Friendship is Magic

“Three…”

“Two…”

“One…”

“Go!”

The starting pistol barked and the racers surged forward.  Rainbow may not have had the reach of the older and taller competitors, but her smaller size gave her unmatchable agility and speed.  Her tiny legs pumped as she kept pace, falling behind only a bit to the center of the pack.  Let the others wear themselves out before the race was even half-over, she’d pace herself and break ahead while they slowed to rest.

She felt the slightest nudge between her shoulders, just below her neckline.  It was barely noticeable, but more than enough to disrupt her balance.  Her eyes widened as the ground rushed up to meet her.  With a grunt, she slammed into the pavement, skidding slightly on the hot, black surface.

“The race has just begun, and already we have a few competitors down.”

Rainbow looked to see that she wasn’t the only one who had fallen.  Half a dozen others were on the ground, a few clutching minor injuries.

x----x

Fluttershy raised her hands to her eyes, horrified at the site of people, especially Rainbow, sprawled out in the middle of the street.  She fought back her instinct to dart out there and help and was relieved to see trained medics already assisting the injured.  “What happened?”

“Most likely, she was pushed by another competitor.”  Fleetfoot stated.

Startled, Fluttershy turned to the older woman. “What?!  And that’s allowed?!”

Fleetfoot looked hurt at the accusation. “Of course not.  This competition has only two rules: don’t use transportation, and don’t attack other competitors.”

“So, why do they do it?”

“We have over fifty mobile cameras set up along the route as well as the town’s CCTV system that the mayor gave us access to.”  Spitfire said. “These allow the spectators to see every moment of the race as well as allow us to catch cheaters in action.  Unfortunately, this doesn’t solve the problem of the chaos at the starting line and some of our less virtuous competitors take advantage of that to eliminate as many of their opponents as possible.  The more seasoned racers know to take positions along the edges of the track.  Your friend, aside from being a beginner, is small and more likely to become the victim of such trickery.”  She raised her voice and swatted Soarin’s arm. “One of the things that I was concerned about.”

Soarin returned the swat to her abdomen, earning a grunt. “Nothing to be concerned about.  Look, she’s already getting up.”

“And it looks like one of our competitors has recovered!” The commentator announced as Rainbow pushed herself to her feet and sprinted to rejoin the pack. “Let’s have a look at this girl with such admirable will.  Competitor One-Nineteen’s name is Rainbow Dash, entering her first competition at...ten-years-old?!”

Even in the V.I.P. box, the Wonderbolts could hear the crowd murmurs, growing into cries that the underage competitor be removed from the race.

Spitfire scowled at Soarin. “Happy now?  They’ve started to boo her out.  Doesn’t surprise me, really.  The people of this town take this race very seriously.”

“Poor kid.”  Fleetfoot sympathized. “That’s got to be discouraging.”

Soarin simply laughed. “Don’t worry about Rainbow.  That girl has been mocked for her entire life.   I doubt a few boos and hisses are going to get her down.  Matter of fact, I’m sure it’s going to strengthen her resolve to win, to shut these people up for good.”

“It seems that the one who allowed this underage entry was Soarin.  Really no surprise there.  What is surprising is that Fleetfoot and Spitfire allowed it.  Make no mistake, folks, heads will roll for this.”

Soarin’s face split into a huge nervous grin. “Heh, that commentator is a real card, isn’t he?”

A pair of hands seized his collar and hauled him to his feet. “Listen here, numbnuts.” Spitfire snarled, “If I end up expelled from the Academy for this little stunt, I promise my head won’t be the only one rolling.”

A second pair of hands seized his shoulders and spun him around, bringing him level with the murderous glare of Fleetfoot. “And if I get expelled from the Academy for this little stunt, I promise your head won’t be the only thing you lose.  Comprende?”

“Mommy,” he squeaked.

x----x

Rainbow fought the urge to sprint as she hurried to catch up with the pack.  Soarin had informed her that the race was one of skill and endurance.  It would span all of Ponyville and would take most of the afternoon to complete.  Occasionally, she passed opponents who had petered out and were now resting on benches and in the grass or where they had dropped.

