The Last Slice
"Dear Rainbow Dash, you have been invited to the Wonderbolt's 100th Performance celebration. Please arrive at theTops at eighteen hundred hours on May the fifth, one thousand and three."
Dash read over the letter multiple times, her eye threaten to break from widening in surprise as her letter-holding hooves almost fell off her very arms. She had been invited by the Wonderbolts, the fastest-flying team in Equestria! It took nearly all over here will power not to explode in excitement, her wings wings beating as fast as they could without making her take off. Hardly anyone got invited to any of their parties, and only the most important ponies were invited. (They hardly had any parties to due to Spitfire being so strict but that was besides the point.) Maybe she could show them a few of her moves.... Maybe she could fly with them.... Maybe.....
She would be asked to join them!
Dash could not longer bear to keep herself on the ground, taking off like an arrow into the afternoon sky. She preformed a various aerial maneuvers, doing loop-de-loops and dive bombing the ground multiple times before landing once more. Dash looked up at the town's clock tower, the little hand already pointing at the solid black four. Rainbow Dash did the math in her head and knew there was no time to take a train.
"Looks like I'm going to have to wing it. Canterlot here I come!"
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Dash arrived the bustling casino only known as The Tops, a long line of ponies in suits and various other pieces of clothing gathered around the front entrance. A large pony, who looked like he was strong enough to the doors he was guarding off their hinges, at the front of the crowd preventing any of them from entering while a much smaller unicorn held a clipboard and pencil with her magic. Rainbow Dash smiled smugly as she made her way to the entrance of the building, flying over many of the angered gamblers and placing her self at the front. She walked up to the large pony and coughed, gaining the mare's attention.
"Name?" She the word like it was poison in her mouth, her eye twitching in annoyance.
"Rainbow Dash, fastest flier in Equestria!"
"I'm Sorry but you-" The mare lifted her glasses and blinked a few times, first at Dash and then at her clipboard and then at Dash again. "Right this way, Miss Dash. The Wonderbolts had rented out the entire place so just take a seat anywhere while the other guests arrive."
"Sweet."
Dash made her way past the the insanely-muscular stallion and pushed through the silver-steel doors, letting out an impressed 'woah' as she saw the inside of The Tops for the first time. Golden-white tiles covered the floors,a the walls a beague color. Symbols bearing a resemblance the Celestia's cutie mark dotted the wall while poker tables, slot machines, and Roulette tables took up much of the floor space. A sigh gave her directions to numerous place where the Spades Theature, the pool, the barm an indoor resturant called Fine Dining, and the courtyard was. She decided to go check out the bar and made a left, passing by the receptionist who greeted her with a warm smile and told her that they were still expecting two more ponies to arrive. Dash continued on until she saw Soarin sitting at the bar, a bottle held in his hoof. She flew over to him, her wings coming to a stop mere feet from him. The energetic pegasus calmy trotted over to the sit next to him, ordering a drink. Moments later Rainbow Dash found herself face-to-face with the Wonderbolt, his eyebrow raised as he looked at her choice of beverage.
"Never took you for a Bud Light fan, personally I prefer like Busch better."
Dash shrugged and opened the bottle, snatching the cap mid-air with her wing. She smiled a bit as she took her first sip, the taste of the alcohol dulling her tastebuds.
"Eh, I guess Busch is pretty good. So where are the Spitfire and the others?"
"Spitfire is busy ordering us a few pizzas and they're out in the courtyard just chilling in the pool. We didn't mean to rent out of the whole place, but it seems there was a bit of an communication issue between her and our sponsors. It costed a lot more bits then she wanted to spend but whats the point of wasting a whole evening with an entire casino to ourselves?"
"Good point, so you wanna go fly around or something?"
"Sure, it wouldn't be wise to get drunk before the party even started."
Minutes later Dash found herself in The Top's courtyard, chatting with Soarin the entire time. It turns out that besides doing stunts and shows at popular events, they're also a special strike force for Celestia. They do recon missions among other things when speed and precision is required. He even mentioned saving a group of ponies a few years back from some dragons who had demanded a ransom of four thousand pounds of gems, an amount that even the Princesses would have trouble coming up with. A loud sound was heard as a stormcloud released its payload, nearly causing Dash to jump. She looked upward and saw that Misty Fly had shoved Fleetfoot into a cloud, a chuckle escaping from her as she saw him barrel into her for revenge. The two tussled a bit until a third member, who Rainbow remembered as Blaze by her hair style, broke up the fight. The rest of the team was there too, which was Fire Streak, High Winds, Lightning Streak, Rapidfire, Silver Lining, Surprise, and Wave Chill. Surprise, who looked surprisingly like Pinkie Pike, was busy talking with Fire Streak and High Winds. Her friend might find it a bit creepy that she knew all the names of the Wonder Bolts but to be the best you gotta know the best. The rest were either flying around or swimming the pool, but unforunately for Dash she wouldn't be doing either activity as it was the same time the Pizza stallion arrived.
"Alright everypony, time to eat!"
A sound similar to a heard of buffalo stamping was heard as the entire Wonderbolt team sped towards the earth pony who hastly dropped the pizzas in an attempt to escape the speeding bodies headings towards him. Seconds before any one of them could reach for the first slice a loud voice boombed across the courtyard a single command.
"HAULT, FORM LINE-SINGLE FILE!"
