooner had the last syllable left my throat than Blue shot into the air so fast a contrail of crackling static was left in her wake.

As she shot from hoop to hoop, snagging every flag as she went, it was all I could do to tear my eyes away from her form to make my notes. She was awesome. A far better flier than she realised. But she had been right about her shortcomings in the field of agility, and it was obvious why. Her shear wing power was unreal! With a single beat, she could go from standing to a blur of motion faster than any eye could hope to track. But her speed could only be applied in one direction. She needed to slow to an almost dead stop to turn at anything but the broadest of angles. It cost her a lot of time and made her movements clunky and awkward.

As she snagged the last flag, I stopped the watch and trotted up to meet her at the finish line. She was panting slightly but beamed with pride. She spat out the flags and grinned. “So, how’d I do?”

I glanced down at the watch. “Nineteen point five seconds.”

Her ears splayed, and she looked aghast. “What?! That’s terrible!”

“Actually,” I mused as I jotted down the result. “Given how fast you were on the open track, this was about what I expected, if a little on the high side.” She snorted and glared at me, flicking her wings in frustration. I wilted. “But on the plus side, I have some ideas how you could really improve.”

She cocked an eyebrow and shifted her weight to one side. “Oh.” Her tone dared me to say just one more wrong thing. “Do tell.”

~~~

The sun was setting on the horizon, bathing the world in an amber glow, when we finally called it a day. Blue lay, sprawled on her back, panting heavily. She had flown the slalom dozens of times, each time shaving off a fraction of a second, but never managing to complete the course in less than seventeen seconds.

I had suggested she half her overall speed right from the get-go and to begin her turn before actually reaching the hoops. Much to her surprise, slowing down had actually helped, but not by much. We were still missing something.

I scratched my chin and stood up, stretching. “Well, I’d call that a successful first day. What do you say we pick this up tomorrow after work?”

“What’s the point?” Blue heaved herself into a sitting position and immediately slumped. We’ve been at this all day, and I suck just as badly as I did when I started.”

“Hey, come on now.” I placed a hoof comfortingly on her shoulder. “We’re just getting started. You shaved nearly three whole seconds off your time just by pacing yourself. We haven’t even gotten to the fun part yet.” I glanced back at my neglected strings. We had gotten so caught up in the basics that I had forgotten all about them.

“You still haven’t told me what that is.” She glanced at me pointedly.

“And I won’t until the right moment.” I raised my nose in mock haughtiness, eliciting a giggling snort from Blue.

“Pretty full of yourself for an Earth Pony with bed sheets for wings.”

“Exactly.” I smirked. “I’m the Earth Pony who made wings from bed sheets. So you can trust that anything I make works, more or less.”

“Riiight.” Blue rolled her eyes. “Just remember that I’m keeping score. I’ll be sure to bear all of this in mind for when it’s my turn to help you fly.”

~~~

The hours went by at a snail’s pace the next day. I found it impossible to concentrate on the task at hoof, so focused was I on trying to figure out a solution to Blue’s agility problem. There had to be a way for her to alter course while maintaining momentum. Speed and agility didn’t have to be mutually exclusive. Did they?

While my mind wandered, my hooves had been busy assembling a clock all by themselves. I had done this hundreds of times and, at this point, could have done it blindfolded. At least clocks were easy.

As I began to screw on the back casing, I glanced down at the counter. Sitting there, right in the centre like a tiny, bronze island in a sea of worn mahogany, was a single gear. Whoops. Maybe I wasn’t quite as good as I thought.

I picked up the little disc and began absentmindedly flipping it, trying to figure out just where it could belong. Well, this was irksome. At this rate, I’d have to take the whole clock apart again and start over!

I snorted and flicked the gear across the room, aiming for the bin in the corner. Unfortunately, marksponyship was never in my repertoire of skills as proven by the little projectile promptly ricocheting off two walls and dinging me right between the eyes.