Her fall at the start had really cost her and she had struggled to catch up now for over an hour, but she hadn’t made much progress.  She could just spot the backs of the other runners, dipping in and out of sight as they moved through the course.

Glancing to her left, she noticed a familiar feature.  The blinking warning lights alerted pedestrians and drivers to the section of sewer pipe, left open for maintenance crews.  It would be a tight fit, but it was an almost direct route to another section of the course.  It would shave several minutes off of her time.

x----x

“Soarin had warned me that the race would be intense.”  Rainbow’s eyes were still glazed over and Fluttershy knew she wasn’t seeing her, but her memories of the race. “He wasn’t kidding.  It was an uphill battle the entire way, both figuratively and literally.  The starting line was always on the coast, with the finish mark in the hills on the outskirts of the city.  The intensity and difficulty of the race became obvious as the novice contestants began to drop out from exhaustion.  After only an hour, of the one hundred and nineteen contestants, only fifty-six remained, but one stood out above all the rest.”

x----x

Thunderlane grunted as an opponent he had been blocking for ten minutes tried to shove past him.

“Let me past or you’ll regret it.”

He shot an annoyed glare over his shoulder. “If you think you can knock me down like you took out that Rainbow-haired kid, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Just as the idiot was about to take another shot, Thunderlane leaped away, springing off of a billboard, and safely clearing the gap.  He took a moment to glance back, seeing the pest sprawled out on the roof.

x---x

“This is amazing!  Number Twenty-three is really pulling out all of the stops on this course, folks.  This may be a bit early for a prediction, but I think we’re looking at the newest member of the Wonderbolts Elite!”

“He’s pretty amazing.”  Fleetfoot breathed, a light blush tinting her tan cheeks.  “I wonder what his name is.”

“Athlete twenty-three: Thunderlane,” Spitfire recited from memory.  “He’s an up-and-comer from South Africa.  Seventeen-years-old.  He’s won local, regional, and national competitions before coming here.”

Fleetfoot blinked, thinking she wasn’t the only one to take interest in this kid. “How do you know all of that?”

“I keep up to date on anyone interesting in our sport of choice.  Being team captain, it helps to know what your future players might be capable of.  You should be doing the same.”  She said, addressing Soarin.  “He looks like a threat to your position as World’s Best Parkourist.”

Soarin laughed. “I’m not worried. He didn’t count on entering the same tournament as Rainbow.”

“Speaking of your little protege, I haven’t seen her in nearly an hour.  Do you think she quit the race?”

Fluttershy spoke up for the first time in so long, they had nearly forgotten she was there. “Oh, no, Miss Fleetfoot.  Rainbow would never quit on her lifelong dream.  Still, you’re right.  Where could she have gotten to?”

Soarin snickered. “I have a feeling she’ll turn up right...about...now!”

“What’s this?!  One-Nineteen has just reappeared from the sewers.  It seems her little trick has put her ahead of the pack and she’s gaining on the leaders!”

“There’s no way!”  Spitfire cried. “That place is way too small for anybody!”

“Not for a girl the size of my Rainbow.”  Soarin replied.

“Really hope that’s dirt on her face.”  Fleetfoot muttered, taking no pains to hide the disgust on her face.

x----x

“That race took everything I had.  I used every trick Soarin had taught me and even a few I had made up, but I kept going.  Little by little, I began to win the crowd over.  Everyone was astonished that me, a little thing of only ten-years-old, could kick the butts of players older and bigger than me.”

x----x

Fleetfoot was genuinely impressed. “I have to admit, Soarin.  That girl has some incredible resilience for someone so young.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet, Fleet.  Let’s see who wins the competition.”

She snorted. “It’s endearing to see you so invested in this kid, but Thunderlane has the lead and there are seven more athletes between her and him.  I don’t think she’s got this one.”

“You think so, eh?  Let’s not forget that the others have been on the rooftops, wearing out their legs.”