And just like that all eleven members of the Wonderbolts were in a single-file line, awaiting their piece of pizza. Dash found herself in the back, watching with the pegasai in front of her taking off with two slices of pizza each. After a few minutes of waiting, the self-proclaimed fastest-flier in Equestria stood face-to-face with her former mentor.
"Rainbow Dash." The leader of the Wonderbolts raised her hoof to her forehead, her eyes shining through her shades.
Dash returned the salute "Spitfire Ma'am."
"At ease, you're not at the Academy any more. Now take a slice and have a seat, you look a bit ruffled from your flight here."
Dash opened her mouth to ask how she knew, but shrugged it off and did as she was told. She made her way over to the pool where several of the Wonderbolts were laying down and enjoying their well-earned pizza. Much to her surprise, they greeted her with open hooves and made room for the blue pegasus. Soarin fluttered over and sat next to her, holding the same drink from before in his hoof along with his part of the pizza.
"So where did I leave off? Oh yeah, so back when I was in Yakistan..."
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Soarin had just finished his tale (along with his third beer) of how he won a race against Stallin, the dictator of some random country. It had been a brutal competition, including swimming in a river full of flesh-eating fish and foot-race through a jungle teeming with poisonous creatures. In the end he was no match for Soarin's wits as flew past him in the last quarter while he had been stuck in mortal with an angered Ursa Major who had taken a liking to his vodka. He won the keys to his house and complete control of Stallin's country, though in the end he ended up giving it to some random stallion he met fly flying back home. Soarin nearly fell over into the pool as he recreated the face the colt had given him. Dash had probably drank to much and laughed along with them, making a 'hic' sound every once in a while. One of the colts, High winds, decided to get up and grab another slice. Dash didn't pay him much attention and lazily sipped on her Bud Light. He came back moments later with only a single slice on his plate.
"Why did you only get one?" One of the many ponies around him asked.
"Oh, this is the last piece."
You could hear Fluttershy speak in the silence that followed High Wind's statement, with every eye focused on the speaker. His ears folded backwards and his eyes widened as he notice that his teammates were preparing to bolt for the last piece. The words 'Awww crap' were heard just before the sound of a dozen wings buzzing filled the air. Coats of various colors filled Dash's vision as they all targeted the piece of food on the stallion's plate, with some bumping into each other as they fought for the frontward position. She felt one of them brush her ear as they flew by, High Winds now flying for his life. He led them like Spitfire did when training cadets at the Academy, pulling hard turns and steep drives to throw them off. A few of them didn't stop in time and smacked into the floor or wall, some managing to do both. When they recovered the rejoined the chase, hovering in the air to prevent him from doing another lap. He was quickly surround by his hungry teammates, their eyes a bit red from all the alcohol they had been drinking.
"Give me the pizza High Winds. That's an order!"
"If you give the pizza to me Winds, I'll make it worth it for you tonight...."
"No give it to me man! Remember last week?"
"Where's za bathroom? I need ta go......"
"Give me the pizza High Winds. That's an order!"
Poor guy couldn't handle all the ponies shouting at him, his hooves that held the pizza visibly trembling. He spun around for a moment, thinking of what to do next. A metaphorical light-bulb lit up in his head, prepping his wings for high speeds as he adjusted his angle. With a burst of speed he sped past three of his teammates, leaving them dizzy in the air as he went for the doors leading to the inside of the complex. The glass within the door frames shattered from the impact, the doors themselves dented in the shape of a speeding pegasus. The rest of the Wonderbolts followed suit, the door unable to sustain the damage caused by the flurry of speeding stallions and mares. Dash also followed, but felt to lazy to actually fly so she trotted insides to watch the rest of the chase.
High Winds had still been clutching the plate with the pizza on it when he had hit the stair case leading up to the Spades Theater, the wanted food item sailing through the air before precariously landing on another plate held out by Silver Lining who quickly took off. After that Surprise managed to, well, surprise Lining by dive-bombing him. They both hit a pool table hard enough to break it in half, a hoof proudly holding out the pizza before it was yet again snatched away. Fire Streak laugh manically as he flew towards the ceiling, lifting the pizza to his mouth but stopped when a pool cue embedded itself in the ceiling mere inches away from his head. He looked down and saw an angered High Winds preparing to throw another one when he was tackled by Spitfire who then smacked some sense into him. The bruised Wonderbolt meekly smiled as Spitfire told him off before taking off to join in on the battle for the cheesy meal. She made a bee-line directly to Fire streak, managing to pin him to the ceiling with sheer force.
"Give me the pizza!"
"NEVER!"
With a swish of his tail, the pinned-pegasus flung the plate and the pizza which managed to land on the ground safely. Spitfire led out a long, dramatic 'Nooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!' As the rest of the her team dove for the the pizza. What resulted was not pretty. Hooves flew, Heads met the floor, and teeth met fur as a free-for-all began before the prized pizza. A dark cloud composed of poker chips, dust, tails and manes, along with some smoke hide most of the brutal hits and bits but not the sound of a single pegaus chew away contently on her meal. Eventually the fighting stopped when none of the contestants could throw another punch, nor move their wings as they saw a certain blue pegasus licking her hooves clean of cheese.
"Wow, that was probably the best slice of pizza I've had all day, if I do say so myself."
All twelve members of Equestria's most famous stunt team looked down at the crumpled white plate, its surface devoid of the prize they had been fighting fore.
Much less to say, Rainbow Dash burned off all the calories she had gained that day.
And learned that eating the last slice of pizza is the best feeling ever.
