F-Zero: MLPX

by Brony_Fife

Rating: teen
Tags: Gilda, Scootaloo, Adventure, Crossover, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Rainbow Dash, King Sombra
Length: 23248

The origin story of Captain Falcon. Show me your hooves!

Talented bounty hunter Rainbow Dash has hit a bit of a snag in her career, and she finds herself in over her head once she accepts her next assignment. Not only must she enter the dangerous F-Zero races, but she has to place first to win the Champion's Belt! Will her guts and luck be enough to become an F-Zero champion?

Published 2014-01-10 19:20:03 UTC
Last updated 2014-05-06 18:15:19 UTC

Act I, Prologue: "All in the Cards."

Act I: Prologue
~All in the Cards~

He shuffled the deck eagerly, his black aura tinting each card with sinister colors. He breathed a deep and excited sigh as he set it back down on his table, the six candles around him casting upon everything an eerie glow. The small statue before him—the twisted icon of Deathborn itself—stood in a small shrine in the cavern wall. His eyes took a quick scan of his underground apartment, drinking in the bare necessities it provided. With a blink, he looked back into the demanding gaze of Deathborn.

He had long served beneath the great and unholy Deathborn, many of his years spent in search of Discord the Lord of Chaos. So many of his years spent searching for him, to capture him and bring him to his god and master. So many years spent searching for that blasted draconequus—so many! It took him a second to realize he had pounded his table in frustration, causing the deck of cards to scatter. He regrouped them.

Time and again, he would search for Discord, and time and again he would fail to find him. And time and again, Deathborn would punish him for his failure.

He blinked. Only then did he realize he was staring at the scars all over his forelegs. The now-faded lines, where the red-hot needles had seared away his dark pelt, glowed almost eerily in this limited lighting. His eyes once again descended upon the statue, as if waiting for a signal.

Despite being underground where no wind could possibly reach him, the candles were suddenly blown out. One lit itself back on. The first signal. He drew from the top of the deck and laid the card facedown.

The second returned. The second signal. He drew another card.

This sequence continued until he’d drawn three more cards, bringing him to five, all facedown. The candles all burned brightly before suddenly turning a deep black, casting everything into a dark green glow. The final candle lit. One more card drawn, this one the most important.

“I have drawn your cards, O Deathborn the Great and Miserable,” he said, his deep voice echoing about the apartment. “Please, in your infinite understanding of the cosmos, I ask you to guide your humble servant to the goal you wish him to accomplish…”

His prayer was swallowed by the statue, its dull eyes suddenly burning red. I feel the Draconequus, said a voice. I can feel all the chaos he embodies… and he is forever in flight. The voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere, creeping under the floor, crawling on the ceiling, tittering just beneath his skin.

His cycle has begun again, continued Deathborn. As his form has changed once more, your chase begins. However, my servant, I have the feeling your ability to foretell the future to some degree should serve you well this time.

He nodded to his god. “Let us begin our fortune telling, then,” he said. He looked down to his cards, the black candles still burning.

He flipped the first card upright. On it was the Dazzling Demon. “Our first enemy this cycle is the Dazzling Demon. His shimmering lights cast shadows over his secrets. His charisma and power of influence over others is great.”

The second card was flipped, revealing the Midnight Song. “Our second enemy, the Midnight Song. Her silence and beauty form an enchanting magic that can ensnare any being.”

The third came up. “Our third enemy. The Masked Warrior. A devil hidden in plain sight?”

The fourth. “The Fox of Ages. A creature of superior cunning intellect. This one might be more dangerous than the others…”

The fifth and final foe was flipped over. “The Flightless Angel. Her wings are cut, but her courage and strength remain.” He raised an eyebrow. “If allied with the Fox of Ages or the Dazzling Demon, she might become the most dangerous obstacle we face.”

Indeed, hissed the menacing voice from before. His tone seemed rather detached despite the odds. Now. Who is to be our ally in this quest?

He took a deep breath and swallowed. With some hesitance, he flipped the last card. A smile overtook his grim face, displaying a row of sharpened teeth. He fought the urge to laugh aloud at his own good fortune. “The Lady of Death,” he said.

Silence. The black candle flickered. The Lady of Death, Deathborn mused slowly. This is the first time fate has recruited her as an ally as opposed to our enemy.

He nodded. “It seems our luck has changed. If your humble servant has the honor, may I ask what form has the Draconequus taken this cycle?”

Another pause. He has possessed the form of the F-Zero Champion’s Belt. The very prize you seek to win on those silly racetracks year after year. Deathborn’s voice hinted at his amused mood. It seemed everything was finally falling into place.

He smiled as he blew out the black candle. All that he could see now was the glowing red eyes of the icon. He leaned forward, resting his forelegs on the table, crossing them, covering his mouth with his hooves as he felt a chuckle rumble up his throat. “Then it would seem I have a grand prix to win.”

The red eyes flickered in the darkness before finally going out. See to it that you do, said Deathborn as his voice faded light years away. I will not tolerate any more failure.

“I understand,” Sombra whispered to the darkness.

Act I, Chapter 1: "Show Me Your Move."

Act I: Chapter 1
~Show Me Your Move~

Rainbow Dash shifted in her seat, the uncomfortable wood chair squeaking as she did so. It was the year 2286, for Luna’s sake—you’d think wood would be outmoded by better materials by now. But Equestria Prime was a big place, and some areas were poorer than others. Red Canyon (and all the shantytowns that dotted its wrecked, dry landscape) was one such area.

The dingy bar all around Rainbow Dash screamed of how difficult it was for Red Canyon natives to make ends meet. Poor lighting bathed the place in a distracting and unfriendly glow. Cheap cigarette smoke choked the air around her. Ponies and Donkeys and Griffons and Diamond Dogs and Buffalo, all under one roof, their only goal to gamble and drink to escape the harrowing Red Canyon lifestyle, becoming distorted shadows under the light and behind the cigarette smoke.

But it wasn’t the bar that Rainbow Dash was here for. It wasn’t the shantytown she was here for. It wasn’t the lighting, or the smoke, or the distorted shadows. Not even the admittedly passable beer.

Rainbow Dash was here for Leeroy Brown.

Wherever he goes, he’s the baddest stallion in the whole damn town. Keeps a .32 gun in his pocket for fun, got a razor in his shoe. Badder than old King Kong, meaner than a junkyard dog. She’d heard it all when it came to Leeroy Brown.

But looking at him now from her seat across the poker table put him in a different light. Maybe that’s what caught most ponies off-guard about Leeroy Brown. He was a gambler—and a rather successful one, as his fancy clothes and diamond rings suggested. They accented his youthful, handsome features rather well, the diamond rings shimmering as they crowned his horn. His pretty shell hid a hideous creature underneath, and it was the creature that was Leeroy Brown Rainbow Dash intended to capture.

The bar’s jukebox blared a jaunty tune as the dealer fed the two remaining players their cards. “I’ve never played against a mare like you,” said Leeroy. “Blackjack and Full House was good players—real good—and you smoked ’em like they weren’t nothin’.” He cocked his head at his fellows, who were busy at the bar nursing damaged egos with their mutual friend alcohol. “You’re pretty good at this, sister. How long ya been playing?”

“First time,” Rainbow Dash grinned.

Leeroy stifled a laugh. “No way!” he said. “Nopony’s this good their first time.”

“They are if they’re lucky,” she returned. Her magenta eyes didn’t even look at her cards, still locked on Leeroy Brown, reading his every muscle movement. She put her cards on the table facedown, leaned back in her chair, and smiled.

She traced each of her facedown cards with her cyan hoof. “Tell you what, Leeroy Brown. I bet I’m the luckiest mare alive.”

His smile doubled. If she were any other mare, a mare who didn’t know Leeroy Brown or what he was capable of, she might have melted. It was a very fetching smile, but Rainbow Dash knew Leeroy Brown—what he was capable of—what he was already wanted for.

“I agree,” he said, his rich voice like honey. He moved a dull-orange hoof across the table and placed it on hers. Rainbow Dash fought the urge to grab it and twist his foreleg off.

“Not like that, smart aleck,” she said with the most charming grin she could muster. “I bet my hand of cards is better than the one you have right now.”

Leeroy threw his head back and scoffed. “A hand’a cards you ain’t even looked at?” he asked. “OK. It’s a bet. If I win, I’ll take you someplace nice.” His eyes and his smile became dreamier. “Someplace nice and quiet.”

“Sounds tempting,” said Rainbow Dash in a husky tone, leaning forward on the table. The milky light above began to flicker. The only colors either poker player could see was the namesake spectrum of Rainbow Dash’s mane and the diamond rings on Leeroy's horn. He couldn’t see her magenta eyes very well under this light, but he did catch a smirk. “But if I win… I’m taking you home.”

The look on Leeroy’s face said it all. His dreamy eyes could already see the dirty things he wanted to do to her. Rainbow Dash kept eye contact. Kept her smirk. Gotta appear nonchalant. Confident. Gotta win this creep over. Keep it going.

“I’ll take that bet,” Leeroy said. He put down his hand. Two kings, two queens, and a three of clubs.

Rainbow Dash flipped over her cards.

Royal flush.

Leeroy gasped in shock. Her smile widened as he looked from his cards to hers, then to her eyes. “How…?!”

“Like I said,” Rainbow Dash chuckled as she leaned back in her chair, “you can be this good if you’re lucky enough.” For a few seconds, there was only the dim chatter of other patrons and the jaunty song from the jukebox. Finally, Leeroy Brown grinned and lowered his head in defeat.

“You win,” he said. “You really are the luckiest mare alive.”

Rainbow Dash felt the two knobs on her back twitch under the leather of her jacket. She tried not to let it show. It was like puppy dog tails wagging at a compliment.

She fastened her saddlebags as Leeroy got out of his seat and held out a hoof to his apparent date for the night. She took it and allowed him to lead her out of the bar, chased out by raunchy catcalls in congratulations to Leeroy’s “score”.

The dark outside was pierced only by Luna’s moon, shining at least enough light to see. The two exited the bar into the sleepy shantytown where the drinkers’ wives slept as their husbands gambled away their pay. It looked to be built with raw materials that hadn’t seen any use in centuries, a small town carved entirely out of a trash heap, surrounded by rock and dust.

Rainbow Dash looked from the town to Leeroy.

“Say, Leeroy,” she said as they walked along. “What’s a guy as fancy-dressed as you doing in a dead-end town like this one, anyway?”

Leeroy smiled. “I’m a traveler, babe. I get my kicks by watching the miles behind me pile up.”

Not the only way you get your kicks, Rainbow Dash thought. “A fellow traveler, huh?” she smiled, patting her saddlebags. She drew special attention to the number of stickers on their sides, each one naming off a city she’d already been to. “Seeing the world before you get too old. I can respect that.”

He put a foreleg around her as they both looked up to the moon. Rainbow Dash fought a shiver. “I’ve seen quite a bit of the world already,” he said. “Mute City, Big Blue, White Aeropolis…”

Rainbow Dash grinned. “Really? I’m from White Aeropolis,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Born and raised.”

Leeroy looked behind her and returned her with a smirk. “Now I know you’re lying,” he said. “White Aeropolis population is almost universally pegasus. You ain’t even got wings, darlin’.”

Rainbow Dash attempted to flutter a set of wings that were no longer there, the knobs on her back twitching, causing her jacket to wiggle on her back. “Sure am,” she said. “It’s just…” Her smile faded as she looked away sadly.

Leeroy looked at her in startled shock. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry.”

She looked back to him, again sadly, before turning around and walking away a little. Had to make herself look as vulnerable as possible. “Don’t be,” she said. “It’s not like it’s your fault.”

She felt his hooves on her shoulders, rubbing them tenderly. Okay, she thought to herself, he’s going for the kill. Act like you want it, girl.

A set of teeth gently chewed her ear before breathing into it. “I know how you can forget it all for a little while,” he said in a deep whisper.

Rainbow Dash turned around, taking Leeroy's hoof and inching nearer to his face. She felt his hot breath mix with hers as he leaned in.

Then Rainbow Dash gave him a fierce slug across his face, dropping him onto his back. She lunged for him, landing on his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Before he even understood what was going on, she punched him again.

“That’s for Sunny Day,” she growled.

Another punch. “For Flowershine.”

Another. “For Golden Harvest.”

One more. “For Razmatazz.”

She raised her hoof again. “And this one?” She brought it down for a wet, solid thump. “This one’s special delivery from Fleur Dis Lee.”

His once-handsome face had been punched into a swollen, bleeding mess. Rainbow Dash quickly searched him, pulling out the gun he kept in his pocket and throwing it aside. “You think you’re hot stuff, huh? You think you can just have any mare you want, keep adding notches to your belt with no consequences.”

She dragged him back up and roughly forced him face-first against a nearby cement wall. She took his forelegs and twisted them behind his back, earning a gurgled cry. “Well what you forgot was that these mares had husbands. These mares had fathers and mothers. These mares had brothers and sisters and best friends and teachers.” Rainbow Dash leaned into his ear and lowered her voice to a hiss. “Wanna know what they all have in common?”

Leeroy whimpered. Rainbow Dash grinned at the sound. “They all want you dead, Leeroy Brown,” she growled through clenched teeth. She heard his urine splash the ground as he mumbled out something, likely a plea for his life.

She wanted to punch the back of his head as hard as she could. But no. She was having too much fun terrorizing him. That and, well, she needed him alive if she wanted the bounty money. “Oh no, no no no. No, no. I’m not gonna be the one to kill you. But you better start prayin’ the ponies paying me to bring you in are the merciful type.”

While she held his forelegs with one hoof, she raised her free foreleg and elbowed the back of his neck, causing him to drop down. “You were smart to keep running,” she continued as she rolled him onto his back and brought out a set of shackles. “Especially smart to run this far into the boonies, just to hide. Just so you can strike again when you get that itch.”

The shackles she brought out found their way onto each leg, clamping them all together into a single awkward, unusable stump. She stood back up, getting a good look at Leeroy Brown’s damaged face. She hadn’t noticed it before, but she’d punched out an eye. It laid over there by the cement wall. She grimaced. “Whoa, didn’t think I hit you that hard,” she murmured quickly.

Leeroy opened his mouth—only now did Rainbow Dash realize she didn’t gag him first, and only now did she realize they were only a little ways away from the bar. “BLACKJACK!” he shouted. “FULL—”

The noise was stopped by a cyan hoof. But it was too late. She heard shouting from behind her, and without a moment’s breath, she put Leeroy on her back and booked it. A loud crack rang behind her, and the cement wall she rounded lost a little bit off its corner.

“Crud,” she muttered. “They’re packin’ heat!”

Interestingly, none of the gunshots that followed were laser weaponry. From the sounds of it, Blackjack and Full House were using an old-fashioned pistol. Probably the best weapons one could find this far out in Red Canyon. Another bullet ricocheted by, causing lights to come on in a few of the shanties.

Great. It wouldn’t do for ordinary citizens to get involved in this. Gotta take this someplace where nopony’d get hurt. Rainbow Dash darted down an alley, a graffiti’d fence on one side, a cliff's wall on the other. Her eyes scanned up the cliff. If only she still had wings, it’d be easy to just shoot up there and hide.