Fluttershy snapped her fingers as the realization occurred to her.  “That’s why you told her to stay off the rooftops, not only to protect her, but to prolong her endurance.  Right, Mister Soarin?”

Soarin flashed her a wink in reply.

“I know this competition is freestyle, Soarin, but the final few meters are a climb to the top.  There’s only one way up and no more shortcuts between her position and there.  She can’t win.”

“Ah, but girls, you’re forgetting one thing.  There’s one more path to the top.”

On the screen, Rainbow Dash stopped dead, sizing up the imposing obstacle.  The other competitors, who had chosen the easier path by going up the hill, paused when they noticed her.

Spit stared at the screen for a moment, putting two and two together.  “She isn’t!”  She broke into a cold sweat as she stared at the obstacle, a flood of memories nearly overwhelming her, of trials and failures, some of which had nearly ended her career and her life.  “D-do you think she can make the jump?”

“What?!  No!  That’s insane!  We were twice her size and had years of experience under our belts before we even made our first attempts.  And we all know how those ended.  The Ninja Jump isn’t for amateurs.”

“What’s a ‘Ninja Jump’?”  Fluttershy asked.

Soarin grinned, remembering when Rainbow asked that very same question. “It’s what we call it when we do a series of jumps to ascend to the top of this wall, where the finish line will be.”

“But that’s impossible.  Has anybody ever succeeded at that?”

“Spitfire, Fleetfoot, and I all have, but never in competition.”

x----x

“I understand.” Rainbow said with a nod. “Nobody would risk their chance at victory with such a difficult stunt.”

Soarin laughed and ruffled the girl’s blue hair. “Winning isn’t everything, Rainbow.”

“But my entire life, I’ve been taught that winning was the only thing that mattered.”  She objected.

“The only thing winning gets you is a trophy.  Give them a few months and the people will forget about that.  The important thing is to leave an impression, to shake them to their core and leave them hoping that the impossible is within their grasp.  That is what it means to be a Wonderbolt.  Not to win trophies or be the best, but to inspire and be remembered.”

x----x

“Enough, Soarin!”  Spitfire barked. “Now, you are going to tell me exactly what you told that little girl who is, right now, planning to tempt fate and risk breaking her neck.”

He turned to her and smiled.  “I told her that only she could achieve what all three of us lost years ago.”

Spitfire blinked, more confused than ever. “What do you mean?  What did we lose?”

His eyes glazed over slightly as his voice grew slightly somber. “The ability to inspire, to help others believe that dreams could be achieved.  Do you remember when we came to town last year and visited the hospital.  There was that one girl, the one that couldn’t walk very well.  Scootaloo, that was her name.  She said she admired us and, if she didn’t have those problems, she’d be the best runner in the world.”

Spitfire nodded, smiling at the memory of the little girl with the shock of purple hair.  “Yes, you said that you had been in an accident as a child; that you couldn’t walk well just like her, but you pressed on anyway.  She said that she was different.  She saw us as some sort of superheroes with super powers or something.”

“Exactly.”  The break in Soarin’s voice caught Spitfire’s attention.  She noticed a single tear slip down his cheek. “Exactly.  At that moment, I realized what had happened. We no longer represented an example to be followed, but idols to be admired from afar.  Do you remember when we started the Elite?  We wanted to show the world how anybody could overcome the greatest of adversity.  Little-by-little, through each endorsement and each competition, we lost that.

“But I had a dream.  In this dream, there was a young woman with rainbow-tinted hair.  She wasn’t a member of the Academy, but she could do incredible, unparalleled things and I would find her here.”  He sat back and pondered a moment. “I never imagined that woman would be a ten-year-old girl named Rainbow, but when I saw what she could do at her age, with no experience, there was no doubt in my mind that she was the one.  She would be the one to inspire the people in a way that we never could.  She would be the example that we should have been.

“Don’t get me wrong, I would love it if she entered the Academy.  The best athlete in the world would be a Wonderbolt, but that would mean she’d end up like us, admirable, but not inspirational.”

