Chapter 8*

“Please explain further Commander,” Soarin said after recovering from the shock that the mare of his dreams can’t obtain her dream. A little while ago Soarin became one of the few ponies to be invited into the Commander’s personal office since behind a door on the right of the room was basically his house.

“Status quo means the existing state of affairs but I can’t tell anypony anything beyond that. You might be able to get the answer out of Dash herself but she usually keeps it a secret,” the Commander explained further as he looked at some papers on his desk.

“Then Rainbow knows she can’t be a Wonderbolt?” Soarin asked with concern but the Commander just sighed.

“No. She doesn’t know that her secret is keeping her from becoming a Wonderbolt,” the Commander put flatly without looking away from the papers. Something caught his eye on the paper and he simply asked, “You went to Cloudsdale’s Summer Flight Camp?”

“Yes, sir, I attended when I was just a colt.” Soarin answered more than a little worried.

“Before or after you got your cutie mark?” he asked giving a look that demanded an answer.

“It was about six months before. Why?” Soarin asked hoping the Commander didn’t figure it out.

“You said you didn’t know much about Dash but you two went to the same school and the same summer camp,” the Commander stated before getting up.

“This is your mess to fix and I have to attend to my own mess. I assume you know the way out,” he said walking towards the door but bumped a folder in front of the Co-Captain on his way out.

“That was obviously on purpose,” Soarin said as he grabbed the folder and looked at the contents. After only a few seconds of reading his eyes shot open and he knew he had to show this to Rainbow so he stood and left the room but as soon as the folder left the office it caught on fire. Soarin was absolutely positive that this was a high class secret as he watched the folder burn from an obviously magical fire.

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In the skies of Ponyville is Rainbow Dash who is currently taking a flight to try and clear her head. All she could think about was the incident this mourning with a certain pale blue Wonderbolt. It’s true that Dash had met the Wonderbolts before but there was always something keeping her from talking to them.

At the Grand Galloping Gala the Wonderbolts were always getting pulled away either to talk to a Canterlot noble or give a comment to somepony. Earlier that year she had won a day with them from the Best Young Flier Competition but the official story was Spitfire was ordered to cancel. After the Gala, Rainbow found out that they had returned to HQ to start some new secret training.

Of course when she explained all of this to Rarity she was left even more confused but Dash was still honestly surprised. Sure she was surprised that Soarin had kissed her but what really surprised her was the fact that he still had feelings for her. Very few ponies know that Rainbow and Soarin had attended the same flight camp and that was something that just never came up so she never told her friends.

Dash had assumed that his behavior during both the Gala and the flying competition showed her how he felt especially since a few months ago she knew Soarin was dating Fleetfoot. Rainbow was so consumed in thought that she almost ran into somepony as he was taking off from the middle of White Tail woods.

Rainbow focused on the new Pegasus, it was definitely a stallion whose coat was the same color of her own but he had a deep yellow mane. He took off before she could yell at him but he was going very fast, fast enough to create his own mach cone.

Dash was astonished at how quickly the cone formed around him and she took off after him when she noticed he wasn’t flying straight. It wasn’t too long after he broke the mach cone to create a Sonic Rainboom of his own that she noticed he was losing altitude. She sped up on an intercept course but shortly after her Rainboom could she notice that his fur was burning off.

Rainbow was able to catch the creature before it hit the ground and she flew back to Ponyville. Dash took a moment to look at the creature she just saved and it looked like a cross between a pony and an insect. She didn’t know what to do so Dash decided to go to the one pony that usually does, Twilight Sparkle. In under a minute Rainbow started descending onto Twilight’s balcony making sure the creature didn’t fall off her back. She knocked on the balcony doors and it didn’t take long for Twilight to open them.

“Hey, Dash. What is that?” she asked her Pegasus friend as soon as she noticed the creature.

“I was hoping you would know,” Dash said as she entered the library.

It took Twilight a few minutes to find the book she was looking for and find its description in the book. She looked up from the book and said, “According to this book it’s a changeling. I think I should let Celestia know we found one.”

“Alright well later, Twi,” Dash said leaving through an open window shortly after.

“SSSPIIIIKE!” Rainbow could hear Twilight yell as she returned to the open sky.