Instead, it looked as if she’d have to do this the hard way. At the end of the alley, past some trash cans and another shanty, was a pile of rocks that led into a path up the cliff. She took it, just as she heard another gunshot, a bullet biting into the rocks behind her.

As she made her way up, she heard a panicked cry. Her eyes widened as she heard someone call up to her. “Hey, lady!” The voice was raspy, like it was coming from years of smoking. “Come back here with Leeroy, or the night owl gets it!”

The demand stopped her in her tracks. She heard Leeroy on her back. “Better…” He coughed. “Better do as he says. Blackjack only warns once.”

“Shut up,” Rainbow Dash said as she turned around. “Just shut up.” She walked back down the path, the alley coming back into view. Blackjack, a tall and gangly unicorn with an oily beard, stood with his gun levitated before him. Its barrel dug into the head of a terrified earth pony, his only mistake likely just taking a peek outside at all the ruckus. Next to him was a rough-looking Buffalo—his dark fur thick and coarse, a scar travelling down the entire length of his face. Rainbow Dash didn’t know how she’d missed Full House’s scar before. She blamed the lighting.

“Let Leeroy go,” Full House demanded in a low, menacing voice. “Drop him and walk away, lady. Last chance.”

Rainbow Dash looked at their hostage. Average build, balding. Looked to be in his mid-thirties. He looked back at her with pleading eyes and trembling lips.

“I’m gonna make a bet,” she said slowly.

“I don’t think you understand,” Blackjack threatened. “We’re the ones with the advantage right now.”

“I heard you fire six shots outta that gun,” Rainbow Dash said, ignoring Blackjack and instead focusing more on the gunbelt around his middle. There was a holster for the gun, but nothing in the way of extra bullets…

She pursed her lips. “That’s an old model, made by unicorns for unicorns. Not like the modern, flashy light guns made for everypony to use. It only has six shots.” She grinned. “I’m gonna bet… the chamber is empty.”

The hostage whimpered as the barrel dug into his head harder. “You gonna gamble with somepony's life?” Blackjack asked.

“Show me your move,” Rainbow Dash dared.

With a thought, Blackjack commanded his gun to fire. The command went unheard with an empty click. The hostage jumped from the expected shot, only to find himself surprised that he was still alive, healthy, in his mid-thirties, and balding.

Rainbow Dash cocked her head in triumph.

Blackjack, frustrated by this turn of events, growled and raised his pistol up off the hostage and brought it down on his head, pistol-whipping him into unconsciousness. “BJ, watch out!” cried Full House.

But it was too late. Rainbow Dash had dropped Leeroy and darted for Blackjack, bashing him in the chest with a headbutt. He was knocked clear into the shanty’s wall with a loud crunch, splintering the entire wall.

Full House drew out a Bowie knife and went for a cut against Rainbow Dash’s neck. It soared through the night air, a ghostly shadow the shape of a demented grin—but it cut nothing. Rainbow Dash had ducked, punching one of Full House’s forelegs, dropping him. She jumped and wrapped her forelegs around his thick neck, causing him to panic and try bucking her off. Despite his size, Full House had a weak spot everyone else had—the back of his neck, specifically where it met the head. With one good elbow drop, Rainbow Dash laid Full House out flat.

Rainbow Dash turned around just as Blackjack started tossing debris at her with his telekinesis, the sharp chips of wood speeding past her like bullets. One sliced her face, while another dug into her shoulder. Blackjack lunged out from behind the hole in the wall, a sharp piece of glass between his teeth—and suddenly, the world around Rainbow Dash slowed to a crawl.

This was her chance. She’d gotten such chances before, but this one held an epic weight to it. It was do or die. One miss and Blackjack could stick that glass into her neck, killing her. It would make an ugly exit to an already ugly life.

But if she died, then this creep goes free. Free to strike again when he inevitably would get his itch. But not only that, if she died, Scootaloo would...

She assumed her offensive stance and raised a cyan hoof, feeling the muscles in her foreleg bend and bulge as the blood pumped through them.

“MEGATON…”

Just as Blackjack descended on her, that hoof shot straight forward, pulling Rainbow Dash’s body with it.

“PUHhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnn…”

Her eyes widened as Blackjack flew over her. His own widened when he noticed his quarry had moved too far and he’d overshot his jump. Her hoof connected with his hind leg, sending him into a bizarre spiral before crash-landing a few feet away.

Rainbow Dash looked at her hoof in disappointment. She sighed and shook her head. “I swear I’ll get it right one of these days,” she whispered to herself. She heard a groan nearby and looked up. She gasped a little when she noticed that Blackjack had landed on the ground face-first, causing the piece of glass he had to cut his mouth. Blood spilled onto the ground around him as he screamed in pain.

She hadn’t felt it when it stabbed her shoulder, but the dull pain that began to grow reminded her she was hurt. Rainbow Dash took out a small, metal first aid kit from her saddlebags. She looked from her own wound, then to Blackjack as he squirmed on the ground like a wounded wild animal.

Nonchalantly, Rainbow Dash walked over to him. Blackjack looked up at her as she neared, the panic in his eyes made apparent, his voice melting from a scream into a whimper.

“Chill out,” Rainbow Dash said dryly. “I’m no doctor but I’ll do my best. Let’s start with some anesthetic.”

With that, she belted Blackjack across the head with her first-aid kit.

The tarp was flung from the Blue Falcon with nothing less than flamboyant gusto. As the beige cloth fluttered to the dusty earth, the moonlight stroked the Blue Falcon’s beautiful ultramarine chassis like someone who hadn’t seen her lover for ages. Truth be told, Rainbow Dash hadn’t taken the Falcon out for a spin under the spell of Luna’s night for months. She made a mental note to change that as soon as possible.

The Blue Falcon itself (Well, himself—Rainbow Dash insisted on assigning him a gender) was a breath-taking machine. His avian shape complimented the daring color scheme, the green cockpit a single large eye on a deep blue helmet. When Rainbow Dash had seen him for the first time after he was built, she’d fallen in love hard and never looked back.

The Blue Falcon’s single green eye opened with a quiet hiss, revealing a cockpit underneath. Leeroy Brown awoke as he found himself unceremoniously dumped into the backseat. Rainbow Dash re-checked her work: gag in place, shackles tightened, bandage clumsily applied over his missing eye… everything was in place.

She leaned in close. “You zonked out back there, Leeroy. I guess I dropped you on your head or something. I left your friends with the local sheriff’s office, gift-wrapped and everything. They’re not involved with this, as far as I’m concerned—lucky them.” She grabbed him by his neck and pulled in closer, her teeth bared. “But any more surprises like this, and I’ll just forget that reward money and gut you myself.”

After leaving her threat dangling in the air for a moment, she took the cockpit and started up the Blue Falcon. Every time she heard her beast of a machine scream to life, the cockpit rumbling with passion, Rainbow Dash found a smile on her face. She’d had her love affairs, but it was always the Blue Falcon who reminded her how much fun it is to just be alive. She took a deep, satisfied breath of that feeling of life, and then put her hooves into the control boots at either side of the main panel. Pressing down and forward sent the Blue Falcon screaming ahead.

They shot from the small alley and out of the shantytown, the late night dust of Red Canyon trailing behind them. Just as the Falcon was a fair enough distance away from the dilapidated village, Rainbow Dash pressed a button on the dashboard. A small green light began to blink. After a minute or two, the green light stopped and the intercom began to crackle.

“...Captain?” yawned a young voice.

Rainbow Dash grabbed the squawkbox while keeping one hoof in a control boot. “Captain’s here, Scoots,” she said as she brought it to her mouth. “Mission successful. Sorry to wake you up, by the way.”

“Whatever,” Scoots groaned back.

“Don’t talk that way to me! Bring the Falcon Flyer in—this birdie’s coming home to roost.”

Almost at her command, Leeroy heard a sound above. It was loud. Deafening. Like a long scream that was slowed way down. He looked up, the green-tinted windshield of the Blue Falcon giving them a good view of the Falcon Flyer as it soared above them.

If the Blue Falcon was a majestic driving machine, then the Falcon Flyer was a regal beast of a cargo ship. Designed specifically to look twenty percent cooler than your average ship, the Falcon Flyer boasted a similar appearance and color scheme to the Blue Falcon, only bigger and more imposing. The two machines were practically mother and son: the blueprints of the first were taken into consideration in the design of the second.

A tractor beam fell onto the Blue Falcon and raised it up into the Falcon Flyer’s cargo bay, bathing everything in a heavenly white glow. It would have been an awe-inducing sight if Leeroy Brown had any appreciation for what Rainbow Dash considered cool. The mother had collected her child.

She despised having to do it, but Rainbow Dash killed the Blue Falcon’s power, putting him into a deep sleep. She turned her head back to Leeroy and smiled sinisterly as the cockpit’s windshield opened. “Welcome home, honey.”

Leeroy whimpered behind his gag.

Author's Note

Love dat Rainbow Dash. <3

Act I, Chapter 2: "Gilda, the Vengeful Samurai."

Act I, Chapter 2
~Gilda, the Vengeful Samurai~

The intense smell of the coffee met Rainbow Dash’s nostrils as she brought the mug upward. She let the drink wash over her tongue, almost scalding it. It didn’t taste nearly as good as it smelled, but then again, Rainbow Dash was never much of a coffee-lover like Scootaloo was. She just wanted the caffeine.

The stitch on her shoulder ached, the rest of her body merely tired. She never liked the idea of removing foreign objects from herself, but she liked the idea of leaving them in even less. Rainbow Dash took another draw, this one slower, longer, deeper—letting the caffeine wash away the filth of fatigue.

Rainbow Dash heard the familiar swoosh of the cockpit door and looked over from her pilot’s chair (not that she was actually piloting right now, but it did make her look cooler).

Scootaloo came into the Falcon Flyer’s cockpit as the sun began to peek over Red Canyon’s mountainous spine, spilling reddish-orange light all over the floor. She was a rather tiny creature for fourteen years of age. Big, beautiful purple eyes that Rainbow Dash predicted will drive stallions crazy when she’s legal. Her tough-girl blue bomber jacket covered an orange pelt and a cute pair of goggles crowned her purple mane. The combat boots completed her look.

She looked like she hadn’t slept very much—and she hadn’t. The “emergency surgery” she had to perform earlier that morning took too much concentration and Rainbow Dash squirmed so much she was honestly surprised she hadn’t pulled out any muscle tendons instead.

Rainbow Dash returned her attention to the Red Canyon outside and smirked. “G’mornin’, Scoots.”

Scootaloo gave her Captain a grumpy frown and sat down in the co-pilot’s seat. She turned her head and glowered at Rainbow Dash, waiting patiently for her to make eye contact.

Finally, Rainbow Dash sighed with a wide grin. “Thank you for lending your excellent surgical skills, Dr. Scootaloo.”

Scootaloo gave a sarcastic smile. “No problem,” she said unkindly. “You get hurt so often, I get plenty of practice.”

More silence. Rainbow Dash clicked her tongue, her smile fading. “Scoots. You know this is my job. Risking my life fighting for other ponies.” She turned to meet Scootaloo’s eyes and motioned to her stitched-up shoulder. “This? This is part of the job. Taking a beating is just as natural as giving one, you know that.”

“Doesn’t mean I gotta like it.” She turned to her console, thought for a moment, then looked sideways at Rainbow Dash. “It, uh… it was in pretty deep.”

Rainbow Dash shivered at the memory of having to keep perfectly still as Scootaloo slowly pulled the debris out earlier that morning. Even with the anesthetic, just the sight of Scootaloo’s tools had caused her to panic and wriggle. Her shoulder still screamed from the operation earlier.

“Your shoulder feel all right, Captain?”

“Don't worry about it, Scoots. You did a great job.” She tousled Scootaloo’s mane affectionately.

Scootaloo looked down at the destination coordinates, double-checking the Falcon Flyer’s status and current destination—same routine she did nearly every morning. Her eyes betrayed her conflicted emotions. Sensing some tension, Rainbow Dash poured her a cup of coffee.

“No thanks,” Scootaloo said. “I’ll wait until we reach civilization and hit the closest Sugarcube Coffee.”

“Tch. Snob. What’s wrong with Mountain Grind?”

“It tastes like cigarette butts.”

Rainbow Dash put the second cup of coffee down and looked at Scootaloo with a raised eyebrow and a punkish smirk. “How d’you know what cigarette butts taste like?” she asked playfully.

Scootaloo quickly looked away and pretended to input instructions into her console. Rainbow Dash put down her own coffee and turned Scootaloo’s chair around to lock eyes. “Either you’re eating out of ash trays or you’ve been smoking. I wanna know where you got the cigs, ’coz I’m pretty sure I quit a little after we first met.”

There was some silence before Scootaloo looked away. Finally, with some reluctance, she pulled open a nearby glove compartment and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She quickly threw them to Rainbow Dash with an embarrassed and angry frown, then returned to her pretend-work. Rainbow Dash looked at the cigarette pack in her lap. Half the cigarettes were missing.

She looked up to Scootaloo. “When did you start?”

More silence. Scootaloo stopped. Shuddered. She heard Scootaloo sniffle. “Hey,” Rainbow Dash said, “Scoots. Scoots, I’m not judging you. I’m not here to tell you how to live your life. I just wanna know when you started smoking.”

Scootaloo wiped at the tears that dared to form in her eyes. “...Last week.”

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “Scoots, there’s like… half a pack in here. Half. You went through half a pack in just a week?”

“I only smoked two, I swear!” Scootaloo said apprehensively. “I choked on them. Now just… just leave me alone.” With that, she released a sigh she didn’t realize she was holding and returned to monitoring the Falcon Flyer’s status.

“I believe you,” Rainbow Dash said as she put the cigarettes down on the console next to her. She quickly did the math in her head. “You… got these off that guy I brought in some weeks ago, right?” She shook her head as she looked up to the pair of tacky red fuzzy dice dangling from the clock over the cockpit window. “That guy smoked like a chimney.”

At this, Scootaloo suppressed an adorable snort. Scootaloo looked to Rainbow Dash with a big toothy grin. “Of course, that’s exactly what happened, right?” There was the perky, fun Scootaloo Rainbow Dash was looking for! Just needed to be coaxed out of her shell.

“I still stand by that fact,” Rainbow Dash argued. “That’s what happened.”

Scootaloo laughed. “Oh sure,” she said sarcastically, “You just tried to pull that silly Megaton Punch of yours, botched it as usual, and knocked over all those light fixtures, which started a chain reaction that caused an ember to land on his beard, thereby setting him on fire.”

“That’s exactly what happened!” Rainbow Dash asserted with a pointed hoof. “I swear! You know everypony calls him Captain Firebeard now because of how I brought him in. I gave him an awesome nickname!”

“Through dumb luck, apparently.”

“You call it dumb luck. I call it ser... sera... uh...”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Serendipity.”

Rainbow Dash took another sip of her coffee. “Yeah, serendrippiny.”

