Soarin slowly walked along side his new alicorn companion, he attempted to be as courteous as possible around her, it was clearly noticeable that he was about to fangasm over her. He tried to restrain himself as much as he could, but a lot like Dash, she picked up on this instantly.

They were just about to wrap up a conversation about studying the wonderbolt flight patterns and the possible magic behind it. "...Yes! I would greatly appreciate a tour of the wonderbolts facility! she finished, Soarin wearing a grin on his face.

"Wait. Why did you even need to ask?" he questioned, giving her a strange look.

"Why would you say that?" Twilight asked, "It is private property, is it not?".

"That's just it." he pointed at her, "You're royalty, are you not? You could just show up and ask for a tour, couldn't you?"

"No, not that kind of tour." she replied, waving a hoof. "I tour conducted personally by the wonderbolts themselves!"

"Well, you are correct there, we couldn't just randomly give ponies a tour by the team ourselves." he stated "But if you want to, I could let the team know quite easily that you wanted a visit and they'd be happy to oblige." he offered, shrugging his shoulders casually.

"Oh, well that would be great! If you could do that, that would be fantastic!" she accepted his offer quickly and wore a large smile. "You remind me a lot of my friend Rai- Oh! We're here!" she noticed and exclaimed.

"Now for part two, where's Pinkie?" he wondered "This should be easy, it's like spotting light in the dark!" he thought out loud. He looked out across the sea of green and flowers that lay before him.

"Oh! There she is!" Twilight noticed, pointing a hoof at where she was looking. The duo trotted over to the mare who was playing around in a field of flowers, Twilight sighed and turned to him "Typical Pinkie..." she muttered. As the pair grew closer, they both began to hear saddened voice saying some, from this distance, various inaudible things.

"He loves me! He loves me not... He loves me! He loves me not..." she stopped talking for a moment and sighed "Not again" she said, letting a small tear fall off her pink face.

"Hey Pinkie Pie!" Twilight called to Pinkie, only making her turn away.

"Hey Pinks!" Soarin greeted, shortly after Twilight.

"HEY!" Pinkie pie said in her cheerful tone, turning to face them. "Watcha doin'?" she asked, becoming as bouncy and hyperactive as normal. Twilight and Soarin just wore confused looks on their faces, one moment she was doing that thing that all young fillies do when they try to find young love, then the next she's as bubbly as ever? The two looked at each other, and then back at Pinkie, who was now wearing a fake smile on her face. Soarin was the first to speak.

"Uh Pinkie?" Soarin asked slowly, still keeping his confused look. "What were you doing?"

"Nothing!" Pinkie said quickly, giggling nervously. "Nothing at all!"

"I swear you were saying something about 'he loves me, he loves me not'" Soarin said, narrowing his eyes and trying to avoid aggression in his look. He looked over to Twilight who was looking around the field at something in particular. "Twilight, what are you looking at?"

"I just noticed an odd coincidence" she said, her hoof extending to point at the fields. "All of the flowers don't have any petals!" she exclaimed, looking back at Pinkie in a caring way. "Pinkie, something's wrong. Just tell us!"

"Maybe the flowers decided not to bloom!" she said, sweating and once again giggling nervously.

"Pinkie!" Twilight said, obviously frustrated at her 'friend'. "Stop beating around the bush!" Twilight now looked genuinely aggressive. The pink mare now looked scared out of her mind, but it didn't, to Soarin at least, look like she was scared of Twilight.

"NO!" Pinkie screamed, seeming to make everything shake. Soarin also noticed a hint of sadness and fear in her voice, Twilight looked to be charging a spell of some sort.

"Twi!" Soarin said loudly, seeing Twilight's horn stop glowing allowing a wave of relief to wash over him, he got to his hooves and put a hand on her shoulder. "Let me." Soarin walked over to the mare and gently ran a hoof through her mane, making the mare look up at him.

"Pinkie, please tell me!" he said, his eyes wide open and awaiting a response. Pinkie's eyes filled with tears as he asked, turning into fully fledged crying in a matter of seconds. Soarin gently helped the mare up from the ground and to her hooves, he wrapped his arms around her as she did the same. A few seconds later, the two broke the hug and Soarin looked back at Pinkie, who was just sniffling at this point. "It's ok" he assured her. "You can trust me".

"You really care?" Pinkie looked up at him. "I've known you for about a day and yet you care so much about me?"

"Actually I have those feelings for Dash mostly." He thought, rolling his eyes. "What kind of a jerk would I be if I didn't?" he asked her, wanting an honest answer. Pinkie just simply answered with a sigh and started explaining the reason behind her sadness.

"There's a stallion who I care for so much..." she started, kicking up some dust with on of her hooves. "And he just tosses me aside like a trophy in a high school 'show off' cabinet!" she said, letting her head fall again and tears fall from her face. Soarin just ignored her 'quote' near the end.

"Sister, I've been there many times before." he assured her "Everypony thinks being a wonderbolt means that your love life is easy, and that you have an illusion of free choice of mares and/or stallions. It's more like society taking the liberty of choosing for us"

"Really?" she asked, looking up at him with teary eyes. "I thought being in the wonderbolts was just a walk in Ponyville park"

"No way" Soarin told her. "Almost every mare I've been with since joining the bolts has been trying to keep me as a trophy like you and this stallion." Twilight observed the situation, taking note of Soarin's methods of getting pinkie to 'burst her bubble'.

"Can you please help me then?" Pinkie asked, looking up at him with better puppy-dog eyes than he could ever do.

"I'd be happy to!" Soarin responded, reaching out for a hoof shake. Pinkie accepted it gladly as he could feel the usual, not hiding anything, bubbly Pinkie return. "May I just ask who he is?"

"His name is Wave Chill" she said, a grin slowly emerging on her face. With Soarin' it was the complete opposite, he face turned bright red with anger and and his facial expression looked incredibly aggressive. Why him?! He was part of Soarin's flying team, but he was such a jerk and this proves it even more.

"As in Wave Chill the wonderbolt?" he asked, containing his burning fireball of anger.

"He never told me he was a wonderbolt!" she said, giggling.

"Is he a pegasus with a dark blue coat and a navy blue mane that's lighter than mine?" he questioned quickly.

"Precisely!" she said, noticing his rising anger.

"When I next see him, I'll tear him a new one!" he growled under his breath.

"What's that?" Pinkie asked, giving him another confused look.

"Oh, nothing." he responded slowly. He couldn't believe what he just heard, Wave Chill was dating Pinkie and was treating her like garbage! He had said about a month ago that he was very interested in Dash and that Soarin was just a "Lowlife who should give up".

Out of all the bolts, Wave Chill was definitely the most annoying and frustrating, even beating High Winds who was the most uncooperative teammate ever. And before he'd go for Dash, he decided to pick up Pinkie to then get within reach of her. Wave Chill
was now dead to Soarin, he was just a useless scumbag who didn't deserve any mare or filly. He didn't from the beginning anyway...

Author's Note

Hello once again everyone!

I hope at least one or two people caught the Half Life 2 or EQG references!

Unfortunately I'm now sick, thanks to my brother. So there may or may not be a new chapter out by this weekend depending on how sick I am, I can inform everyone on that this Thursday or Friday.

Other than that stuff, I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter!

Lava Blaze Out