Losing Loyalty

A small, light blue filly opened her eyes to the bright sunlight shining through her bedside window. Grudgingly lifting her head, she plopped onto the soft cloud floor of her home. She wiped her eyes and tiredly accepted the morning. Flapping her tiny wings, which lifted her above the floor, she dragged her hooves and stood up.

Zooming through her small abode, she stopped in the kitchen, where she found a pony who towered compared to the tiny filly. She looked up at her mother, who smiled warmly back at her. Firefly's pink hoof smothered some of the filly's cowlicks, and she greeted her daughter. "Good morning, Dashie! Did you have any good dreams?" she questioned with a cherished motherly grin.

Rainbow Dash quickly responded, "Oh yes! I dreamed about flying very high and then I got to the top of the sky!"

Her mother cherished her daughter's imagination and said, "What was at the top?"

Rainbow paused, "...I don't remember, but it was something great!"

"That's sweet, honey," her mother said while combing her blue hair. "Now have a good day, Mommy's going to work now," she said, adjusting her weather team goggles, "Your breakfast is on the counter, and Daddy's home today if you get bored. Have a great day!"

She opened the door to their cloud home and quickly flew outside, a large smile and an embracing attitude defining her face, ready to take on her work day.

Rainbow Dash smiled and flew herself up to the kitchen table, where a plate of razzleberry pancakes awaited her.

Licking her lips, the cyan pegasus admired the glorious pancakes, then  began to sloppily eat her breakfast. Not minding her manners or where the stray berries and syrup was going, she dipped her face into her plate. When content with her fill of sugar, the kitchen counter was completely covered in sticky syrup and mashed berries. She left her plate for her father to clean up and licked the remaining food stuck on her face. Satisfied with the morning, she went back to bed for a late morning nap.

About an hour later, she was awoken by a fairly disgruntled father, who decided to wake her by rubbing her snout with one of his feathers. Very pleased in his revenge, he said, "Wake up, Dash, it's time for your first day of flight school!"

"But, Daddy, I already know how to fly!" Rainbow complained after adjusting to the need of sneeze.

"Please, Dashie, you can only fly two feet high and even then, only for a little while. Now I know that already is an advantage, but don't you want to be a Wonderbolt?" Sky Blitz questioned.

"Oh, yes please, Daddy!" Rainbow eagerly said, jumping out of bed and attempting a midair flip. This, however, resulted with the small filly face-down on her cloud mattress.

"See?" Sky Blitzs pointed out, "This school will help you become a Wonderbolt, so let's go!"

"Okay!" Rainbow Dash, now encouraged to discontinue her nap, ran over to the living room to achieve her father's goggles. She then ran back and threw them atop his rainbow-coloured mane. "C'mon, let's go! I don't have all day, that's for flying!" The eager filly yelled happily.

"Ok, Dashie, climb on up," he said, offering her a spot on his indigo back. Rainbow loved riding on her father's back, because she wasn't quite ready to fly on her own outside, and she loved the feeling of wind in her mane. So she joyfully sat upon her father's backside as they flew towards flight school.

After a few minutes of sprinting through the cloud layers, Sky Blitz continued, "Now in flight school, they don't just teach flying. They teach writing, reading, history, you name it!"

Dash silently moaned at the thought of learning egghead stuff.

Sensing her displeasure at that thought, Sky Blitz stressed, "I know it may sound boring, but it's stuff you need to know. And it'll probably be so much more fun when you meet new friends. Also, The "egghead" stuff doesn't even take up that much of the day... In fact, you'll be spending most of it flying! I heard the flying instructors are really good, too! Also, you may see your mother pass by sometimes during weather patrol, and you'll get to learn how to fly in all kinds of weathers... And reading isn't that bad, it's actually very fun! And I'm pretty sure today will just be a day where you get to meet everyone and learn what to and what not to do. So no reading today! How about that, Dashie?"

It was only then that he noticed that his daughter was barely paying attention to his rambling. "Seriously?!" Sky Blitz said annoyingly, "Did you catch any of that?"