Scootaloo shrugged and sighed hopelessly. Her eyes flicked back to the console, then to Rainbow Dash—specifically the stitch on her shoulder. She put her eyes back to the monitor before her. “So, uh… didja try the Megaton Punch again this time?”

Rainbow Dash smiled. “Hey, it set a minotaur on fire last time I used it.”

Scootaloo threw her head back and groaned humorously. “Dammit, Captain, when are you going to grow up? The Megaton Punch is something out of those silly chop-sockey movies you’re always watching.”

Rainbow Dash set her coffee mug down dramatically. “Hey, hey, hey, hey. The Megaton Punch is an actual, real life technique perfected by martial arts master Fuji Apple.”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes as Rainbow Dash went into specific detail about the move, how to perform it, its history, and so on. It surprised Scootaloo that Rainbow Dash didn’t know very much when it came to general things that would be useful in life (like math), yet knew everything when it came to violence and street smarts. She chalked it up to Rainbow Dash being a brilliant study—but only when it came to topics she found interesting.

“So, are we skipping the part where Fuji Apple was actually an actress?” Scootaloo asked. “An actress who became infamous for starring in low-budget, direct-to-DVD B-movies?”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Hey, Scoots, don’t be like that. Hollywood just has no appreciation for the finer arts. Fuji Apple was an honest-to-Celestia martial artist.” She turned her attention out at the beautiful sunrise that colored the Red Canyon various shades of purple and orange. “And the Megaton Punch is an honest-to-Celestia real martial art move she created and perfected.”

“Yeah, you keep on believing that, Captain.”

“Hey, I did my research on this one, Scoots. The Megaton Punch is completely possible.”

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. “So then why haven’t you been able to perform it?”

Rainbow Dash finished her coffee before slowly turning to Scootaloo. “I just need to keep practicing. Fuji didn’t master it right away either. It’s how you become a master, you know.” She blinked. “Like how you’re so good with machines. Or surgery. You just keep doing it over and over until it’s second nature.”

Same answer every time. Scootaloo rolled her eyes again. Denial. Rainbow Dash was simply in denial—if only because of her own hypocrisy. Rainbow Dash got by mostly on her good luck, her “serendipity”, never by any real talent. She never really practiced fighting, if only because fighting was already a second-nature to her anyway. It was the main reason Scootaloo worried about her so much. One of these days, that luck Rainbow Dash depended on so heavily was going to run out.

And then what? Scootaloo dreaded the thought.

Her eyes and thoughts wandered to the cigarette pack sitting on the coffee table. She wasn’t even mad, she thought. She didn’t even try to stop me, or punish me at all.

Scootaloo wondered which one of them was the grownup. It wasn't the first time the question crossed her mind. She released a small, bothered sigh. Suddenly, her monitor began to blink red and beep loudly.

“What’s wrong?” asked Rainbow Dash.

Scootaloo looked more closely at her monitor. “One of the escape pods just launched.”

Rainbow Dash cursed as she got up. “Looks like Leeroy’s giving us more trouble,” she muttered as she walked across the cockpit.

“What do you want me to do?” asked Scootaloo.

“Keep flying to Mute City,” Rainbow Dash said over her shoulder. “I’ll meet you there. Keep your intercom open in case anything changes; you know the drill!” With that, the cockpit door closed behind her, leaving Scootaloo alone with a pot of bad coffee and a half-empty pack of cigarettes as company.

Escape pods were only meant as emergency vehicles, never built for anything more than to be ejected from the ship, unnoticed by the enemy. The Falcon Flyer’s escape pods weren’t built for the kind of speed Leeroy Brown needed to escape a machine as fast as the Blue Falcon—and the fact that he was hasty and set no coordinates for the pod's computer made it difficult to commandeer the pod.

It skittered and bumbled over the Red Canyon’s hammered earth, shooting into a direction opposite the Falcon Flyer, kicking up dust around its colorless, ovoid self. Leeroy looked behind him and bade the Flyer and her demented occupants a hard-hearted farewell. “Crazy mare,” he muttered. “Didn’t even check fer the razor I keep in my shoe.”

His confident smirk burned away the moment he saw the Blue Falcon descend onto the desert floor.

He pressed down on the gas, only to curse when he noticed the pod couldn’t speed up. Leeroy looked around, quickly searching for some kind of cave or something to lose her in. Before he could find anything, bolts of light struck the ground around him.

Looking aside, Leeroy noticed the Blue Falcon had opened fire on him. The more he tried to maneuver the pod, the more he began to panic as lasers struck the sun-baked ground all around him. A crackling voice came over his intercom.

“That escape pod’s for emergencies only,” said Rainbow Dash. “Not to mention kind of expensive to replace. I’d rather not have to trash it, Leeroy.”

Leeroy spoke back into the squawkbox. “You’ll have to! I ain’t gettin’ taken in!”

Rainbow Dash’s response was delivered with laser shots from the Blue Falcon’s built-in guns. Leeroy panicked at first at all the dirt being flung about from the missed shots... only to realize that all the shots were misses. He smirked.

Rainbow Dash growled and attempted to focus. Gunning was simply never one of her fortes. Much like almost everything besides the planning and brute force, guns were more Scootaloo's thing.

But as luck would have it, a beam got the side of the pod, throwing Leeroy for a loop before crashing into a cliff. As the dust settled, the Blue Falcon slowed down and came to a stop. The cockpit’s windshield drew back, allowing the oppressively hot Red Canyon air to wash over Rainbow Dash.

She exited the Falcon and trotted angrily toward the remains of the escape pod, cursing under her breath. Looked like she’d have to spend some of that reward money on a new pod. Leeroy staggered out of the wreck.

The moment he saw her coming near, Leeroy turned and fled.

Rainbow Dash groaned and clambered back into the Blue Falcon and brought him back to life. She decided to take it leisurely this time, since nopony could outrun the Blue Falcon even on his worst day. Leeroy Brown came back into sight, galloping across the Red Canyon. The image reminded Rainbow Dash of those old Westerns she liked to watch (when there weren’t any karate movies on).

That image was about all Rainbow Dash saw of Leeroy Brown before he was sniped straight through the head. Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened as she heard the familiar crack—the very same hard-iron lightning she heard erupt from Blackjack’s revolver six times last night. Leeroy Brown’s body silently fell to the dusty ground, and the world didn’t exactly care.

Well, the world minus two flightless pegasi who needed him alive in order to receive reward money.

When it registered in her mind that Leeroy Brown had been gunned down, Rainbow Dash let out another frustrated groan followed by a loud curse. Judging from the direction and way Leeroy Brown fell, the bullet must have been shot from one of the cliffs. As she turned to look up, a fleet of large red rocks came crashing down from a clifftop.

Rainbow Dash cursed for the second time in as many minutes as she swerved and hit the brakes. The Blue Falcon skidded to a halt, coming dangerously close to becoming a blue pancake as huge red rocks rolled into the valley and blocked the forward path.

She heard whooping and hollering from outside the Blue Falcon. She looked in its direction, and, sure enough, Rainbow Dash saw a group of her least-favorite kind of people in the world—bandits. And not just any bandits, either.

These were Griffons.

Long after their empire went to pot following a bloody and politically self-destructive civil war, the Griffons flocked to Equestria for the chance at a new start. But Equestrian society demanded things like working to eat and personal sacrifices for the good of the many—things Griffons weren’t exactly too keen on. The political turmoil eventually erupted into outright acts of terrorism, with entire Griffon neighborhoods forming gangs and burning down non-Griffon neighborhoods. The entire situation became so out of control that the only way the Princesses could resolve it was with a Royal Decree casting the Griffons into reservations set in the Red Canyon. Some took to bullying and extorting the local villages or intimidating the Buffalo tribes who owned the Red Canyon’s desert land long before they did.

Others took to simply harassing anyone who had the audacity to have been born a pony.

The Griffons landed around the Blue Falcon. They were adorned in whatever rags they could find, salvage, or steal, carrying the same outdated weapons as most others in the Red Canyon. They whooped and shouted and jeered—one even went so far as to lick the Blue Falcon's windshield, drawing a scowl out of Rainbow Dash.

She breathed a tired sigh as their leader came into sight, and cursed. She set her squawkbox to the Falcon Flyer. “Hey, Scoots, Captain here. We got a problem.”

Their leader knocked on the cockpit windshield while her fellows aimed their guns at it. Rainbow Dash snorted and drew the windshield back. She looked their leader in the eye.

She wasn’t as big a Griffon as some of her group, but she was definitely the meanest-looking. The shiny black sunglasses disguised a pair of conniving yellow eyes while her helmet hid a boyish feathercut. Her sleeveless leather jacket was just as dirty and banged-up as anything else scavenged in Red Canyon, but the Neighponese red sun that adorned her t-shirt always stuck out to Rainbow Dash the most when she and Gilda would cross swords.

“Rainbow Dash,” Gilda said slowly as she smirked. “Long time no see.”

“Hey, Gilda,” Rainbow Dash said. Their tones carried the conversation almost casually, as if Rainbow Dash wasn’t being threatened at all.

“Sorry about your latest boyfriend,” Gilda said as she walked around the Blue Falcon. The sun glistened off the Neighponese sword that hung at her side. Rainbow Dash blinked, and in that split second of darkness saw that same sword as it became a wave of silver, a terrifying single swing that made no sound. She wetted her lips.

“He wasn’t my boyfriend,” Rainbow Dash corrected. “He was a bounty.”

The bandits shared a laugh. “Oh, a bounty?” Gilda said from behind the Falcon. “How much he worth?”

“Nothing now,” Rainbow Dash said. “He was supposed to be brought back alive. Missing person and all that.”

The bandits laughed even harder. Gilda stopped circling the Blue Falcon and looked Rainbow Dash in the eye. She lowered her sunglasses, her yellow eyes like a pair of burning embers in the caves of her skull.

Her talon went from her sunglasses to softly stroking the Blue Falcon, never breaking eye contact with Rainbow Dash. “Nice machine ya got here, Dash,” she purred, changing the subject. Rainbow Dash’s scowl doubled. It was like watching another girl flirt with her boyfriend: a stallion-eater at work acquiring her prey.

All it took was a blink. A blink and Gilda’s sword became that same noiseless silver wave, stopping just before it could decapitate Rainbow Dash. She flinched. Rainbow Dash—a mare who prided herself on being fearless—flinched. A long smile carved itself onto Gilda’s beak as she saw the split-second of fear in Rainbow Dash’s eyes and held the sword with one claw to her neck. “I think it’s too good for a pony.”

Tense silence.

Rainbow Dash felt the blade slide away from her neck and onto her side. “In fact, why don’t I just take it?” Gilda asked, her bandit buddies cheering in agreement. The blade of the sword rubbed against one of the knobs it left behind years ago.

“Because you pride yourself on being an honorable bandit,” Rainbow Dash said, her voice quiet and struggling for control.

“That’s true,” Gilda said, putting her sword back up to Rainbow Dash’s neck. “But you’re no honorable bounty hunter. You’re a pony. Your parents tossed mine into a desert. You’re scum. Like the rest of ’em.” The other bandits laughed.

“Maybe,” Rainbow Dash said coolly. “Can’t deny that, but it’s something I’m working on.”

Gilda raised an eyebrow.

“It’s been a good seven years since we last met,” Rainbow Dash continued. “That’s a long time for a pony to change.” Rainbow Dash tried not to look at that sword, tried not to remember the soundless silver wave or the terrifying, cold, almost electrifying feeling of her wings leaving her body. She kept her eyes busy by looking into Gilda’s. “If you’re as honorable as you say, then please grant me the chance to prove that I’ve changed.”

A pause. Rainbow Dash held her peace as the blade was slowly drawn away and sheathed. Gilda turned her head to one of her fellows—a skinny Griffon with a long white jacket and a blue helmet. “Call the Stingray,” she commanded. As the bandit removed a walkie-talkie and began speaking into it, Gilda looked back to Rainbow Dash.

A long roar started out quietly but grew as a pink dot in the distance came nearer. As it drew closer, Rainbow Dash realized it was a vehicle—roundish, hot pink with orange on the sides. Looks like someone painted fire on it. Likely the bandits’ touch.

The bandits cheered as the pink machine slowed to a stop behind Gilda. “All right, I’ll give you a chance,” she said, “but only one.”

Another Griffon bandit crawled out of the pink machine and tossed Gilda the ignition key. She smiled at Rainbow Dash as she took a step backward, into the cockpit of the pink machine.

“This here’s the Fire Stingray,” she said, motioning down toward the machine she stood in. “I stole it just yesterday. Haven't gotten to try it out yet. I think your machine'll make some fine practice.” The bandits jeered. One kicked the Blue Falcon’s side in mockery. Gilda waved a talon to command her bandits into obedience, then continued.

She pointed to a small mountain in the distance. “First one to that mountain!” she shouted. “Whoever wins gets the loser’s machine!”

The bandits cheered. Rainbow Dash smirked and waited until the cheering died down.

“I’m gonna make a bet,” she said.

Gilda cocked her head. “Oh, what? My challenge not cool enough for Little Miss Bounty Hunter?”

Rainbow Dash clicked her tongue. “How about, instead of ‘whoever reaches that little mountain’…” She looked Gilda right in the eye. “It’s ‘whoever makes it out of Red Canyon first’?”

Gilda paused. Then she threw her head back and laughed as her bandits jeered at Rainbow Dash’s bet. “You serious?” she shouted. “You’re gonna wager you can make it outta this whole desert alive? You think I’m gonna just let you ride on outta here?”

Rainbow Dash snorted. “S’matter, Gilda? You chicken?”

The bandits all let out a collective quiet oooh as Gilda scowled at Rainbow Dash’s casually racist remark. “You’re on, you little shit!” she roared as she dropped into her cockpit. The dark blue windshield clamped down with a pop. The bandits then cleared the way for the machines to race, one small Griffon holding a checkered flag. Rainbow Dash smiled and closed her cockpit.

Rainbow Dash looked to Gilda with a determined smile. “Show me your moves,” she dared as the Blue Falcon and Fire Stingray screamed and roared to life.

The little Griffon with the checkered flag waited a few seconds, listening to the two machines growl at each other. He shivered in anticipation as he raised the checkered flag, held it there for a second, then brought it down quickly. With a shriek, the two machines were off.

Gilda kept her eyes on the rocky terrain, moving forward with terrifying speed. She began to breathe faster and faster, in total disbelief at how fast she was ripping across the Red Canyon. Her eyes flicked to the kilometer-count shown on the screen. Four digit speed.

She’d driven vehicles before, but nothing like this beautiful, modern monster. Every twitch of her talons sent the Fire Stingray wherever she wanted. Easing up on the gas pedals allowed the Fire Stingray to float, making its turns sharper. She was in perfect sync with this blazing beast. Gilda finally found herself agreeing with Rainbow Dash on something.

Modern machines were freakin’ awesome.

She laughed aloud as she glanced aside to watch for the Blue Falcon. She kept herself alert for several seconds, only to realize the Blue Falcon was nowhere near her. Was the Blue Falcon really that slow a machine, or…?

Then it clicked.

A long and unamused frown pulled at the corners of Gilda’s face as she realized she’d been had. Rainbow Dash had turned tail and merely sped into the opposite direction. She probably wasn’t even racing at all.