Yelping a saucy expletive, I stumbled backwards, clutching at the bridge of my nose and nearly upturning the workbench, clock and all. Through a haze of tears, I saw my assailant twinkling on the floor where it had fell. My face twisted in a snarl, and I raised a hoof, intent on stomping the little nuisance into a useless, misshapen lump, but I froze. My eyes lost focus as an idea hit me.

Reverently, I picked up the gear, and with a flick of the wrist, sent it spinning, end over end, into the air. In my mind’s eye, the world fell into slow motion. I followed every flip of the disc, superimposing the image of Blue on top of it.

That was it! It was so simple! I felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner. Oh, Blue was going to love this.

~~~

The race track was, once again, full as I trotted up for today’s practice session. Pegasi of every size and colour were racing, stretching and drilling their various exercises I couldn’t discern the point of. To my surprise, several of the Pegasi were making use of my slalom, weaving gracefully through the hoops like leaves on the wind.

A shrill whistle drew my attention to the base of the machine where Blue, in full-blown coach mode, was calling up instructions and scribbling away at a clipboard of her own. Catching sight of me, she called an end to the day’s training and waved me over. She was frowning at her clipboard.

“Twelve seconds,” she muttered before I could say hello.

“Come again.”

“I’ve put every Pegasus in the club through these hoops of yours at least three times apiece. The average completion time was twelve seconds! Even Dervish managed it in fifteen once he figured out the right order. Heck, Spectrum did it in ten seconds flat!” She glared over to the far side of the track where the prismatic stallion was preening and boasting to his usual crowd of admirers. Her ears drooped, and she hung her head dejectedly. “Maybe I should just stick to coaching and forget about the competition. Even if I somehow halved my time, all Spectrum would have to do would be to stop goofing around and focus, and he’d fly circles around me.”

I paused for a moment, taking in her dejected demeanour. I couldn’t imagine being one of, if not the fastest flyer in Equestria only to watch my record be smashed time and again, all because of a single shortcoming. I smiled softly, trotted over to my friend, and made a great show of searching the sky above her head.

“What are you doing?” She lifted her head cocking it to one side.

“I’m looking for the dark cloud hanging over your head. Some weather pony clearly missed a spot.”

She giggled with a sound like tinkling glass, her cheeks flushing and a wry smile pulling at one side of her mouth. “Okay, point taken. But with results like these to compete with—” she tapped her clipboard “—I think I have a right to be a little gloomy.”

I stepped back and flashed a big, broad grin. “What if I told you I had the solution to your problem?” I reached into my saddle bag and produced a single bit.

“You... bribed all the competition to drop out?”

I snorted and rolled my eyes, spitting the bit into one hoof. “Yes. I bribed dozens of ponies and Gryphons to drop out of one of the most prestigious events in recent history all in one night, using only the money I saved from tips.”

Blue lowered her eyelids and raised an eyebrow pointedly, but considering her smile hadn’t faded, I decided I had gotten away with it and pressed on. “No. No bribery involved, just inspiration.” I indicated the bruise on my nose. “It literally hit me.”

Lifting the coin, I tossed it into the air. It flew straight up, reached its zenith, and then dropped straight down. I caught it deftly and smiled. “Tell me, what just happened?”

The Pegasus scrunched her nose. “You threw a coin in the air?”

I sighed. “Work with me here, I’m trying to be metaphorical.”

When an apologetic smile and a shake of the head were Blue’s only responses, I slumped. I had been quite proud of my analogy. Undeterred however, I pressed on.

“Okay. The coin is you.” I tossed it again. We watched as it shot up, its edge slicing through the air without resistance. Eventually it slowed as gravity asserted itself and gently fell to the ground. “Whenever you get moving, the only way you can change direction is to wait until your initial momentum bleeds off or to actively fight against it. Both of these cost you far too much in terms of time and energy to be any use in competition.”

Blue frowned slightly at the frank assessment of her skill, but nodded along anyway.