“They’ve all stopped.”  Fluttershy pointed out, her attention fixed on the screen.  The eight leaders had all paused in their positions, watching Rainbow.

“Despite the fact that some are cheaters and others want nothing more than victory, they’re all sportsmen at heart.”  Fleetfoot said. “They’re giving Rainbow their full attention, knowing she’s going to attempt the impossible.”

x----x

Rainbow heard her pulse in her ears.  Everything around her ceased to exist as she focused on the column gap before her.  She knew what to do, she knew how to do it, but she had never done it before.  The few attempts she had given had all ended in failure.  She could take the easy route and climb the hill, like the others, and fail, or she could give this everything she had and be the youngest Wonderbolt Elite ever.

With a roar, she broke into a sprint and bolted for the gap before she had a chance to change her mind.  Her eyes darted up and down the gap, plotting every leap point for maximum effect with minimal loss.  Without a second thought, she took off from the ground, landing at the first point, fixing her angle, and launching again.  Six times she repeated this maneuver, each leap becoming more difficult as her strength waned.  Finally, two-thirds of the way up, she could go no further.  She panted from the exertion, using the last of her energy to brace herself.

x----x

The three Wonderbolts and Fluttershy watched with baited breath as Rainbow seemed at the end of her rope.  The camera zoomed in on her, clinging precariously to the wall.  After a long moment, her eyes snapped open and she sprang away, the camera operator hurrying to keep up.  They caught a glimpse of her springing away from the opposite wall and reaching for the lip.  She was going to do it.  Rainbow Dash was going to win.

As her hands wrapped around the lip of the wall, she hung for a moment.  Then, her strength seemed to fail her completely as one arm fell away.

Spitfire leaped from her seat as if she intended to jump through the screen and give Rainbow the help she so desperately needed.  “Come on, Rainbow!  You’ve got this!  Just a little bit further girl, and everything you’ve worked so hard for...is…”  She suddenly became acutely aware of the three pairs of eyes locked onto her.  Her face flaming, she sank back into her chair, folded her hands, and tucked them between her thighs.

Soarin chuckled. “What was that you were saying yesterday, Spit?  Something about not getting emotionally invested in the competitors?”

“Shut up!” She snapped.

They stared at the screen for a long moment as Rainbow continued to dangle, putting no effort into pulling herself up.

“What’s wrong with her?”  Fleetfoot finally voiced what they had all been thinking.  “She shouldn’t be too tired to pull herself up.”

x----x

Rainbow watched the trio of pink and blue butterflies that had joined her at the lip of the wall, fluttering around her hands.  Her mind was drawn back to another time when she had seen these same creatures.  They had hovered about Fluttershy as the distraught girl covered in filth stood over the abyss and contemplated the unthinkable.

“You don’t understand!  Ever since I’ve moved to this city, all everybody has done is make me miserable!  Nobody wants to be my friend and everybody hates me!”

Her mind raced as memories she shared with them flashed before her eyes: Memories of work and of relaxation. Finally they culminated into the most recent and powerful memories of the two people she shared them with flashed to her forefront.

If you win the tournament, does that mean this will be the last day we’ll spend together?

By entering the tournament, you might find end us discovering what you’ve been looking for.

And what am I looking for?

Rainbow swallowed past the hot lump that had suddenly formed in her throat.  She couldn’t leave her.  She was still needed.  “I’m sorry, Soarin.  I can’t leave, not yet.”

x----x

Soarin watched, well aware of what was going on behind Rainbow’s eyes.

“What is she doing?”  The moment was beginning to get to Spitfire. “If she doesn’t hurry and pull herself up, Thunderlane’s going to win.”

“She’s not going to.”  Soarin replied in a low voice.

“What do you mean?”  Fleetfoot asked.

His gaze fell on little Fluttershy, who cocked her head in confusion. “She’s finally found what she was looking for:  A faithful friend.  That’s what she wanted, what she needed.  That’s what makes her happy.”