But that didn’t make sense. Gilda knew Rainbow Dash never backed down from a challenge. Ever. Especially not a challenge she herself made. Gilda heard a series of beeps, drawing her attention to the small monitor next to her squawkbox. It previewed an available frequency. Guessing it was the Blue Falcon, she tapped it and the squawkbox came to life. She spoke and raced along at the same time.

“Hey, doofus! What happened to our race? You chicken?”

“Said the half-bird,” came the reply. “I said the bet was that I could exit Red Canyon before you could. Look up.”

With a glance, Gilda saw the Falcon Flyer soar above her, casting her shadow on the craggy Red Canyon below. Rainbow Dash laughed over the intercom. “That’s—that’s cheating!” Gilda growled.

“Not really,” Rainbow Dash retorted. “I’m exiting Red Canyon before you can stop me. I never said how I’d do it. You just got chumped,chump!”

Gilda scrambled for something to say, but the Falcon Flyer flew further ahead, picking up awesome amounts of speed. It became a speck in the distance by the time the Fire Stingray reached the mountain Gilda originally named the finish line.

The Fire Stingray slowed to a stop. Its cockpit opened with a soft hiss and Gilda crawled out, looking out to the Falcon Flyer as it became smaller and smaller before finally vanishing into the sky. She heaved a sigh as she heard her bandits fly near and land. She felt a talon rest on her shoulder.

“Boss?”

In a flash, Gilda turned and her sword became that whispering wave of silver. If her goon hadn’t ducked in time, he’d have found himself a whole head shorter. Still, she’d given him a nice buzz cut.

Gilda sheathed her sword as her bandits took a few steps away, cowering from their boss’ temper tantrum. She breathed harder and harder, then slower... deeper... slower... When she achieved a more peaceful breathing rhythm, she turned to the Fire Stingray.

She kicked it and cursed. “No stupid scumbag pony makes a chump outta me!” she shouted at her group. The bandits all looked at each other in uncertainty, but nodded in agreement out of fear.

Gilda looked out into the distance, where the Falcon Flyer had disappeared. East. The closest city that far eastward would be Mute City. She nodded and licked her beak. “Pack your things, guys,” Gilda commanded. “We got ourselves a falcon to chase.”

Act I, Chapter 3: "Setbacks Are Temporary."

Act I, Chapter 3
~Setbacks Are Temporary~

The trip back to Mute City was deathly silent.

Neither Rainbow Dash nor Scootaloo were in any mood to speak, now that their bounty money was suddenly sniped—snatched away from their eager hooves and clenching jaws at the last possible second. It felt like some divinely-ordained prank, a rash of bad luck that was merely meant to be.

The fact they were a month or so behind on their debts and already struggling to maintain the Flyer was certainly a related issue.

Mute City herself looked plastic as always. The big city—and her bogus independence—was always better in concept than execution, stuffed to the gills in overindulgence and escapism, cleverly coming up short in satisfaction. Perhaps it’s the foul mood Rainbow Dash was in, but Mute City offended her today simply by existing. As the Falcon Flyer entered the city limits, Rainbow Dash could already hear everypony pointing and laughing. The entirety of Mute City turned her face away into her hoof and hid a snort of laughter in mock politeness.

The buildings stood tall and powerful, their various shapes and colors boasting needlessly their modern designs. The early noon sun caressed each building, bringing out all the pink, purple, blue, green, and red they had to offer. Honestly, they looked more like great big bottles of shampoo or laundry detergent you’d find on supermarket shelves. Rainbow Dash could imagine a giant pressing his finger against each building, reading the labels, comparing prices, then plucking one or two up out of their foundations and placing them in a shopping cart.

And now, as they drifted in via the main gate, came the most suffocating aspect of Mute City: the traffic. Rainbow Dash loved the feeling of driving—seated within the Blue Falcon, his handsome dark blue chassis returning the sun’s warm kisses, watching the world scream by them. But driving in Mute City had no point. There was no point to driving when you were this deep in Mute City: the cramped highways and clogged airways choked the independence and beauty right out of the Blue Falcon. It was even worse for machines like the Flyer: ships had their own airspace above the highways, but the traffic was always this series of clogs that last for hours.

Their destination came into view after one or two of those hours. “Right,” Rainbow Dash said, breaking the silence. “You know the drill?” It was a concerted effort to not sound angry. She hated sounding angry in front of Scootaloo—Rainbow Dash was always afraid the little filly would think she was the source of her frustration.

“Park the Flyer in the Guild’s garage, sign in with the garage manager, then meet you in the café.” Scootaloo's voice was flat and damp, like a dishrag unceremoniously plopped into a sink.

Rainbow Dash reached over and hugged Scootaloo. “Hey, don’t worry, Scoots,” she said, rubbing her back. “Setbacks are temporary—victories last forever. We’ll pull through.” She gave her the biggest winning smile she could muster.

Scootaloo returned it with a withered grin and nodded.

Setbacks are temporary.

That was another of Rainbow Dash’s life philosophies, and she held onto it vehemently and unapologetically: setbacks were just speed bumps on the road to something better. Sometimes, though, the setbacks were bigger than just a minor wobble. Some setbacks cost Rainbow Dash years of rebuilding or redirection. A glance at where her wings used to be proved that much to her as she silently walked across the Guild’s garage.

Losing the Leeroy Brown bounty was almost that kind of setback. Not as big as some of the setbacks that plagued the whimsically filthy and violent life of Rainbow Dash, but certainly a difficult one to ignore. Losing Leeroy meant having to settle for a smaller bounty, one that probably wouldn’t offer as many bits as they needed. Losing Leeroy meant having to compromise the grocery money (again) to pay for the Flyer’s upkeep—and Rainbow Dash was unsure how much longer her stomach could tolerate ramen noodles.

As she walked from the parking garage into the main lobby, Rainbow Dash sighed. She left behind the world of distant whirring, dim lights, cigarette smoke, noisy garage workers, and maintenance droids. Before her now was a totally different environment, one made up of lemony fresh smells, bustling bodies, phones ringing off the hook, fake plants, idle chatter, and a Journey song mewling over the speakers. The Bounty Hunters Guild.

The Guild was in the business of connecting capable bounty hunters to viable work. Wanna dole out some payback? Missing child? Spouse cheating on you? Crook on the run? Bounty hunters took it all on. All the world’s filth was theirs to clean—all the vengeance theirs to exact. Of course, bounty hunters were free to refuse jobs that leaned too far black for their tastes. Rainbow Dash herself had turned down jobs that to her felt way too insidious.

It was a great way for law enforcement to curb vigilantism, simply by employing vigilantes, setting rules of conduct and a sense of honor and dignity for them to follow. Ponies who could have become vicious killers no better than the monsters they fought instead became hired guns for ponies who couldn’t fight for themselves and for a government that would have been overrun with crime otherwise. It was by no means a perfect system, but for what it was worth, it worked.

Rainbow Dash began squeezing herself by the mobs of ponies flooding the lobby, trying to make her way to the reception desk. As she did, she heard one voice clamoring above the rest, screaming bloody murder. Quite a few heads turned to greet the noise with looks of concern and disgust. Rainbow Dash released a slow, apathetic sigh.

Lightning Dust was causing trouble yet again: yelling and shoving at security guards as they attempted to herd her out. Her electric colors—light-green pelt with slick orange mane—characterized her as something ferocious and unwilling to be contained, her sleek, lemon-yellow body armor and blood-red boots lending her a somehow even more feral appearance. She bellowed something incomprehensible at the security officers as one lifted a beamstick threateningly. Her gold eyes bulged as she growled at him, her wings fluttering threateningly.

Her wings.

Rainbow Dash sighed. Like her, Lightning Dust had crossed the wrong Griffons on the wrong day. But unlike her, Lightning Dust had opted toward replacing the wings she'd lost with state-of-the-art cybernetics: white metal sheets that thrummed and whistled as she moved them, their anti-grav and their pistons and their circuitry all working together as a single, thinking, acting, breathing monstrous pair of not-wings.

If it was one thing Rainbow Dash never wanted, it was cybernetics. She was tempted when she'd lost her wings, but the idea of machines threatening to overrule your common sense at any moment felt too high a price to pay. Lightning Dust on the other hoof was the type who lived by high stakes—no price was too high. And as her actions became more and more reckless, putting too many innocent ponies in danger, the cybernetics counteracting against the chemicals in her brain, it seemed to Rainbow Dash (And apparently, to the Guild) that Lightning Dust's bad decisions had finally come to collect.

Rainbow Dash returned to her original mission of reaching the reception desk and continued to wait in line. Lightning Dust’s shouts became louder, demanding to speak to the Head Guildmistress. Finally, the head of security—this big, tough unicorn guy—stepped in and told Lightning Dust, in decidedly indelicate terms, that she'd been separated from the Guild that morning.

And when Lightning Dust slugged him, all security officers present (as well as a number of watching bystanders) descended on her like a wave, crashing into her and knocking her down. One onlooker pointed and laughed at Lightning Dust—and immediately stopped the moment she broke away from security and lunged at him, her roar coupled with the shriek of her metal wings. She had to be dragged away kicking and screaming. All told, it was a hideous thing to witness.

Rainbow Dash shook her head as she returned her attention to the line. She spotted a free receptionist. This one was a pegasus mare she’d seen only a few times before. Usually running about, serving everypony coffee. Rainbow Dash figured she must be an intern or something, though to be honest, she might be better off as a fashion model: her pink mane, long tail, and deep teal eyes could ensnare the attention of any stallion, to say nothing of her butter-yellow coat and stunningly pretty face.

She greeted Rainbow Dash with a voice you could pour over pancakes. “Hello. How can I help you?”

Rainbow Dash propped up a foreleg on the counter and leaned forward. “Hey there…” She flicked her magenta eyes to the mare’s nametag, then back up. “Fluttershy.” (She hoped she hadn’t sounded too snooty there—it was hard not to imagine that name on a rather kinky hooker.) “Name’s Rainbow Dash. I was wondering if I could have a word with the Big Boss herself for a mo’.”

Fluttershy (if that was honestly her real name) nodded. “Um, I hate to be like this, but, u-um, Miss Spitfire specifically asked to not be bothered until later this afternoon.” She smiled insecurely.

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow, earning an intimidated squeak from the receptionist. “How late we talkin’? It’s actually pretty urgent.”

“U-Urgent?”

“Urgent!” said Rainbow Dash, her voice lowering to a demanding whisper. “Like, right now, urgent!”

Fluttershy gasped and held a hoof to her mouth. “I-I, uh… I’m, that is…”

“What are you just standing there for?” Rainbow Dash continued. “If I don’t talk to Spitfire in time, my daughter will go hungry tonight!”

At the mention of a child going hungry, Fluttershy looked like she just watched somepony die. After a second of dumbfounded silence, she reached over the side of her desk and pulled out a phone. She dialed hastily, growled as she set the receiver down, picked it back up, then dialed again—correctly, this time. She looked to Rainbow Dash with a reassuring smile as the phone purred in her ear.

“Um, yes, sorry to bother you, Miss Spitfire, but... there’s somepony here who needs to see you right away—um, i-if you don’t mind, that is. She says it’s very urgent.”

A grumbling came out of the other end. Fluttershy pressed the phone to her chest and looked at Rainbow Dash. “What’s your name again?”

“Rainbow Dash.” She nodded triumphantly at how awesome her own name sounded.

“It’s a Miss Rainbow Dash, Miss Spitfire.” A pause. Somepony grumbled on the other end of the phone. “Um, yes,” she said, “She did tell me her daughter was going to starve… ” Silence. Her eyes widened as her boss sighed, followed by more grumbling. Fluttershy’s cheeks flushed red. “…Y-Yes, I did fall for it.” Fluttershy shot Rainbow Dash a burning frown, and was returned with a mischievous smile.

More grumbling. “Yes, Ma’am, right away.” Fluttershy hung up the phone. She turned to Rainbow Dash, her lips pressed into a tight scowl. The way her face puckered around that scowl was adorable. “Despite her previous demand, Miss Spitfire will see you in her office,” she said in forced politeness. “Please follow me.”

Fluttershy flapped her wings and in a single bound glided over her reception desk and onto the lobby floor. Rainbow Dash watched Fluttershy’s wings work, helplessly jealous. The things one takes for granted until they’re gone. She hid her frown and followed the receptionist down the hall.

If the garage was a raucous doctor’s office for vehicles and the lobby a Mecca for clients and bounty hunters, then the offices of the Guild were a quiet prison for the blue-collar set. Rows of cubicles were full of ponies at work tapping away at keyboards with bored, vacant stares, earning their bits one program build at a time. The prison metaphor seemed rather apt. Rainbow Dash dreaded the idea of anypony having to work in an environment as sterile as this—she much preferred the open road and the bar fights.

Up an elevator. Past more cubicles. Through a relaxing interior garden where the cubicle workers apparently took their breaks. Up a flight of stairs. Down another hall.

Finally, they reached a door with the name SPITFIRE emblazoned on it, the title of BOUNTY HUNTER GUILD HEADMISTRESS just beneath it. Fluttershy turned to look at Rainbow Dash. “OK, here we are.”

Next to the door was a panel meant for a pony to place his hoof. Fluttershy did just that. Once the door confirmed who she was, it opened with a hiss. Demurely, Fluttershy poked her head in. “I hate to bother you, Miss Spitfire, but… Rainbow Dash is here to see you.”

“Right, yeah, send her in,” came a gruff, feminine voice.

Fluttershy stepped away and cocked her head to the now-open door. Rainbow Dash nodded to Fluttershy as thanks and entered the office, the door closing behind her with a whoosh.

Behind an ornate blue desk in an equally ornate blue office, looking out a large window at the shampoo-bottle buildings of Mute City, was the government official that ran this circus: Spitfire. Her color scheme made her a pony-shaped fireball, with a mean glare that could chill even Lightning Dust into obedient silence. Her military-white suit and dull-lavender boots added to her "all-business" attitude.

She turned around. One look at Rainbow Dash and Spitfire’s lips formed a disapproving frown. “You screwed up the Leeroy Brown bounty, didn’t you?”

Rainbow Dash made her best apologetic puppy face. “I-I can explain, Miss Spitfire.”

Spitfire facehoofed. “The bounty on his head was ginormous, you know,” she sighed. “And I don’t ever use a word that stupid to describe anything. Leeroy Brown made some very wealthy enemies, and they were more than willing to pay through the muzzle for a little vengeance.”

“He didn’t get away,” Rainbow Dash explained. “He was killed. Shot through the head by one of the Griffon bandit gangs that take up too much space in the Red Canyon. Scootaloo stored my report in the Flyer’s—”

Spitfire silenced Rainbow Dash with a shake of her head. “Look, I’m sure how Leeroy met an untimely end he deserved is a pretty interesting story, but our clients wanted him alive. Heck, I wanted a piece of that asshole myself.” Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to add something else but was cut off.