I took the coin again and tossed it back into the air, this time adding a flick of the wrist to send it end over end. I snatched it out of the air on its return trip and turned to Blue, fixing her with an expectant look. “Now, what was the difference between that toss and the last one?”

Her frown deepened as she tried to follow along with the metaphor. “You... added a flip to the toss... making the coin spin on its axis while it went up?”

My eyes brightened, and I nodded encouragingly, waving a hoof for her to continue. “And if you apply that principle to yourself?”

She bit her lip, eyes darting from side to side. “If... I could flip mid-flight... I’d be changing direction without losing momentum?”

“Exactly!” I stomped my hooves, overjoyed Blue came to the conclusion herself. My joy dissipated somewhat when I noticed she was still looking crestfallen. “What’s wrong?” I asked hesitantly. “This is the perfect solution!”

She sat down and shook her head with a sigh, giving me a sad smile. “It’s a good idea in theory, but it won’t work. At the kind of speeds I reach, any sudden change in direction would be really dangerous. The G-force alone could snap my wings, never mind if I actually hit something.”

How it was my turn to pause and consider her words. I was struck by the memory of gliding over the Seahorse, my elation turning to panic as the windmill loomed ahead. My only option to avoid crashing into the building was to take a sharp nosedive, which would have, undoubtedly, resulted in some nasty injuries. If I had been moving at Blue’s air-crackling speed, anything I hit, be it a windmill, river, or pony flying in the opposite direction, would have turned me to paste.

I shuttered, pushing the gruesome mental image to the back of my mind. “That would only happen if you tried to take the turn at a glide, with wings and legs fully stretched,” I said, as much to assure myself as her. “But if you curled up into a tight ball and rolled, like this—” I jumped forward and gracelessly tumbled in the dirt, doing my best impression of a kicked hoofball “—only, you know, better; you wouldn’t experience any wind resistance. Then, when you were facing the direction you wanted to go in, just give a flap and boom! New direction, same speed, zero loss.”

As I picked myself up and dusted myself off, Blue hummed and glanced up at the slalom, rolling the idea around in her head. She was trying to keep her expression neutral, but her twitching wings betrayed her raising excitement. Perhaps just one final push was necessary.

“These mid-air rolls will, of course, require razor-sharp reflexes and reaction time. Pretty tall order. If you don’t think you can do it, I understand.” I looked over at the other Pegasi at the far end of the track and snickered evilly. “After all, not everypony is as confident in their own abilities as Spectrum.”

That did it. Blue sat bolt upright, her ears perked up and her pupils little more than pinpricks. “Bolt.”

“Yeah?” I asked innocently.

“Take the stopwatch.” Throwing off her coaching gear, she shoved the watch into my unprotesting hooves and jumped over to the starting line.

“Ready?” I called.

Blue glanced over to the other Pegasi, worry briefly flashing across her features. “Just a roll and a flap. No problem.” Looking back at the hoops, the worry vanished as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a look of steely determination. “Ready!”

“Three, two, one, GO!”

I had seen a pinball machine once. A particularly wealthy client had one in his den, and he was kind enough to let me try it. Watching Blue move, I almost expected to hear dinging bells. But I suppose the series of tiny thunderclaps that followed her every sudden acceleration was even better. Any worries I may have had dissipated instantly as I gawped at my Pegasus friend take to the new flying method like a duck to water.

Snagging the last of the flags, she shot down to me and skidded to a halt, falling to her haunches and holding her head as her eyes spun in different directions. “So,” she began, her voice shaky and just a little higher than normal. “How was that?”

I stared, mouth hanging open as my brain tried to catch up to what my eyes had just seen.

Blue splayed her ears and lowered her head to her chest. “Oh, it wasn’t that bad. Was it?”

I was snapped out of my stupor by whooping and a thunderous applause. Every Pegasus at the track had stopped what they were doing to watch their coach’s performance. I grinned and gestured broadly to the assembled ponies. “Does that answer your question?”

Blue’s face burned crimson as she smiled and waved to her team. “It’s a start.”