A chorus of gasps erupted as Rainbow released her grip and fell back to earth, her fall broken by the stunt bag beneath. Only the voice of Soarin was quiet as a stream of liquid pride fell down his cheek.

x----x

Scootaloo watched as that Thunderlane guy leaped over the gap to be the first to cross the finish line, but her mind was on the girl with  rainbow hair.  She was so awesome, competing with those bigger kids; and almost beating them too.  Sure, she had lost, but it was still amazing what that girl had accomplished.  And, if that girl could do it, so could she.  Scootaloo resolved to double her efforts in physical therapy.  She would walk without the crutches.  She would run, and jump, and climb, and be just like the girl with the rainbow hair.

x----x

Rainbow sat in the dirt, staring up at the gap that had been the last obstacle between her and her dream.  Why had she given it up;it was everything she had ever wanted.

A gloved hand gently gripped her shoulder, bringing her out of her contemplation. “Good race, Rainbow.”

She turned to see Soarin smiling down at her and the emotional dam finally broke.  She felt the hot tears slide down her cheeks as her mind turned to her idol and how she had failed him.  “I...I’m so...sorry, Soarin.  I failed you.”  She looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

He knelt down and gently gripped her chin, turning her to face him. “Rainbow, what do you mean?  I couldn’t be more proud to be your friend.”

“But, I lost.”

Soarin chuckled. “What did I tell you about winning?  It isn’t everything.  You made an excellent decision, staying with Fluttershy and staying loyal to her.  She needs you, Rainbow, far more than the Academy does.”

“It’s true, Rainbow.”  She noticed Spitfire and Fleetfoot standing with Fluttershy.  “I’ll admit that I couldn’t understand why Soarin held so much faith in you.  Now, I see that you’re someone very special.”

“And you need someone very special by your side.”  Fleetfoot said, giving Fluttershy the gentlest of nudges.  Timidly, the girl came forward.

“Fluttershy…”

She knelt down and carefully inspected Rainbow’s hand. “You’re hurt.”

“Yeah, the edge of that wall was kinda sharp.”

Fluttershy nodded.  “Let me help you.”  She reached into her bag and pulled out her little first aid kit, gently applying a bandage to the cut.  She stood and offered a hand. “Come on, we need to start training again.  The next time you compete, you’ll win for sure.  But, first, you need to shower.  You smell like sweat and sewage.”

Gladly, Rainbow accepted Fluttershy’s help.  Four more years to train and, with her friend by her side, there was nothing that was going to stop her.

“You see, Rainbow?  You chose the best option.  You and Fluttershy are in perfect harmony.  You’re the strength and loyalty that she needs and she’s the serenity and humility that was missing in your life.”  He held out a pinkie. “Promise me this: no matter what life throws your way, no matter what problems come between you, never forget what you are.  You’re more than friends, you’re sisters.  Promise me that you’ll never lose that trust you share.”

She hooked her pinkie in his as Fluttershy joined in. “Promise,” the smaller girls said in unison.

x----x

Rainbow’s eyes widened in realization and Fluttershy smiled with the knowledge that she had broken through.  “I remember.”

“I promised to never stop trusting you, Rainbow, and I will stick by my promise.”

“But how can I trust you, Fluttershy, after everything that’s happened?”

“Because we’re sisters,” she stated as though it were the simplest fact in the world. “I have complete faith in you, and you need to have complete faith in me when I tell you that Twilight and the others are true friends.  I can’t stop you from leaving, but know that if you choose to go with Luna, even if we never see each other again, I will always love you and always be your friend.

“You need to make a decision, now.  Go with her, or stay with us.”  Fluttershy locked gazes with Rainbow. “I hope you make the right decision.”

In the distance, a sound like thunder rumbled, drawing Fluttershy’s attention for a moment. “I have to go.  The others need my help.  Please be careful, Rainbow.”  With those words, she transformed.  As single flap of her wings sent her airborne and away towards the raging battle.

Rainbow stared after her.  After everything that had happened, after all of the words that had been said, Fluttershy still trusted her. “Fluttershy…” she whispered, watching as her figure shrank in the distance.