“Anyway, that’s beside the point. My point is, no Leeroy means no money. The 10K bits they gave us upfront? Yeah, they’re gonna want that back for wasting their time. This doesn't look good, Dash. You’re killin’ me here. I wanna help you, but these setbacks…”

“Setbacks are temporary, though,” Rainbow Dash said with a hopeful smile. The length of Spitfire’s intimidating scowl was enough to rip it right off her face.

“Maybe one or two setbacks,” Spitfire said sternly. “And maybe if they were small enough. But for the past few assignments, you’ve been lucky to get anything done in a satisfactory manner. You’ve gotten sloppy.”

Rainbow Dash looked away sheepishly. “…Is this about Captain Firebeard?”

The nickname coaxed a small smile out of Spitfire. It was almost motherly, and lasted for all of one second. “More than Firebeard, I’m afraid. You brought him back in one piece... mostly... but the other two guys before him?” She shook her head. “The amount we had to pay for damages…”

Rainbow Dash couldn’t defend any of that, and didn’t bother to. If it was one thing you learned about Spitfire right away, it was that excuses were her least favorite thing. She would swat them away like whiny mosquitoes. Instead, Rainbow Dash took a deep breath and prepared herself for what Spitfire would decide to do.

“Now I’m not about to fire you,” Spitfire said as she got out from behind her desk and circled Rainbow Dash. “You’re a wonderful bounty hunter—in fact, one of our best—and I’m happy to recommend you to nearly every client that walks through my door.” She stopped and looked Rainbow Dash in the eye.

“But Leeroy Brown was the jackpot, and with one shot to the head, it got ripped out from under our hooves. This isn’t just a small stumble on the climb, Dash, this is a forty-foot drop that might tarnish your reputation, as well as the Guild’s.”

Silence. Rainbow Dash took that as her cue to respond. “Well, uh… is there a... smaller assignment I can take on for now? I know your superiors might not want to see me for some time after fudging such a huge bounty.”

Spitfire nodded. “That would be the ideal solution. But.” She walked back to her desk and brought up a holo-screen. The dull, dark blue backdrop of the screen pushed the bright-blue letters to Rainbow Dash’s eyes—the most important two words being “Princess Cadenza.” The third most important word was a number six digits long.

Rainbow Dash’s jaw nearly hit the floor. She looked to Spitfire, who reclined in her chair, folded her hooves together, and smiled. “A little while before you got back, we got a request from a member of the Royal Family, asking specifically for you.”

Rainbow Dash read and re-read the statement before her. Cadenza Manor, as soon as possible, meet in private for further negotiations. Rainbow Dash looked from the message to Spitfire. “This. This is top-secret stuff, right?”

“It’s the first time a Royal has ever made a request to the Guild. Nopony knows about it yet.” Spitfire leaned forward and lowered her voice. “You take this job, and I’ll just tell anyone who asks I sent you on a lengthy wild goose chase to straighten you out a little—which isn’t too far from the truth anyway.” She held out a hoof. “Deal?”

Rainbow Dash looked to the lavender-booted hoof hovering over the desk. She smiled and shook it.

“Deal.”

The moment she saw Cadenza Manor, Rainbow Dash let out a low whistle.

Gorgeous. It contrasted the plastic stuffiness of Mute City so perfectly, Rainbow Dash had half a mind to ask if she could rent apartment space here. It was a beautifully-ornate old-fashioned mansion with elegant woodwork and tapestry. Stories and rows of windows looked out at almost an acre of front yard, green grass manicured and teased into a perfect shape. Statues of valiant heroes and beautiful maidens dotted this yard, placed without crowding each other.

“This is the place, Scoots,” Rainbow Dash said as she looked into the Blue Falcon’s backseat. She paused when she saw Scootaloo slumped over, then smiled warmly when she heard her snoring. She sighed through her nose, removed her jacket, and set it on Scootaloo as a makeshift blanket. The red t-shirt she wore underneath didn’t do as good a job at hiding her knobs as the jacket did, but it’d have to do.

The pearl-white front gate was protected by a pair of Royal Guards, their faces expressionless and grim. Their modern, black armor—red rimmed black helmets and dark visors and gold badges—contradicted the look of Cadenza's mansion so completely, it was surreal. As Rainbow Dash exited the Blue Falcon, she waved to them. One stepped forward.

“Please state your business,” he said in a rock-hard tone.

Rainbow Dash hoofed him the data disk containing Cadenza’s request. “I’m here for the job your employer posted at the Bounty Hunters Guild,” she said in a hushed tone.

The Royal Guard put the data disk into his fetlock-mounted reader device. Up popped a holo-screen that displayed the request. He nodded, first to her then to his guard buddy. The second Royal Guard opened the gate and motioned Rainbow Dash through. “Do you require a valet to park your vehicle?” asked the first Royal Guard as he returned the data disk.

Rainbow Dash shook her head. “Nah,” she said. “Nopony touches the Blue Falcon but me and Scoots. Just tell me where the garage is.”

She was shot a look of disapproval, but he gave her directions anyway. Once parked, she was led through the interior of the manor by an aging donkey with a refined voice. Her eyes occasionally wandered. Rainbow Dash couldn’t believe anything this breath-taking even existed this deep in Mute City. If the rest of Mute City were made of something synthetic, then Cadenza Manor was made of something real.

Cadenza’s throne room was long and trimmed with colors that accented her own color scheme well. The pink, gold, and sapphire came together like a three-piece band, playing a smooth jazz tune that the rest of the room could feel. There, on a dais speaking to her servants, was Princess Cadenza herself.

Rainbow Dash had never felt jealous of another mare’s good looks until she met Cadenza. She’d always prided herself on her fit figure, but Cadenza worked the whole slim angle to a new dimension. The shape of her eyes and face were exotic, suggesting a mixed ancestry. Her pearl-pink pelt was hugged by a long mane and tail the colors of a radiant sunset. Her horn and wings combined declared to the world her alicorn status, making her seem even more beautiful.

Rainbow Dash knelt before the Princess, who smiled in amusement. “There’s no need for that,” said Cadenza calmly, waving a hoof adorned with gold. “Please stand, Miss Dash.” She obeyed.

“I am pleased you could make it to my mansion,” Cadenza said as she gracefully descended the dais. She stopped before Rainbow Dash. “And you arrived not a moment too soon. The mission I am going to give you is of utmost importance. It cannot be mentioned to anypony outside this room.”

She looked at her servants, who took that as their cue to depart. After they left, Cadenza continued. “I’ll get right to the point, Miss Dash. I want you to enter the F-Zero Grand Prix.”

“And then I was all, WHAAAT.”

Scootaloo sipped at her coffee as the Blue Falcon struggled against Mute City traffic. “So, you took the job?” she asked.

Rainbow Dash looked from the road, to Scootaloo, then back to the road. “Heck, yeah! You bet your blessed teeeaaa…”

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow.

“…leaves.”

“Nice save,” Scootaloo said sarcastically as she took another draw of her coffee. She put her coffee in a cup holder and sat back up from her slouching position. “So, she wants you to race? Why can't she just do that herself?”

"I'm guessing politics. If everypony saw the Princess taking part in the F-Zero races, imagine the scandals." Rainbow Dash deepened her voice, as if imitating a news anchor. "This just in! Princesses shirking their royal duties and the madponies who love them! Film at eleven!"

Scootaloo nodded. "OK, I get that. Why does she want you to race, then?"

"She wants me to place first."

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow for the second time. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah, really!”

“No way,” Scootaloo said, shaking her head. “Really? How are you supposed to place first in a race you have absolutely no experience in?”

Silence. Rainbow Dash stopped at what must have been the umpteenth stoplight. She glared intensely up at the red eye that had dared her to stop. “I’ll learn.”

Scootaloo put her face in her hooves. “Good, sweet Celestia on rye!” she exclaimed. “You’re just going to leave all this up to luck?!”

The light turned green, and the Blue Falcon turned into the next lane with the rest of the traffic. “Maybe you didn’t notice how the Blue Falcon and I have become, like, one being,” she said over her shoulder. “We got the raw talent. We'll ace this race, easy.”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Acing a race. On your first try. Yeah. Sure.”

Rainbow Dash sneered as they weaved through traffic. “Well, in case certain parties in the back seat forgot, the Captain happens to be taking care of some snot-nosed kid. We fail the mission, I lose my job, and we'll have no place to go.”

Scootaloo returned the sneer. “Would this snot-nosed kid you're condescending to happen to be the same snot-nosed kid who built the machine you’re going to use in the F-Zero races?”

Silence. Rainbow Dash frowned and sighed. “I’m sorry Scoots, I-I didn’t mean to sound angry.”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes as she took another draw of coffee.

Rainbow Dash continued. “It’s just… this job is big. Not only is the Princess paying us a huge amount of money—” she turned her head to look at Scoots—“and I mean, like, a criminal amount of money—” she returned her gaze to traffic—“but if I can make first, we get a good two mil on top of that.”

She felt the scalding hot coffee on the back of her neck before she heard Scootaloo spit it out in shock. “TWO MILLION BITS?!” she cried.

“YES! TWO MILLION BITS!” Rainbow Dash cried as she felt the coffee eat its way through her neck. “TWO MILLION BITS AND YOUR COFFEE BURRRRRRRRNNNNS!”

First thing to do was get information. And there was only one informant Rainbow Dash trusted, above all the others.

Prince Blueblood.

The two of them had gone back years. After Rainbow Dash had saved Prince Blueblood’s life, he funded the Falcon Flyer’s creation and even helped Scootaloo design its navigation system, as well as teach her the basics of impromptu surgery. So yeah—all told, he was a pretty big deal.

It was rare for Rainbow Dash to ask Prince Blueblood for favors. (She learned to stop doing asking him for money when he started calling them “loans”.) But when it came to gathering information for an important assignment, Prince Blueblood would always be there to help.

“F-Zero?!” he said in disgust. His blue eyes narrowed as his handsome, angel-white face somehow blanched even more. “You want me to help you get in?! Are you mad?!”

“Well, I figure you must know how,” Rainbow Dash said as they stood in his study. Her eyes wandered about as she spoke, comparing Blueblood’s house to Cadenza’s. Despite the rows of shelves filled with Blueblood’s extensive book collection, the Prince favored the modern more than his cousin did. If it weren’t for the old books, this place would look just as cookie-cutter as the rest of Mute City.

Scootaloo poked her tiny hoof across the spines of several books as Rainbow Dash haggled with a reluctant Blueblood. Ever since literature went paperless some decades back, everypony'd had to read on holoscreens. So to Scootaloo, these books were truly something to behold. Every time Rainbow Dash would pay a visit to Blueblood, Scootaloo would take it as an opportunity to lose herself in one of his books. She pulled one out and opened it up, greeted by intricately-written words and beautifully-drawn pictures. A smile found its way to Scootaloo’s lips as she sat in a nearby chair and began to read a story, this one about a beautiful princess who fell under a terrible curse that caused her to fall asleep until a handsome prince could wake her.

“I absolutely refuse,” Prince Blueblood said, running a comb through his blonde mane using his telekinesis. “Those savage races are the worst thing to hit the entertainment world since Maregret Cho! At least she wasn’t responsible for life-threatening accidents!”

Rainbow Dash smirked. “Blues, you and I both know that if I can’t get into the races, that means I can’t get paid. Your cousin's paying me to race.”

Blueblood lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “My... My cousin?” His blue eyes flicked about with hurried thought. “Wh-Which one?”

“Cadenza. Lives on the other side of town?”

A look of half-realization, half-dread came over him. “...She really bought the services of a bounty hunter?”

Rainbow Dash produced the same data disk from before and showed him. “She wants me to race, and even more, she needs me to place first. Now obviously, she knows about my awesome driving skills, but I’m gonna need more than just talent for this.”

Blueblood read over the message again and again, in more disbelief than he was before. Finally, he groaned. “I don’t know what my cousin is thinking, honestly.” He looked up at Rainbow Dash. “To begin with, Dashie, royalty’s not allowed to sponsor an F-Zero pilot.”

“Which is why she hired me as a bounty hunter,” Rainbow Dash nodded, adding a wink.

Blueblood cocked an eyebrow. “Hm. A politician taking advantage of a loophole in the law,” he quipped. “How unusual.”

Rainbow Dash draped a foreleg over Blueblood. “Come on, Blues!” she chirped. “We're friends here. Friends help each other out!”

"Friends also prevent each other from making dangerous mistakes," Blueblood retorted.

Rainbow Dash's voice dropped to a whisper as her smile evaporated. "Blues. I'm serious. My career's on thin ice right now. If I can't succeed in this mission, then..." She flicked her eyes to Scootaloo, implying what she didn't dare to say.

Some heavy silence tiptoed by before Blueblood sighed in defeat. “Give me a data disk, please,” he said. Rainbow Dash hoofed him a spare.

He popped open a holo-screen in the nearby wall. “Holo-screen, on,” he commanded. It blinked to life with a series of beeps. He opened up some sort of program and with his telekinesis, traced along the screen, writing a message. Rainbow Dash tried to read it over his shoulder, only for Blueblood to shoot her a glare. She looked away, to Scootaloo, who seemed totally engrossed in that book.

Blueblood ejected the disk. He hoofed it back to Rainbow Dash without turning to face her. Still looking at his computer screen, Blueblood opened up a database of profile pictures. Rainbow Dash didn't recognize any of them.

He stopped at a picture of a lavender unicorn mare with a rather "pleasant evening" color scheme. Rainbow Dash noticed Blueblood’s focus seemed to waver when he looked at that unicorn. It was only a second, but it was there.

“The unicorn in the picture is named Twilight Sparkle,” he explained. “You can find her at the Blackout Club nearly every Friday or Saturday evening. Mention my name to her, and show her my message. She’s the only F-Zero pilot I know who can help you. Outside that? You’re on your own, Dashie.” He patted her shoulder and nodded. “I don’t know why you would want to risk your life on those beastly racetracks, or why cousin Cadenza would ever want this… but good luck anyway.”

Rainbow Dash smiled as she pocketed the data disk. “Anypony ever tell you you’re a peach, Blues?”

“Only when they want something out of me.” Blueblood smirked as he opened the door for her, implying he wanted her to leave. Rainbow Dash shrugged, and called for Scootaloo, telling her that it was time to go. She let the little filly leave the room first before turning to Blueblood and giving him a peck on the cheek.

“I meant it,” she smiled. Blueblood blushed and looked away shyly. Rainbow Dash had to fight a giggle—imagine the Prince actually blushing like he was a virgin or something! Either way, it was adorable. She rolled her eyes and left the study, her presence traded for the whoosh of the closing door, followed by silence.

Blueblood looked to the still-open holo-screen. Twilight Sparkle’s deep and intelligent purple eyes seemed to analyze the entire room. The Prince let out a lonely sigh he didn’t realize he was even holding. “Holo-screen, off,” he commanded. With that command, Twilight Sparkle blinked out of existence.

Clubs were never hard to find in Mute City. There must have been one in every block. Want for escapism and debauchery were an itch that could only ever be scratched by the thumping music, gyrating bodies, designer drugs, and alcoholic bliss clubs offered. Maybe one was a strip club, maybe the next was tailored for filly-foolers or colt-cuddlers, but in the end, they all aimed squarely at that exact primal want with every swing, batting for the fences.