"Not really, but I did you know we've passed seventy-four clouds in the past five minutes? Mommy really has to step up her game with the weather..." Rainbow said.

Accepting Rainbow Dash's fondness to not pay attention, he sighed and continued flying.

Soon enough, they arrived at Cloudsdale Flight Academy for Talented Fliers. Not to be mistaken with Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, of course. In fact, the academy was so authentic, they didn't even bother accepting just "talented" fliers to the academy. Now it was just on the sign that no one had time to change. The Academy was a small building in front of a large range of stadiums and obstacles courses constructed out of clouds. There were rings and relay courses galore, which highly interested Rainbow Dash.

"Alright Dashie, we're here," Sky Blitz monotonically said.

"Alright! Time to show them my stuff!" the courageous filly proclaimed, ready to start flying then and there.

"Don't forget to have fun!" Sky Blitz smiled, embracing Dash for a hug before she wandered off. Obviously embarrassed, Rainbow tried to escape his grasp, but, being a good father, he began to annoyingly kiss her hair and hug her tightly in front of all her future peers. Satisfied with further revenge, he said his goodbyes and left.

Now thoroughly annoyed with her father, the young flier flew over to the nearest adult, a white pegasus with fluffy yellow hair, and said, "Hi! I'm Rainbow Dash, when do we get snack time? And when do we get to fly? I really like flying and I don't wanna be stuck here waiting for all the slow-pokes, so can we fly now? And also, do we get a nap time? And how many blankets? Are they cotton or wool? Do we get time to shape clouds? Shaping clouds is so much fun!"

The instructor, slightly surprised by the filly's eagerness and slightly scared with being bombarded, stated, Don't you worry about anything, we're still waiting for the other students to arrive. Why don't you go over there and make some friends?" The pony pointed her hoof at a group of foals.

"Okay, thank you!" Rainbow Dash said, and sprinted over to the other group of students clustered on the spread out cloud floor.

Among them sat three pegasi, consisting of a blue filly with white hair who introduced herself as Fleetfoot, a broad-shouldered colt with dark blue hair named Soarin', and a small yellow filly with fiery red hair who persisted that her name was Ms. Wonderbolt.

"You wish!" said Soarin', obviously tired of her jokes.

"I'm going to be a Wonderbolt one day..." said Rainbow Dash said, trying to sounds cool.

"Really? So are we! We can all be Wonderbolts, wouldn't that be awesome?" said Fleetfoot.

"I don't need to because I already am!" said Ms. Wonderbolt. This received a roll of eyes from Soarin'.

"Oh come on, what's your real name?" said Rainbow.

"Fine... it's Spitfire," the filly sighed.

"Cool!" The cyan filly responded, excited about the prospect of new friends. All her life, her only friend was Fluttershy... and Fluttershy was great and all, but she wasn't exactly a great flying buddy.

Coincidentally, Rainbow noticed Fluttershy being dropped off by her father near the gate. "Hey Fluttershy!" Rainbow Dash shouted, waving her hoof at her friend.

Fluttershy saw Rainbow Dash and another group of... (gulp)... foals. Nervous at the prospect of meeting new ponies, she walked slowly towards them.

"Umm, hi..." she whispered, hiding behind her long pink hair and nervously tapping her skinny legs.

"This is Fluttershy, she's pretty shy, but she's cool when you get to know her," Rainbow Dash explained.

After Rainbow's new friends introduced themselves to Fluttershy, a flight instructor rounded up all the foals and started the lesson  by going around in a circle and saying their names and favorite color. (Rainbow Dash, of course, said rainbow)

After a few other warm ups, the instructors said they could fly for ten minutes in a small cloud stadium while they tested everypony's abilities individually.

"Aww yeah! This is my time to shine!" Rainbow gleefully said.

"You wanna bet on that?" Spitfire challenged.

"Duh!" Rainbow Dash said.

Spitfire smiled rather demonically,"Then I challenge you to a race."