Rainbow Dash frequented clubs rather often—most of the time on business, since clubs attracted their fair share of wanted scum—and came to the conclusion that nearly all of them offered the same junk. Clubs were the fast food Mute City natives stuffed into their hungry pastimes, made bland and unexciting because of their absurdly widespread availability.

The Blackout Club was unapologetically generic for a club. Dark lighting save for neon lights that colored everything blue and pink? Check. Beer you could find at a convenience store for one-third the price? Check. Drunken conversations drowned in grating rap music? Check, check, check.

But like the dingy bar in that Red Canyon shantytown, Rainbow Dash wasn’t here for any of the main attractions. She sauntered over to the bar and took a stool, leaning her back against the bar itself. The bartender asked her what she wanted. She ordered the cheapest whiskey they had.

Her eyes floated across the club. Several ponies, Zebras, and Donkeys were tearing it up on the dance floor, most merely moving in ways that vaguely passed for dancing in this dim lighting. Like puppets being jerked around on invisible strings. She heard somepony fill a stool next to her. An aside glance revealed a stallion who was too old to be her type.

And as expected, he started hitting on her—and as expected his whiskey-stained breath would splash her face—and as expected she’d tell him to scat. As the creepy old guy got up and left in a childish huff, Rainbow Dash noticed a mare at the other end of the bar.

She was a lavender unicorn with a rather "pleasant evening" color scheme. Her gold jacket was bright enough to reflect the pink light that shone down on it, her dark blue boots subtly adding to her eye-catching color theory. What stood out most was the red scarf she wore about her neck: it seemed the most iconic thing about her wardrobe. It didn’t take a detective to tell Rainbow Dash this was the F-Zero pilot she was looking for.

Twilight Sparkle sipped from her shot glass as a stallion wearing a leather hat took a stool next to her. “Hey, sweet thing,” he said. “What’s a cutie like you doing alone?”

She set down the glass. “Drowning my worries,” she said. “Same as anypony else. Buy a girl a drink?”

The stallion waved the bartender. “Hey! A drink for the lady.”

The bartender shook his head, putting his toupee slightly out of place. “Jay Jay, you ain’t paid your tab as is, and my boss is gonna yell at me because she thinks I’m hoofin’ out free drinks. No way.”

Twilight looked aside at Jay Jay as he shrunk in his seat. “Beat it, punk,” she said. “Not rich, not interested.”

With that, Jay Jay made his exit, hoping nopony saw him get shot down. As Rainbow Dash prepared to go talk to Twilight, a caramel-colored earth pony in an ocean blue jacket made his move. The one thing he had going for him, Rainbow Dash noticed, was his smile. “Hey there,” he said in a boyish voice, “Lookin' for some company?”

She looked at him with a disinterested glare. She held it for what seemed like a minute and a half, slowly drinking from her shot glass, never breaking eye contact with him. He clicked his tongue awkwardly as he struggled for something to say, only for Twilight to suddenly jump at him. He squealed as he fell backwards, bumping into another guy behind him.

Twilight laughed. “Sorry, kid. I don’t go for cowards,” she said as she finished her drink.

As Rainbow Dash prepared herself to go talk to Twilight, a third batter came up to plate: this one a Zebra with impressive dreadlocks. He flashed her a charming smile and set down some bits. He flagged the bartender. “Yo, a drink for the lady!”

As the bartender filled one up, Twilight used her unicorn telekinesis to pick up a bit from the counter. With a snap, it was spun into the air. She caught it in the cup of her hoof and slammed it down on the bar. She looked the newcomer in the eye and asked, “Heads or tails?”

The Zebra looked at her strangely. “Heads or tails for what?”

She scoffed, as if he were too stupid to figure out what she was doing. Then she smiled mischievously. “Call it, heads or tails. You win, I’ll take you home tonight.”

He brightened. “Tails,” he said with a grin.

Twilight lifted her hoof. Heads. She shook her head as the bartender gave her the drink. “If you’re not lucky, I don’t even wanna know you,” she said brusquely.

Rainbow Dash lifted an eyebrow as the Zebra, confused and dejected, left the bar to walk through the dance floor, likely back to a pack of friends or something. She shook her head in morbid amusement. Blueblood certainly knew quite a few eccentric ponies—that time he introduced her to that one kooky photographer, now this mare…

She walked over to Twilight. “This seat saved?” she asked, pointing to an empty stool.

Twilight shook her head, eyeing Rainbow Dash with suspicion. Rainbow Dash smirked as she took the seat, ready to ace this test. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out some bits. “Barkeep!” she said. “Fanciest booze you got!”

The price was heavy—and Rainbow Dash learned that night that just because something is expensive, that doesn’t mean it tastes good. Thankfully, Cadenza was nice enough to pay the initial fee upfront, so it wasn’t as if Rainbow Dash would have to resort to ramen noodles for those drinks.

After a reluctant chug, Rainbow Dash gave one of the bits in her hoof a flip. “Heads,” she said offhoof. Twilight raised an eyebrow as the coin landed heads up. She looked to Rainbow Dash, intensely scanning her with those intelligent, deep purple eyes.

Rainbow Dash never dropped her smirk. “By the way, I’m a bounty hunter,” she said sternly through gritted teeth. “So no funny business. I’d hate to have to ruin your pretty face.”

A pause. Twilight sniffed a laugh as she took a sip from her third drink that night. “You’re adorable,” she said. “But I don’t swing that way.”

The smirk on Rainbow Dash’s face grew into a full-fledged smile. She chuckled as she rubbed her mane. “It’s the hair, right?” she said. “Everypony takes one look at the hair and thinks I’m a lesbian.”

“Get that often?”

Rainbow Dash took a swig of her acidic drink. “All the time, sister.” She put her glass down and swallowed reluctantly, the drink going down like exotically-flavored urine. She pulled out Blueblood’s data disk and hoofed it to Twilight.

“Prince Blueblood told me you’re a pretty good F-Zero p—”

“You know Prince Blueblood?”

Rainbow Dash’s voice trailed off in surprise at Twilight’s rudeness. She recomposed herself. “Yeah, he and I go way back.”

Twilight set the data disk into her pocket reader and read Blueblood's message. Her intelligent, piercing purple eyes blazed through the words on the holo-screen. As they did so, Rainbow Dash observed her face: Twilight went from mild irritation, to disarmed frown, to… saddened.

She killed the holo-screen and put away her disk-reader, sighed through her nose and looked at Rainbow Dash for a good, long time. Studying her. At first, Rainbow Dash was certain Twilight would try jumping her the way she jumped the third guy earlier. Instead, Twilight clicked her tongue. “All right,” she said quietly with a nod. “I’ll do it. I'll train you. Follow me.”

The two mares got up and walked out of the club. Jay Jay looked to them from his seat and sneered. “Figgers they’d be lesbians,” he mumbled as he took another swig of his beer.

Rainbow Dash never made it secret her dislike for Mute City’s design. The five-star Spark of Life Resort—owned and operated by Twilight’s prodigiously wealthy family—was the epitome of every last robotic, fake, false, phony, synthetic, cookie-cutter, bland, lackluster, fresh-off-the-assembly-line aspect of Mute City. To say that Rainbow Dash hated everything about it was putting it mildly, but she kept her opinions to herself. On the bright side, at least a few of the bellboys were fun to look at.

While the interior did nothing to impress Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo—who’d before this never set hoof in a “ritzy” hotel since the Falcon Flyer already had beds—was wholeheartedly amazed. Her purple eyes seemed to attach themselves to as many sights as she could: the fake plants, the fake paintings, the fake ponies with fake smiles. Rainbow Dash occasionally looked to Scootaloo as they walked down the hotel’s marble-white halls, grinning inwardly as she watched her staring at everything in childish wonder.

Twilight led both of them towards the elevators, nodding to staff members as she passed them by. Rainbow Dash noticed several of them seemed intimidated by Twilight’s presence. Might be that Twilight was their boss’ daughter, but if Twilight’s cold behavior at the club earlier was any indication…

The elevator doors shut behind the trio, ending their view of the high-class hotel. Rainbow Dash was half-expecting some kind of corny elevator music, but they instead descended with silence. Scootaloo looked at the elevator’s wall and, noticing it was a reflective surface, started making silly faces at it.

“So,” Twilight said finally—and so suddenly it made Rainbow Dash jump—“Your mission was to not only enter the F-Zero races, but to come in first place…”

Rainbow Dash nodded. “That’s the plan.”

A smile slowly pulled at Twilight’s lips. It wasn’t a reassuring smile. It was closer to the kind of smile you’d see on a bully before he beat you up. She nodded, again sighing through her nose. “You’re treating this rather leisurely. You honestly think you’re going to make first place your first time?”

“The Princess wouldn’t have hired me if she didn’t think so.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. Couldn’t exactly argue there. The logic of an alicorn was a tricky thing to navigate. “Well, if you’re gonna become one of us, you’re gonna need to know the basic rules of F-Zero.”

Rainbow Dash smiled. “No cutting in line, no pushing, no shoving…”

Twilight groaned. This was who the Princess put her trust in? This was who Prince Blueblood decided to help? This was what she’d have to put up with? She shook her head, deciding it was time to beat the stupid out of Rainbow Dash—and the only weapon to use on stupid was a lecture.

“Shut your piehole,” Twilight hissed. Scootaloo flinched at the sudden change in Twilight’s tone. “F-Zero is serious business. It’s one of the most lucrative sports of ponykind, employs thousands of ponies, and keeps several businesses in the black.” She poked Rainbow Dash’s chest with a blue-gloved hoof. “It’s also extremely brutal—and failure to understand or respect F-Zero and its rules will end up with you in a hospital bed…if you’re lucky.”

The two ponies locked eyes as Twilight continued, her tone unrelenting and grim. “We’ll go over most of the other rules later, but the most important thing to understand about F-Zero is that it is a warrior culture. The moment we go onto those racetracks, we are not friends. We are competitors. Gladiators fighting one another for the right to achieve our dreams.

“Every pilot has their own goals that the prize money can help them achieve. Many of them have goals far more noble than yours or mine. You must be ready to crush their goals in order to achieve your own. When we’re on those racetracks, I am going to crush both you and everything you believe in.” Twilight paused, letting the last sentence linger like a threat. She took a deep breath as their floor approached, not breaking eye contact, teeth clenched.

“If you are not willing to do the same thing not just to me, but to everypony else on those tracks, then you have no business in F-Zero. None whatsoever.” The elevator came to a stop with a bump that nearly caused Scootaloo to fall over.

Rainbow Dash nodded. “I’ll do it,” she said. The gravity in her voice almost startled Twilight. It was odd to hear such seriousness out of a pony this laid-back and carefree, especially so suddenly. She glanced at the elevator doors when she heard the chime.

The elevator opened, revealing a large and splendorous garage before them. It was large enough to be Twilight’s own underground mansion—and likely was—with its own test track and racks upon racks of tools and spare parts. There were even smaller buildings that likely acted as additional rooms, perhaps for kitchens or bedrooms.

But what got the most attention was what was parked on a dais, under a spotlight: a beautiful, golden F-Zero machine with an attractive vulpine shape. A name was etched onto the dais’ side: The Golden Fox.

Silently, Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo took their first steps into the world of F-Zero.

Twilight Sparkle waved a hoof out to her garage. “Then welcome to your new addiction.”

Act I, Chapter 4: "Connecting the Wires."

Chapter 4
~Connecting the Wires~

Question 1. Who founded the F-Zero races? When? And to what end?

Right off the bat, the test cheated Rainbow Dash. It claimed to be only one question, but it demanded three answers. Three! Rainbow Dash held her groan in an attempt to not annoy the other test applicants.

She thought as hard as she could, wracking her brain to recall what she knew regarding F-Zero’s history. There was only so much space under the question to write, so she’d have to write it really small. And if the graders couldn’t read it, then it was their own fault for asking for three answers to one question.

Rainbow Dash looked at the touch screen, stylus in her mouth. She wrote down whatever she could think of: founded by Stinkin' Rich, 225X, entertainment. As she continued, Rainbow Dash could barely recollect a few of the answers to the questions, while forgetting others outright. She inhaled and read the next question on the test, already bored. Wasn’t F-Zero supposed to be exciting?

Well, the events that put her here certainly were. The last two weeks had ripped on by. Rainbow Dash could only recall her training in frozen moments, or scenes like from a movie.

Scene: Rainbow Dash parking the Blue Falcon in Twilight’s secret lair. Scootaloo bitched her out because they’d gotten lost in the secret passage here. Rainbow Dash still doesn’t quite recall what got her to be quiet—she only remembers talking about a cheese wheel.

Scene: Twilight going through list after list after list of things relevant to Rainbow Dash’s training—and the list seemed to just spiral on forever. There was a little baby dragon with her. Rainbow Dash pitied him.

Scene: Rainbow Dash driving the Blue Falcon on Twilight’s awesome racetrack. This one happened the most.

Scene: Twilight trying to get Rainbow Dash to read the histories and intricacies of F-Zero. Not happening.

Current scene: Rainbow Dash seated at a desk in a seemingly endless room full of them, each one occupied by a fellow applicant. Dull droning could be heard outside this testing room, with security guards standing resolute by the two doorways and others walking up and down the rows—most likely to make sure nopony’d try to cheat.

She sighed quietly and returned to the test. More F-Zero history. Rainbow Dash wished she’d studied like Twilight told her to. But then again, Rainbow Dash hated having to sit in one place for hours, doing something static like reading.

It took close to forty minutes before she reached the end of the test. She sighed with a contented smile. The pain was over. Her smile faded the moment she saw the words on the bottom of the holo-screen:

Please wait until it is time to start the second half of the written test. If you reached this part before the other applicants, please use this time to review your answers.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and sighed. She looked up at the clock. Twenty minutes left. Might as well make that twenty hours, or twenty days. Rainbow Dash hated waiting. It was one thing to wait for a bounty to enter a bar so she could take him out, but it was a totally different thing to wait at a desk for a test. At least with the former situation, she could have a beer.

She took the test’s advice and reviewed her answers, but she wasn’t totally sure what the answers were in the first place so it turned out to be a waste of time. Rainbow Dash leaned back in her seat and looked about her fellow applicants. She cut that out the moment one of the guards raised an eyebrow at her, as if he thought she might be trying to cheat by looking at somepony else’s answers.

Rainbow Dash sat quietly. Fidgeted. Yawned. Lazily slid her hoof on the desk in front of her. She glanced up at the clock.

Nineteen minutes left.

She bit down another groan.

The music chewed through the radio in the Blue Falcon as Scootaloo operated on it in Twilight's garage. That’s what the Captain always called it—“operating” on the Blue Falcon. Never “fixing up”, never “upgrading”, never “modifying”: “operating.” Yet another hint that Rainbow Dash saw the Blue Falcon as if it were a living thing. In many ways, Scootaloo envied the Blue Falcon. It probably saw the most of Rainbow Dash’s softer side.

Scootaloo lifted her head out of the Blue Falcon’s innards. Next to the Falcon rested the Golden Fox, Twilight’s machine.

She caught sight of the little dragon at work fixing up the Fox, humming along to the music as he connected wires and greased parts. His purple scales were accented well by his green eyes and mohawk-spikes, with blue coveralls clothing an adorably chubby body and a fat little tail swishing left and right to the beat of the music.

“So,” Scootaloo said, after watching him work for a few seconds.

The dragon stopped humming to the music, but continued to work. “…So.”

Scootaloo resumed her operation. “So, uh… my name’s Scootaloo. What’s yours?”

“…Spike.”

The song on the radio ended, and the DJ began talking. “Spike?” said Scootaloo. “Sounds like something you’d name a dog.”

Spike didn’t respond. The DJ reached a news story about crime rates before Scootaloo realized her mistake. “Hey, I didn’t mean to make fun of your name,” she said quickly.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said glumly.

Scootaloo thought for a few seconds. “I don’t mean to sound rude or anything, but… why is your name Spike? Like, who gave it to you?”

Spike tinkered a bit more on the Golden Fox as he gave an answer. “Twilight hatched me from an egg to pass some test or something. She named me Spike. Said it was a good name for a dragon to have.” The last sentence came out almost spitefully.

A few seconds of silence. “Hey,” said Scootaloo. After some painful silence, Spike looked at her reluctantly. “I’m sorry, all right? I didn’t mean it like that.”

Spike looked at her for a few seconds more before returning to his work.

Scootaloo snorted. Just like her to say something that struck a sore spot. Sighing, she reached into her jacket pocket, pulling out the cigarettes from before. She nipped a cig between her teeth and set the pack on top of the Blue Falcon, then looked over to Spike. “Can I get a light?” she asked.

Spike looked apprehensively at the cigs, then at Scootaloo. “Aren’t you a little young to be smoking?” he asked.

“I’m also a little young to be working on modding a combat vehicle into an F-Zero machine,” Scootaloo countered. “I like to think that alone earns me a few privileges.”

Spike thought about this a second. He’d always been curious about cigarettes—not to mention that alcohol stuff Twilight chugged when she felt especially alienated by the world. And all the hard work he’d put into maintaining the Golden Fox, assisting Twilight when- and wherever she needed, must mean he’d grown up some…

He reached out a claw. “Gimme one, too.” Cigarette in claw, he snorted fire softly into the air, where the two lit their smokes.

Scootaloo didn’t exactly smoke like somepony who knew how to do it: lots of coughing, hacking, inhaling too much at once instead of drawing slowly. Spike snickered at her attempts at smoking—right up until he took his first puff and erupted into a coughing fit. Scootaloo pointed and laughed. “Not so easy, is it?” she asked.

“Guess not,” Spike sputtered. “You’d think someone who breathes fire would be better at this kind of thi—”

“What are you doing?!” screeched a voice from behind them. A quick glance told them both that Twilight had woke up from her nap earlier than they’d expected.

Like children caught doing something naughty, the two children caught doing something naughty hid their sins behind their backs. “N-Nothing,” Spike lied. His cigarette suddenly felt like something invisible was tugging it—then it was ripped from his claw and floated over to Twilight in a magenta glow. The same was done to Scootaloo’s cigarette, then to the pack lying on the Falcon’s dash. Twilight looked over the cigs like they were dead rats, then scowled at the two assistants.

“Do you know what these will do to you?” she asked quietly.

Spike kicked at the ground shyly, casting his eyes elsewhere. “I-I’m sorry, Twilight. I—”

“Where did you get these?” she pressed, getting into Spike’s face.

Spike’s eyes darted about before he gave an answer. “S-Scootaloo gave me one.”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. It was a well-known, scientifically-proven, well-documented fact that kids hate tattle-tales. It’s also a well-known, scientifically-proven, well-documented fact that kids who hate tattle-tales tend to counter-tattle. “I gave him one because I asked him to light mine, then he suddenly wanted one, too.”

Twilight scoffed in surprise. “What’s a kid like you doing with cigarettes?”

Scootaloo’s eyes glazed over. “Well, what’s a kid like me doing modifying a military-level combat vehicle into an F-Zero machine?” Her facial features became something Twilight only ever saw in other adults, and the sight of it on the face of a child… scared her.

A few seconds passed. The singular cigarettes were crumpled mid-air, then tossed into a nearby trashcan. “That’s different,” Twilight said, “You’re doing something constructive by fixing up a machine. This?” She shook the pack. “This is destructive. Smoking these cigarettes are going to kill you.”

Before she could go into a lecture on why smoking is bad, Scootaloo interrupted. “Oh, so it’s okay for you to go out to sleazy nightclubs and leave Spike home alone while you drink yourself stupid, but it’s not okay for me to just enjoy a smoke every now and then? Because you’re an adult and I’m just a kid?”

The next few seconds of silence were heavy and intense. Scootaloo realized only then that she might have overstepped a boundary: she and Rainbow Dash were staying in Twilight’s underground lair, after all. Host’s house, host’s rules. Scootaloo had learned that back when they were still staying with Blueblood and he’d threatened to throw them out when she started giving him lip.

Twilight walked over to Scootaloo quietly as the radio DJ droned on about Griffin sightings. Her steps were slow, her face grim. There was an element of consternation in Twilight’s face—one that made it difficult for Scootaloo to maintain eye contact with her. She stopped just in front of Scootaloo. Another few of those heavy, intense seconds.

Twilight nodded.

Scootaloo found the cigarette pack deposited back in her denim jacket pocket. Twilight sighed and walked away, exiting the garage. Scootaloo looked after her for a while, then turned to Spike, who after witnessing this scene looked rather uncomfortable.

“Hey,” he said, “Um, I-I’m gonna go take a break and, uh… get a snack or something. You want anything?”

Scootaloo shook her head. “No, thanks. Not hungry.”

Spike left for the kitchen. The DJ on the radio had run through the top news stories by now, and started playing some Whitesnake. Scootaloo sighed sadly as she returned to work—excuse me, operation—under the garage lights.

Question 1. Who can sponsor an F-Zero pilot, and who cannot? Why?

Again with this three-answers-for-one-question bull. Ah, well. Rainbow Dash was confident she knew the answers anyway. Legitimate businesses can, political parties can’t. She scratched her chin in thought, then threw in the third answer: Businesses offer merchandising deals, while showing political interest looks bad on the part of the F-Ze…

Shoot, the answer box was too small. Rainbow Dash deleted what was in the box and started over again, remembering to once again write everything really small.

Question 2. How many sponsors can one F-Zero pilot represent? How many sponsors does an F-Zero pilot need in order to qualify for the races?

As many as needed. One.

Question 3. What qualities or devices must an F-Zero machine possess in order to be allowed to race?

Rainbow Dash scratched her chin. That sounded like something Scootaloo would know; she’s the one operating on the Blue Falcon. But if she recalled correctly, Scootaloo did mention…

Up-to-date shock absorbers and G-Diffuser systems...

Rainbow Dash pursed her lips around the stylus between her teeth. Then, she added, Industrial-level combat armor…

She thought a little more deeply, this time recollecting a conversation between herself and Twilight Sparkle. Twilight was the kind of mentor one needed—foregoing being nice in favor of being helpful. She reminded Rainbow Dash quite a bit of those no-nonsense mentors who’d take Fuji Apple’s character as their pupil.

One of the things Twilight had gotten onto Rainbow Dash about—besides, y’know, everything—was about how accidents happen very easily on the F-Zero tracks. Rainbow Dash had even seen on TV how common it was for F-Zero pilots to attack each other. “You need to check your ETD, before every race, after every race,” she had said with a stern frown.

Rainbow Dash asked more about it. Sounded important.

At that, Twilight had rolled her eyes. (Okay, so she was helpful, but she was also rather condescending.) “When an F-Zero machine gets wiped out, the ETD—that’s Emergency Teleportation Device, by the way—will warp the pilot to safety.” She began to pace around Rainbow Dash as she continued her lecture, going into maximum detail about what it is and what may happen if it malfunctions.

Twilight Sparkle was serious regarding almost everything, but the level of seriousness during that particular lecture was near-terrifying.

But anyway, ETD. Emergency Teleportation Dev…

Dammit! Not enough space!

The waiting room. Rainbow Dash even hated the name—waiting room. There’s one in every building: the dentist's, the doctor's, the garage, the Guild, and now? Now Rainbow Dash found herself in the F-Zero Registration Office Waiting Room.

She took a number from the receptionist and sat on an empty chair in an ocean of filled seats. Looking around, there must have been a billion or so entrants. Of course, a billion was a random number her bored mind plucked from nowhere—although to be realistic, there were probably close to one… maybe two hundred people.

There were quite a few ponies there: unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies. A few Zebras dotted the room. Some Diamond Dogs spoke to a mare wearing a cowboy hat over by the corner, a Minotaur chatting it up with a pretty-faced jenny. One butter-yellow pegasus stood up on her hind legs, waving her forelegs around before fluttering her wings and flying over. Even with the purple flower stuck in it right now, Rainbow Dash could recognize that long pink mane anywhere.

“Fluttershy?” she asked.

“Hey,” Fluttershy greeted softly. “How’s your daughter doing?”

Rainbow Dash couldn’t tell if she was joking. “Well, she isn’t my daughter, but Scootaloo’s doin’ all right for herself. What’re you doing here, anyway?”

Fluttershy took the seat next to her. There was timidity in her voice, as if she were greatly relieved to see a face she recognized in this desert of strangers. “Well, um, the internship I have over at the Guild doesn’t really pay my bills.”

Rainbow Dash nodded as she reclined in her chair, folding her forelegs around the back of her head. “So you’re gonna become an F-Zero pilot? That's some pretty high aspirations.”

Fluttershy shrugged and blushed. “Well, maybe—if I pass the test, that is. And even then, it’s still really hard to get into the races. I’m actually here for a job interview. Heard they needed somepony to scrub the toilets, and I could use the money.”

Rainbow Dash smiled and suppressed a laugh at the mental image of soft, demure, girly little Fluttershy cringing at the sight of a neglected stallions’ room. “Well, it’s a living, I guess.” She looked more closely at the flower in Fluttershy's mane. "Nice flower, by the way. Never took you for the hippie type."

Fluttershy giggled softly and looked away. "Well, my parents are hippies. They're the reason I came to the city."

"They send you to a nice college here?"

Fluttershy sighed and shook her head. "I wish they did, but no. I just got tired of them trying to run my life. Controlling what I ate. Controlling what I did." She sighed as she felt the small flower, how beautiful it was. "But there are a lot of things they gave me that I'll always keep."

Rainbow Dash smiled. "Their love for nature?"

Fluttershy nodded. "You learn to appreciate nature in a place as plastic like Mute City."

Rainbow Dash sighed. "Finally!" she said. "Here I was, thinking I was the only one who noticed. We should start a club!"

The loudspeaker squealed, breaking their conversation. “Attention, all F-Zero applicants,” said a bored, nasally voice over the loudspeaker. “The tests have all been graded. Please report to the License Office on the second floor if your number is called.”

As the bored voice began rattling off numbers, Rainbow Dash looked down at hers. Twenty-seven. The perfect number. Only two digits long. Easy to remember, hard to forget. Twenty-seven.

Come ooonnnn, Twenty-seven, Rainbow Dash thought. Momma’s got herself a race to win.

“171… 94… 96…71…”

As the numbers rolled, people began to leave the waiting room to go pick up their license. Rainbow Dash’s eyes flicked to Fluttershy, who held onto her ticket hopefully, looking at it like it was glowing.

“44… 135… 27… “

Rainbow Dash smiled and gave Fluttershy a friendly pat on the back. “See ya ’round, Fluttershy,” she said as she got up. “Good luck with everything.”

Above them, the bored voice claimed that all the passing applicants had been called, have a nice day. Fluttershy frowned sadly at her “losing” ticket, remembering the long nights she'd spent studying the history of F-Zero, all those hours sunk into learning driving. She looked back to Rainbow Dash as she went on her merry way.

“Good luck to you… too,” she called. But by then, Rainbow Dash had rounded the corner and was out of earshot over the murmuring of applicants who were disappointed their numbers weren’t called.

Fluttershy sighed and looked back down at the number on her ticket. Twenty-one.

Oh, well. There was still the job interview, and after that, toilets to scrub.

The line in front of the reception desk was not as long as it could have been, thankfully. Rainbow Dash became rather suspicious: how could that many people take a written test, but only this many passed? Still, it was better to be thankful she’d passed the first time anyway.

The mare behind her was an earth pony, orange pelt, blonde mane, cowboy hat. She wore a snow-white jacket, the sleeves rolled up to above her elbow. Boots as white as the jacket she wore clenched about her hind legs, her dark-green shirt bringing the whole ensemble together. Dogtags hung from around her neck, a set of shades separating her eyes from the rest of the world.

“Military?” asked Rainbow Dash.

She lifted her shades to reveal a pair of emerald eyes on a freckled face as she gave a warm smile. “Ex-military,” she said. “Quit to be with my family.” Her voice had a deep, maternal pitch to it, as well as a country accent.

“Name’s Rainbow Dash. What’s yours?”

“Name’s Applejack,” she said. “Friends call me AJ.” She held out a hoof and shook Rainbow Dash’s so hard, she thought her foreleg would winch off. “So, you passed the written test, huh?”

Rainbow Dash nodded as the line moved forward, one by one. “Yeah.”

“Well, that’s about the only easy part of becomin’ an F-Zero pilot,” AJ said. “The next steps include things like acquiring new sponsors. It’s a hassle ’n a half.”

Rainbow Dash smirked. “You talk like you’ve done this before.”

“I have,” AJ said with a grin. “Just had to renew my license. Gotta do it like every four years—and that includes havin’ to get picked up by new sponsors.” She went on a bit about what to expect next, about sponsors and passing a driving exam, and so on. At some point, Rainbow Dash began to only half-listen.

Finally, it was Rainbow Dash’s turn at the reception desk. Behind it was a withered little tree-branch of a jenny, her eyes half-lidded with a kind of lethargy that, frankly, worried Rainbow Dash. Her makeup made her look like some kind of mental patient grandma, and reminded Rainbow Dash of the creepy old lady who lived next to her house when she was little.

“…Who’re you?” asked the Jenny vacantly. Now that she heard her, Rainbow Dash concluded she must have been the bored voice from the waiting room speakers. Unsurprising.

“Number 27, in the flesh,” Rainbow Dash smiled.

The jenny blinked slowly. “...How nice,” she droned. Rainbow Dash didn’t quite understand the context of her statement: was it nice to be Number 27, or nice to be in the flesh, or…?

Either way, the aging donkey took a small data card, putting it into what looked almost like a pager. After doing that, the pager-thingy came alive with a beep. “This is your registration. Please take this over to Building B for the remainder of the licensing process.”

Rainbow Dash kept her smile on her face, but screamed on the inside. Was this thing going to take all day? She took the registration pager-thingy and began walking to the nearest building map.

The receptionist yawned. Stretched. Farted. Finally done with all those stupid tests. She and her team of graders were glad their role was finally over. She supposed they should be thankful for their boring jobs—if the F-Zero committee had passed that ruling in which grading was done via computer (like nearly everything else these days), they’d be on the street.

But still, sitting at a desk all damn day was surprisingly tiring, and unsurprisingly stifling. It didn't help that some jerk today decided they'd write all their answers really small.

She took a drink from her coffee mug, only to find it empty. She shook her head and got up to go get some more, like she’d been doing the past couple of days she’d been working without sleep. From the corner of her eye, she saw the small list of passing grades on her desk. “Oh, right,” she mumbled. How silly of her to forget. She sent the small list to the filing bin for later.

If she’d been more awake and alert, she’d have noticed that "Number 27" was supposed to have been Number 21.

The rest of the process was ludicrously long. Rainbow Dash was pretty sure the passion of most would-be pilots was killed by the miles of bureaucratic red tape. Go to Building B—register with the people there—please wait—take a photo—sign this—sign that—please wait—let’s see your pilot license kid—please wait—got any info on your machine? It was worse and even more invasive than when she got her Bounty Hunting License.

She was done by dinner time, but by that point, the process had left her stomach in a knot. The bus ride back to the Lair was largely uneventful—except for that one creepy pony who kept making goo-goo eyes at her. The moment she arrived at Twilight’s hotelthere was this sudden, refreshing sense of relief, almost like she had taken an especially painful crap.

But the moment she saw the blazing glare on Twilight’s face in the break room, that feeling of relief ran away screaming. The beer Rainbow Dash fished from the fridge was set on the countertop. “…There a problem?” she asked, hoping she hadn’t forgotten to do something before leaving.

Twilight closed her eyes, and sighed through her nose. “We need to talk.” She sat at the table, waiting for Rainbow Dash to do the same. Rainbow Dash took a seat.

“So, uh… what about?” Rainbow Dash asked, hoping she didn’t sound as intimidated as she felt. Her knobs twitched.

“Scootaloo,” Twilight said.

Rainbow Dash sighed and ran a hoof through her mane. “What’d she say?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I know she has the tendency to shoot her mouth off, but…”

Twilight shook her head. “No, not about that. She’s actually really smart. But she’s…” Twilight looked as if she didn’t know how to put her next words together. She licked her lips and tried again, this time really scrutinizing Rainbow Dash’s face. “Does Scootaloo’s behavior… trouble you?”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “She’s growing up. It’s only natural she’d—”

Twilight interrupted her with a wave of her hoof. “No, I mean,” she began before falling into a groan. “Look, I don’t like sounding like I’m trying to tell you how to parent, but kids her age shouldn’t be acting like that.”

“I’ll ask again, then,” Rainbow Dash said, “What. Did. She. Do?”

“...I caught her smoking.”

Rainbow Dash shrugged nonchalantly before taking a chug from her beer. “So? I smoked when I was her age. I quit a few years back; she’ll quit when she’s ready.”

Twilight’s mouth fell open with a grunt. “That’s your attitude? She’s like… how old?!”

"Fourteen."

Twilight's eyes widened. "She's fourteen?" Her eyes twitched as though she were reading a book only she could see. "But... if that's true, then Scootaloo's... puny for a pegasus her age. And she can't fly, either."

Rainbow Dash's knobs twitched again. "Neither can I," she said thinly with a cold look in her eyes.

"Well, your case is obviously different," Twilight said softly. "But Scootaloo's still growing up. She's still a child, and... and she smokes, and acts like an adult, but looks underdeveloped?"

Rainbow Dash was able to draw quite a few parallels to Blueblood, who’d asked the same questions years before. She analyzed Twilight more closely—really inspecting her this time—before asking her own question. “How were you raised, Twilight?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to do with this, actually,” said Rainbow Dash as she set the soda back down. “First, I notice you were born into a wealthy family. You got everything you could ever want at your hooves.” Silence. Rainbow Dash leaned forward. “You deny this?”

Twilight pursed her lips. “Well, no.”

“I’m also guessing you grew up in an area where there wasn’t much crime or ‘bad’ influences, right?”

“No.”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Well, there you go. It’s as simple as that: you were just raised differently. You grew up in a completely different world than the one Scootaloo lived in.”

Some more silence as Rainbow Dash sipped from her beer. Her eyes became strangely wistful. Nostalgic. “When I found her, Scootaloo was only seven years old, but she acted way more mature than most adults. She was already earning money by fixing up vehicles for ponies three times her age. When I asked her how she could do that, you know what she told me?”

“What?” Twilight asked.

“She told me, ‘You learn a lot when you got nopony you can depend on.’”

Rainbow Dash released a sigh she didn’t know she was holding. “And she knew a lot. She knew her way around machines and guns. Scootaloo was growing up in a Port Town slum, all by herself. Her own survival was the reason she kept giving it her all, every day she woke up. She grew up too fast… but it was only because she had to if she wanted to survive.”

Once again, Rainbow Dash had surprised Twilight. She felt her heart begin to break, little by little at every word that came from Rainbow Dash’s mouth. “Is... that why you adopted her?” she asked, her voice a quiet whisper.

Rainbow Dash returned Twilight a wry smile and chuckled. “No. I didn’t adopt her out of pity or some desire to protect her. I adopted her so that I could give myself a reason to keep going.” She finished her beer, crushed the can, and tossed it into a nearby recycle bin. “My reason for adopting Scootaloo was completely, totally selfish. But I don’t regret it.”

Twilight released a sigh. “You’re both so complicated,” she said wearily.

“Been called worse,” Rainbow Dash laughed. “Don’t worry about it, Twi. I promise Scoots and I are gonna be outta your mane by the time the sponsor's race rolls around.” She blinked. “By the way, when is the sponsor's race?”

“Next Friday.”

Rainbow Dash nodded. “Better get some more practice in, then.” She got up from her chair and patted Twilight on the shoulder as she walked by. “Thanks for the talk.”

“Yeah,” Twilight said weakly. “No problem.”

Rainbow Dash left the room, leaving Twilight to herself. She leaned over the table, resting her chin on her folded forelegs, digesting what she’d been told as a sad frown slowly spread across her lips.

Scootaloo sat up sharply in her bed, surrounded by the dark of her room. She quickly stuffed both her hooves into her mouth, silencing herself before she could break into hysterics over her night terror. She bent in half, curled into a ball, hooves still in her mouth, biting down on them now. Counting backwards from a hundred. Keep calm. Ninety-nine, ninety-eight, breathe, ninety-seven, ninety-six, breathe, doing good. Doing good. Just wait for the bad dream to go away.

What was the bad dream about? She could only vaguely recall certain details. Rain in the Red Canyon. That was certain. Rare, maybe illogical, but she remembered. Rain and… blood?

Blood. Yes. She remembered the blood.

After a few seconds of letting reality welcome her back to where she was safe and sound, Scootaloo slowly drew her hooves out of her mouth. That had been something she’d done since she could remember—stuffing her front hooves into her mouth and counting backwards when she felt scared. Long before she’d met Rainbow Dash, in fact.

The times Rainbow Dash had heard her wake up from a nightmare were ironically some of Scootaloo’s favorite memories. Not even pausing, just rising from her hammock in the Flyer, shooting to Scootaloo and scooping her into a hug.

She rested her hooves on the bedsheets, only to find them wet. The dampness was warm, the smell it emitted salty and acidic. Scootaloo groaned as she realized she’d pissed the bed. Again.

She got out of bed, walking across the red carpet into her private bathroom. (A private bathroom! Scootaloo was still getting over that.) Her nightshirt was just as soaked as the bedsheets, so off it went as she stepped into the shower.

With a squeak, the shower became alive. It replaced the thick stink of urine with the scent of lilac and coconut, courtesy of Scootaloo’s new best friends, soap and shampoo. Scootaloo began scrubbing herself down as the rain...

The rain.

That was the only time she’d ever seen rain in the Red Canyon. Rain. Rain and…

She turned off the shower, and stood there. Shivering. It took her a moment to realize she was crying, too.

The low hum of electricity pulsing through the walls was joined by the sound of Scootaloo’s little hooves pitter-pattering across the hard floor. A cleaning bot rolled by her, shining the floor while its owners slept. Without really knowing why, Scootaloo gave it a pat on the head. Keep up the good work.

As the cleaning bot slid down the hall, Scootaloo looked around. She’d forgotten which direction the laundry room was. In her half-asleep state, she’d been dragging her smelly sheets in the wrong direction. She breathed a tired groan. Suddenly, there came a soft noise. Sniffling.

Scootaloo’s ears perked. Sniffling? Setting down the dirty laundry for now, she tip-hoofed nearer to the source of the sound: Twilight’s room. The door—one of those old-fashioned doors that still worked on hinges instead of automatic opening—was slightly ajar. Curiously, Scootaloo peeked in.

Twilight was sitting up in her bed, holding her red scarf against her naked chest. Her eyes focused on the scarf as if it was something sacred, her face streaked with tears. She shook as she sobbed, burying her face into the scarf.

Scootaloo backed away from the scene slowly and, rather worriedly, resumed her quest for the laundry room. After this turn, that turn, and another turn, she found the laundry room and stuffed her sheets into the washer. It was a bit different from the model on the Flyer, so it took her a little time to figure out how it worked.

A smile threatened to break into a laugh. The more she thought about it, the more Scootaloo realized the Falcon Flyer was essentially a flying house. She’d never actually lived in real houses—or in apartments—or in motel rooms. She could only ever sleep in the Flyer, live in the Flyer, eat in the Flyer.

As she watched her bedsheets go round and round, Scootaloo’s mind returned to Twilight. The red scarf. Something about it, something so sacred and untouchable. The tears streaming down her face.

Scootaloo thought harder. There had to be some connection between Twilight’s breakdown just now and why she’s so mean to everypony.

Rainbow Dash had explained to Scootaloo that Twilight’s just a tough teacher. She’s tough on us because she wants us to become the best we can be—and you can’t make somepony tough by being nice to them. But maybe there was something deeper than that, and Scootaloo had the sneaking suspicion that the scarf was a huge part of the twisted puzzle that was Twilight Sparkle.

…Was the scarf to Twilight how the rain was to Scootaloo?

After the laundry was done getting washed and dried, Scootaloo brought her sheets back to her room, flipped her mattress over, got back on and curled up.

But try as she might, Scootaloo couldn’t go back to sleep that night.

The test track was no Red Canyon, no Devil’s Forest. But it simulated that feeling of freedom Rainbow Dash loved about driving. Nothing but her, the Blue Falcon, and the world ripping by the both of them.

Scootaloo had outdone herself in bringing the Blue Falcon to his current majestic state. While his combat trappings had been removed, he was no less beautiful for it. He was this magnificent bullet screaming from a gun’s barrel. Rainbow Dash could smell the hot smoke and taste the gunpowder.

Beautiful.

A voice crackled over the squawk-box, knocking Rainbow Dash down from her high. “All right, Supergirl,” Twilight said. “You’ve had your warmup. Let’s see what you’re really made of today.”

Obstacles began shooting up from the race-track—white spires that must have stood thrice as tall as any pony, with magenta rings around them. Rainbow Dash felt a sudden lurch and realized the magenta rings must be some kind of magnet. First the smooth floors that messed with the G-Diffuser's traction, then the bomb droids that ambled about the track, now magnets…?

Still, no complaints here. Rainbow Dash licked her lips as she blazed by the magnet-spires, heavily tilting her weight on the left or right control boot to pull the Blue Falcon away from the magnets. As she closed in on the finish line a second time, Twilight came back over the squawk-box. “Good… good. Now here’s the real test.”

Orange lights appeared on the track. “I’m giving you another two laps. Collect all the orange lights and make for the finish line. Then we’ll call your training complete.”

“Is that all?” Rainbow Dash laughed.

Suddenly, the magnetic spires were accompanied by the bomb droids and the smooth floors. Rainbow Dash gulped.

“Any further comments?” Twilight challenged. But before Rainbow Dash could reply, she barked, “Get to it!”

Twilight observed her pupil through the monitor wall of the observation deck, each screen offering different angles of Rainbow Dash’s progress. She was doing surprisingly well for the number of challenges on the test track. The magnets weren’t much of a problem for her. She seemed only just so careful on the smooth floors—only daring enough to grab every orange light she could on her first lap. The bomb droids she was able to avoid completely. The Blue Falcon flew like its namesake, a graceful and menacing raptor tearing effortlessly across the racetrack.

She’d watched Rainbow Dash’s driving multiple times these past few days, and was always impressed. Anything Twilight threw at her would be overcome in a matter of minutes. Twilight often doubted that Rainbow Dash really needed the training, honestly. She was simply naturally talented.

Then there was that sense of satisfaction. In many ways, Twilight was responsible for the birth of who might actually become one of the greatest F-Zero pilots in the entire history of the sport. Just the thought of having the integral role of mentoring a champion was substance enough to be considered its own level of fulfillment.

Of course, none of these thoughts would be brought to Rainbow Dash’s attention. Her ego would eat it up and balloon to an even more monstrous size.

As Twilight continued to silently marvel at Rainbow Dash’s performance, she heard a hiss of an auto-door opening behind her. She turned her head to see Scootaloo carrying a plate of hot food, and cocked an eyebrow as the little filly brought it over and put it on a nearby desk that was already housing several computers. The two shared an awkward silence for a few seconds.

“Thought you might be hungry,” Scootaloo said quickly. “Spike’s working on your machine again and he told me you might have missed lunch, so…”

The plate was enveloped by a magenta glow and brought over to Twilight. Scootaloo watched as she ate—her disciplined table manners reminding Scootaloo of Blueblood. Do all rich ponies eat like that? she wondered.

Twilight looked at Scootaloo, swallowed a bite, then asked, “You cooked this?”

Scootaloo hesitated, then nodded. “…Yeah. I’m usually the cook when Rainbow Dash and I have enough money for something other than ramen noodles.”

There was more silence as Twilight finished off her lunch. Finally, Twilight wiped her mouth (though it was more daubing her mouth with the napkin), and set all the dishes aside. She looked to Scootaloo again.

“…Thanks. You’re actually a—pardon my French—a damn fine chef.”

Scootaloo smiled and shook her head as if she were fighting the urge to laugh. “You swear like a kindergartener.” She began gathering the dishes. “It just doesn’t sound natural.”

Twilight threw her head back and laughed. “I guess not,” she said. “That was actually the first time I’ve sworn in… goodness, has it already been almost ten years?”

“Really?”

Twilight shrugged. “Yeah. Got in a fight with my old boyfriend. And maybe I said things I regret now.”

Scootaloo forgot the dishes for now, simply listening to Twilight ramble with a smile lighting up her face. It was the first time Twilight had actually seen the way Scootaloo smiles, every intricate detail of the way her little lips curve. Her heart melted.

Twilght fell silent. Then she reached over and mussed Scootaloo’s mane. “But never mind any of that! You’d better get yourself situated. Your mom’s gonna be finishing up her last training session here in a bit.”

Scootaloo gathered the dishes and walked back to the observation deck’s exit with a noticeable spring in her step. As the door closed behind her, Twilight smiled, shaking her head as she returned her attention to Rainbow Dash.

Just as the Blue Falcon collected the last orange light, Twilight whispered, “You’re both so complicated. But… thanks.”